SIX

A Lioness in a Teahouse

Of course, it was startling. It’s simply not the thing one expects of a teahouse, even when travelling abroad, even miles up in an airship docking tower. Especially not miles up in an airship docking tower. But there was most assuredly a lioness among them. She came in through the front door, setting the bells tinkling like any ordinary patron, and then setting everyone screaming. Rue thought this a little much; after all, if a lioness wanted tea, why not give it to her? The animal in question was a sleek, beautiful creature, all golden fur and rippling muscles, but apparently intent on wreaking carnage and not on ordering tea. Whatever else was going on in that furry head, the cat clearly did not appreciate teahouses.

Do cats, Rue wondered, as a rule object to teahouses? If so, then there is something very much to be said in favour of dogs.

“But there is a sign!” objected Primrose in semi-shock. “A sign indicating pets aren’t permitted. Really, some people.”

While Primrose protested the indelicacy of it all, Rue resorted to some of Dama’s less official training. She shoved their table over and grabbed Prim by the arm, pulling her down to take refuge behind it. Not that the lioness was firing projectiles, but Rue thought that at least if they were out of sight they might enjoy a modicum of safety.

Everyone else ran for the door or the kitchen.

Quesnel, with disturbing calm, stripped off his jacket and rolled up one shirtsleeve to expose an emission device strapped to his wrist. It looked like it might shoot long bullets or possibly darts.

He crouched down behind the table. It was a tight fit for three, two of them in walking gowns, for it was after all only a tea table. Quesnel peeked around one side, wrist up, and aimed.

“No clear shot,” he said, turning to the ladies. “That beast is fast.”

People were yelling, furniture crashed, teapots shattered. The lioness was intent on maximum ruckus, overturning all the tables while servers stumbled out of her way, cakes flew through the air and the bells on the door reverberated as patrons pressed together seeking exit. There was panic everywhere but…

Rue straightened up to look over the edge of their makeshift barricade.

“What are you doing? Stay down!”

Rue batted Quesnel’s restraining hand away. “She’s not hurting anyone.”

“What?”

“The lioness, she’s not actually doing anything to people. It’s only objects. Right now, she is savaging a sweets tray.”

Prim remonstrated: “Rue, she has upset many perfectly decent pots of tea. I call that a serious offence, if nothing else.”

One huge paw appeared on the edge of their table-top, then another, and then a smooth sandy-coloured head peaked over and looked at them. The cat’s whiskers twitched, giving her an aura of accusation. Rue had a horrible moment of swallowing down laughter–it was as if they were playing a game of hide and seek.

She met the cat’s gaze. Oddly enough, the animal had brown eyes. Rue didn’t think cats could have brown eyes. But then, who was she to question anyone else’s eye colour? Given hers were an odd sort of yellow.

Quesnel raised his wrist and took aim.

“Wait, stop.” Rue put a hand on his arm above where the weapon was strapped and pushed down. Quesnel resisted. He was remarkably strong. Rue took a moment to be impressed–he didn’t look physically fit.

Rue and the cat stared at one another.

The lioness blinked.

Rue blinked back. “I don’t think she intends to hurt us. I don’t think she means to hurt anyone.”

The cat tilted her head back and forth, gaze sliding between the three of them. She looked at Primrose for a long moment and then, in an amazingly fluid movement, she leapt over the table, grabbed Rue’s hideous parasol up in her mouth, turned, and charged out of the tea-shop by way of one of the front windows. Which were not open, mind you. The resulting crash resulted in several more screams. Pandemonium reigned outside in the assembly area as the cat skidded through the crowds there, parasol firmly clutched in her teeth.

Rue was not amused. “Come back here, you mangy beast! That’s my mother’s parasol.” Rue hiked up her skirts, regardless of showing ankle to the entire tower, and gave case.

Quesnel and Prim, still crouched behind the table, barely registered her impetuous action. Both tried to rise at once and got caught up in the tea things and each other so that by the time they reached the broken window of the tea-shop, both lioness and Rue had vanished into the milieu of the Maltese Tower.

Rue chased the parasol and the cat through the crowd. The assembled personnel seemed mainly annoyed by the disturbance. A few were quite upset by a rampaging lioness with an ugly accessory in her jaws–but their concern seemed more to do with the risk to the parasol rather than the presence of the lioness. Rue also garnered dirty looks. After all, since she was chasing after the beast, they assumed it was her lioness off-lead. The cat relaxed into an easy loping pace, fast enough so that Rue could not catch her but slow enough for her black tail tip to be ever beyond Rue’s reach, like an extremely frustrating fishing lure. Rue wished one of her father’s pack were nearby–if she could steal wolf form for a while she could certainly catch the blasted creature. Not that any werewolf could withstand being up so high and so close to the aetherosphere.

The lioness dodged between two food booths–one which dealt in fish and chips, the other smelling of curry. Behind the stands was a shanty town of dockworkers’ hovels made of old scrap metal and stretched fabric. Laundry dangled between and above the makeshift structures. Rue charged through, blissfully unaware of the impracticality of a lady of means running with skirts hiked up–and no bloomers–into what amounted to a sky-high slum.

The cat flicked inside one of the not-quite-buildings and Rue paused, suddenly aware of her surroundings. There were only a few people visible but she had the distinct impression of many eyes upon her. This was someone’s home she was about to enter, without invitation. Dama’s face appeared before her, finger shaking madly. Vampires were very taken with proper invitations. Then again, there was a lioness inside with her parasol! If anyone could think of a better excuse for barging in uninvited, she’d like to hear it.

So Rue barged.

There was no door, only a weight of bright material hanging long and heavy in the entranceway. Rue parted it and cleared her throat. “Um, pardon me, is anyone home?”

No answer.

“Yoo-hoo. May I come in, please? It seems your lioness has possession of my accessory.”

When still no one answered, Rue pushed through the fabric.

It was dim inside after the brightness of the station with all its gas lighting and colourful activity. It took Rue’s all-too-human eyes a moment to adjust. She simply stood still and waited.

The room was tiny, pleasantly furnished with a mismatch of crates draped in bright swathes of cloth and pretty cushions of varying shapes and sizes–so many pillows, in fact, that they fell about, littering the carpeted floor. Glass baubles, strings of shells, golden fringe, and large tassels dangled from hooks and protuberances. It reminded Rue of a fortune-teller’s caravan or possibly a peddler’s covered wagon. Not that she’d had occasion to see many, but she could imagine what they might look like.

It was empty. No cat. No parasol.

Then out of the shadows and through a curtain of wooden beads walked the most unbelievably beautiful woman Rue had ever seen.

Rue’s perspective on beauty was not confined to those of British high society, although she could certainly see Prim’s loveliness, a classic English rose with milky complexion and dark chestnut curls. She could also see the Nordic beauty in her troublesome Uncle Channing for all his objectionable arrogance and uncertain temper, a chilly combination of ice and ivory. But she could also see beauty in the Fisk Jubilee Singers, all ebony and lace and sweet melodies, and in the copper-coloured drones Aunt Ivy had inherited with her Egyptian vampire hive.

This woman’s skin was a dark tea colour, her eyes huge and almond-shaped. Her cheekbones were high enough to etch glass and her neck was long and impossibly graceful. Her nose might be a tad assertive by British standards, straight and dominant, and her lips, though full and well-shaped, were set firm.

Rue’s breath actually whooshed out of her.

Finally she breathed in and coughed. All she could think to say was, “Are you on the stage? You should be.”

The women looked nonplussed and then, in a subtle shift of posture, she changed, becoming less showy and more dangerous about her beauty. Rue watched this, flabbergasted. How had she done it? Here was an acting skill Rue did not possess. Primrose, for most of their adult life, had used her appearance as if it were some delectable dessert. For the first time Rue realised that beauty might also be applied with power, like a particularly stinky but highly desirable cheese. Rue knew that she herself could never pass for anything more than cute. What does that make me in the after-dinner beauty metaphor? she wondered. The digestif? A sweet, alcoholic afterthought with possible vicious consequences.

By that time the shock had worn off, and Rue could feel every hackle she had inherited from her werewolf father rise. If she had been in wolf form, her tail and ears would be down and her canines exposed. As it was, she smoothed out her skirts, straightened her spine, and prepared to do battle with every tool from her other father’s repertoire. Unless she had missed her guess, the best approach was to be very polite and outwardly ridiculous. She reached for her vampire father’s personality and donned it as if it were some sparkly diamond make.

“How do you do?” she said. “Amazing!” She waved a hand about, taking in the colourful surroundings. “Charming fabric and cushions and things you have here.” Perhaps not her best opening sally, but true.

The woman was taken aback, but she clearly spoke English and knew some etiquette, for her response was a musically accented, “How do you do, Lady Prudence?”

“Ah, you know my name–we are already acquainted?” Rue was certain she would have remembered.

“No, but I have been eager to meet you since I learnt of your existence.”

Rue winced. Was this stunning female one of those fanatics? The ones crazy to encounter a real live metanatural? How disappointing. Rue tried to change the subject. “Was that your lioness I met recently?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Rue followed this line of thought, familiar as she was with Footnote and Dama’s Madam Pudgemuffin. “Ah yes, cats–difficult to speak of in terms of ownership as a rule. I’m afraid she rather, um, borrowed something from me.”

“Indeed?” The woman glided forward slightly. She wore a long robe of white silk. “Is this the object in question?” She produced Rue’s parasol from some fold of her attire. It looked, if possible, more ugly by contrast to such impossible loveliness.

The flowing swathes of fabric seemed to be all the strange woman wore. They wrapped up once about her head like the veil of a mourner, around her body, and then draped back over her shoulder in a cascade. Her dark hair was long and loose and aggressively straight, and she wore no jewellery or cosmetics of any kind. Rue suspected this woman of being bare-footed as well–her steps were absolutely silent. Rue sniffed but could detect no prominent smell–perhaps a hint of amber but nothing more. She wished, once again, for wolf form.

The woman handed the parasol to Rue. It seemed none the worse for fangs and a bit of cat slobber.

“Thank you very much, Miss…?” Rue trailed off, hoping for an indication of identity.

“You may call me Sekhmet.”

Without doubt that was not the woman’s real name.

“Very well, then. Thank you, Miss Sekhmet.”

Rue turned to leave, oddly frightened to present her back. If they were not hundreds of storeys up in the air, she would have said that this woman was supernatural. But no vampire queen would go unprotected or live in a slum, quite apart from the fact that a vampire tethered to the Maltese Tower would be known throughout the empire. And no werewolf Rue had ever heard of could withstand heights. Wolves could handle travel by sea but not by air.

Rue was almost at the door when that smooth voice lilted at her: “A moment more of your time, if you would be so kind, skin-stalker?” Her English really was good.

This encounter had rapidly taken a turn from extremely odd to entirely surreal. Rue turned back and the woman approached. Rue realised that she had been wrong. She did wear jewellery–a single chain about her neck from which dangled two small charms–one looked like a sword and the other a shield.

“Trust me, Miss Sekhmet, you have my attention.” As I am certain you are accustomed.

A tiny smile tilted the lady’s full lips. “I am one of those who respects what you are and does not fear it. There are few–very few, I am sad to say–like me left to fight for your rights, skin-stalker. None of them is in India. I would not go there, if I were you.”

Rue frowned. “How did you know I was going to India?”

No answer.

“Well, while I appreciate the warning, you must understand that I can’t change my plans on the whim of some stranger in robes.”

“Plans? Then you are being sent to India on purpose? So you know? And your parents–they know too?” A pause. “This is not good.”

No, thought Rue, this isn’t good. Obviously this Sekhmet represents a counter-tea interest, after the new plants. And foolishly I’ve revealed too much. Rue plucked at her parasol, brushing away cat saliva. Yech. She stumbled on, awkwardly, intent upon giving away nothing further. “Nice as you seem, Miss Sekhmet, and grateful as I am for the return of my…”

She trailed off. She was speaking to an empty room. The beautiful woman had vanished. Rue poked about, searching the small space, three rooms all similarly covered in colourful cloth and pillows, and no evidence of the woman, the lioness, or even a regular occupant.

Rue made her way back through the station. The tea-shop was closed and men in black uniforms with a white cross insignia were picking their way through the wreckage. Not wishing to attract unwelcome official attention, Rue decided it was best not to present herself.

Quesnel and Primrose were nowhere to be found. Rue was not particularly concerned. Nor did she feel abandoned. If Quesnel was a gentlemen, which Rue suspected he was–deep down, duck ponds notwithstanding–he would take pains to see Prim back to The Spotted Custard safely before returning with reinforcements to find Rue. A smart man would bring Aggie Phinkerlington–that woman could scare the willies out of anyone. Even a lioness.

Disorientated, Rue set out to walk around the circle, figuring she’d eventually recognise something. The station was no less crowded, but Rue felt less of a spectacle alone and accompanied only by her parasol. Still, she was well aware of the danger of being without a chaperone in a strange station. She cocked an ear. No one was even speaking English! Shockingly, the common language seemed to be some form of Italian.

As a result, Rue was on her guard when a whisper of a presence sidled up next to her.

She was profoundly relieved to find it was only a smallish, thinnish female. She was uncomfortably close, touching Rue and keeping pace. The woman was shrouded in cloth, including her head. Unlike Miss Sekhmet, her robes were colourful. Rue might have thought she was merely pressed close by the crowd except that she said, quite distinctly, “Puggle?”

At first Rue thought she misheard–it was such an out-of-place word to come from that figure in this location. Like seeing a kingfisher with a diploma.

“Are you… Puggle?” The woman’s accent was strong but not so strong that Rue could misinterpret.

The only thing visible, her dark eyes, were intent and serious.

Only Dama called Rue Puggle. She got excited, realising what this meant. “Oh, is this…? Oh my goodness! Are you trying to have a clandestine encounter with me? Espionage and codes and such?” She almost clapped her hands. “Oh, please tell me you have a secret message?”

“Ah, I see you are much as family lore described.”

Rue was taken aback. “Have we met before?”

“Not so much as either of us might remember. My name is Anitra.”

“Oh, ah, I see,” said Rue, not seeing at all. Clearly the name should mean something, but it didn’t. Although it was very pretty.

At Rue’s obvious confusion Anitra added, “My people,” she paused, soft and delicate, “float.”

Rue shook her head.

“Ah well, we do like to be forgotten.” Anitra shrugged under the swathes of fabric. “I have something for you from Goldenrod.”

This confused Rue further. “Pardon?” Was Goldenrod one of the fated specialist tea contacts?

“You left precipitously–he was not best pleased.” Anitra tutted in disgust and then reached into the folds of her robes and produced a slim literary volume. “I am to give you this, should he need to communicate with you.”

It was an innocuous book, cheaply made with a pink canvas cover, without a doubt some ill-informed travel guide from a London publisher. It was so utterly unexpected and out of character that Rue took it automatically, stopping right there in the tower street to glance it over.

Rue opened it to the title page and read out, her voice rising with incredulity, “Sand and Shadows on a Sapphire Sea: My Adventures Abroad by Honeysuckle Isinglass? A young lady’s travel journal. But these are two a penny in the bookshops back home. Why on earth would I need…?”

But for the second time in as many minutes, Rue found herself abandoned by a female in the middle of conversation. “Goodness, hasn’t anyone any manners on this station?” she asked the disinterested crowd.

Then, looking up, she noticed to her relief that she had found her way to The Spotted Custard. Or at least found her way back to the doorway leading to its dock. Her ship bobbed softly outside the glass some distance away. She did not consider the fact that as they walked together, Anitra had been guiding her back.

Clutching her rescued parasol in one hand and Sand and Shadows on a Sapphire Sea in the other, Rue headed home. She felt that she had had enough cryptic encounters with mysterious females to last a lifetime. After all, that was three in less than a half-hour–if one counted the lioness.

As it turned out, Rue was the last aboard. The deckhands were already pulling in the mooring ropes as she trotted down the spatula handle towards The Spotted Custard. Prim and Percy were on the poop deck in deep discussion.

As Rue made her way up the gangplank, Spoo saw her and gave a wave.

“Lady Captain, where you been?” the scamp wanted to know.

“Nowhere special.”

“Had us worried, you did.” Spoo was sporting a spectacular black eye. Rue didn’t feel they were on intimate enough terms to ask why.

“Apologies, Spoo.” As Rue put her foot on the main deck a large blond bullet hit her from the side and twirled her around so that her back was pressed flush against the railing.

Quesnel grabbed her by the shoulders and actually began to shake her. “Don’t do that!”

“Mr Lefoux, unhand me!” objected Rue, whacking at him with Sand and Shadows on a Sapphire Sea and greatly tempted to use the parasol. Such impudence.

The gentleman in question seemed to have temporarily lost hold of his senses.

He pulled her in and wrapped his arms about her in a rather nice hug which Rue tried to imagine was like that of one of her many uncles but which was neither scruffy nor fruity-smelling, and gave her heart a little boost in a way the uncles never had. For one breathless moment she thought he might actually kiss her, right there at the end of the gangplank in full view of her crew, with blatant disregard for all propriety. He drew back and looked at her lips, his violet eyes very focused, but then he merely hugged her again. His hands pressed hard against her back. She fancied she could feel the roughness through the many layers of her dress. They must be rough, all that handling of sprockets and spigots and such.

Eventually, Rue managed to extract herself. “Mr Lefoux!” she said severely, because she ought.

“How could you?” said the engineer, looking more harried than it suited his customary persona of urbane intellectual meets boyishly charming flirt.

“How could I what?” Rue replied, attempting to make reparations to her hair, which had survived a mad dash across the Maltese Tower but not the enthusiastic regard of her chief engineer.

“Just disappear like that, running off after a raging lioness? I thought we had lost you. I thought you’d end up disembowelled in the nearest warehouse. I was just about to mount a rescue. Spoo was going to come, weren’t you, Spoo?”

“Of course I was,” said Spoo, looking forthright.

“Well, as you can see, you thought wrong. I found the parasol but not the cat.” It was pretty close to the truth of the matter.

Quesnel took a deep breath, rediscovering his devil-may-care self. “Of course you did, mon petit chou, so silly of me to doubt you.” He backed away. Rue wondered which was really the act–his previous concern or his standard behaviour.

“Exactly. Now, is everyone else back on board?” Rue looked over at Prim, who was smiling at Rue’s discomfort and Quesnel’s display of concern, and Percy, who was frowning down at his book.

Percy ignored her question but Prim glanced at a roster. She had scripted it neatly, like a party invitation, on pale yellow paper.

“Looks like,” said she, running one glove-covered finger down the list and whispering out a count. “Yes, everyone back except you. Shall we get on?”

“By all means,” replied Rue, skirting around Quesnel at a wary distance. The Frenchman ran his hands through his hair distractedly. He then realised he’d knocked off his hat when he’d grabbed Rue and went looking for it. By the time it had been recovered, Spoo having chased it down the gangplank, he was calmness itself, and Rue had made her way up to navigation.

“Professor Tunstell?”

Percy put down his book and took up position without looking at her, the sourpuss.

Rue turned back to Quesnel. “Chief engineer?”

Rue fancied she sensed a certain reluctance to go below, which was ridiculous, of course. Quesnel was simply an emotional Frenchman who had thought her dead and reacted as he would a missing sister.

He gave her a cheery smile. “Delighted you retrieved your parasol, captain.”

Rue looked down at the item in question. “Oh, yes, me too. Gift from my mother. Hideous, of course, but it has sentimental value.”

“Of course it does.” Quesnel looked at the parasol as though it hid some secret and then he disappeared below.

Rue turned to her topside crew, giving Percy the nod. “Prepare for float-off, Professor Tunstell.”

She then put down her parasol and lifted the speaking tube.

Aggie Phinkerlington said, “Yes?” sharply from the other end.

“Mr Lefoux will be with you shortly. Prepare for float-off.”

“You shouldn’t scare him like that, miss,” remonstrated the mechanic.

“I beg your pardon!” Rue was genuinely shocked at a reprimand from an underling.

The greaser did not seem to care that Rue took offence at the intrusive comment, compounding insult with instruction: “Next time, don’t be so impetuous.”

Rue hung up the speaking tube without reply, afraid she might say something unforgivable.

“Well, I say!” said Rue to no one in particular.

Percy looked up from twiddling his knobs and levers. “Gave you a talking to, did she?”

“Are you going to lecture me as well?”

Percy, blast him, took that as permission. “You’re captain of a ship now, Rue. You can’t go tearing off willy-nilly like you did when I was in short pants.”

“Wonderful. You are going to have at me.”

Percy rolled his eyes. “Next time, think about your actions before you take them, all right? You don’t have werewolf or vampire skin to fall back on. Up here in the skies, you’re as mortal as the rest of us.”

Rue bristled. Was he implying that she used her metanatural abilities as a crutch to get out of sticky situations?

Percy went back to preparing for float-off, so Rue turned to her last and best ally, Primrose.

Prim was looking inscrutably placid.

Rue knew that expression all too well. “Really, you too?”

Prim arched one eyebrow.

“Oh, bother,” said Rue. “We’ll talk about this later, after the hops. I do have an excuse.”

“Darling,” said Prim. “You always have an excuse.”

Rue ignored this. “Percy, what’s our course looking like?”

Percy grimaced. “I hate to do it, but our best option is the Tripoli Twister. The Damascus Draw is smoother and more reliable but that’ll add an extra day to the journey, possibly two.”

Rue grinned. After being roundly scolded for taking unnecessary risks, she was obstreperous enough to stay with the theme. “Twister it is. Get the Pudding Probe up and calibrated.”

Percy’s face was blank. “I guessed you’d say that. The Mandenall is already set. Shall we proceed?”

Without further ado The Spotted Custard cast off, wound up her propeller, farted gently, and eased her way out of the Maltese Tower docking port. She glided sedately up into the aetherosphere, a fat satisfied ladybug.

Little differentiated this series of hops from those previously except that they were a great deal more bumpy. The Custard handled the intervening Charybdis currents with aplomb, as did Percy, who was now almost comfortable with the procedure. The first two hops went as specified by charts and calculations, but the Tripoli Twister was one of the highest, and one of the hardest to stay the course. They’d need to reef the mainsail for the rough breezes. The decklings were scrambling about, belaying ropes and tying items down as if The Spotted Custard were facing a storm. They were all more seasoned floaters than Rue and her officers. A few of them had even run the Twister before. For all of them, the Tripoli Twister was considered a worthy challenge, one that would yield bragging rights once they returned to London. Very few ships dared the Twister for any distance and the Custard was about to try for the full course.

Percy eased them up several more puffs–there must have been a dozen in total. Then the Mandenall Pudding Probe spat and they knew that directly above them swept the Tripoli herself.

Rue shouted to the deckhands, “Everything secure?”

“Aye aye, captain.”

“Decklings?” Rue asked.

“All buttoned down, Lady Captain, ready on your mark,” answered a familiar chipper voice.

“Spoo? What are you doing abovedecks?”

“Transferred position, captain. Bit of a snafu down below. You don’t mind, do you? I’ve worked topside before.”

“Certainly not.”

Spoo seemed to have become unofficial leader of the decklings in a very short space of time. Some kind of coup? Rue supposed she would have to make it official if the girl proved capable. For now she was glad to have someone whose name she knew to yell.

“Wait for it,” Rue instructed the girl and turned to her next concern. “Primrose?”

Her friend was solemn-faced, seated primly off to one side of the navigation area, parasol raised against the grey nothingness of aetherosphere, hat pinned firmly down. Rue trusted her to have warned the steward, cook, and purser so that the inside staff was prepared.

Prim tilted her chin in acknowledgment.

To free her hands, Rue tossed Prim Sand and Shadows on a Sapphire Sea for safekeeping.

Prim caught it easily.

Rue picked up the speaker tube. “Boiler room, are you ready?”

“We have never been more so,” came Quesnel’s reply.

Rue said to Percy, still holding the tube so Quesnel could overhear, “Make the hop, Professor Tunstell, on my mark. Three, two, one, and… mark.”

Percy pressed the puffer. The Spotted Custard jerked up, caught the current, and began to shudder uncontrollably. It was as if the whole gondola section of the ship was shivering from cold.

“Percy, what the devil?” It felt like they were nested inside the current–why was this one so different from the others?

“Almost in, captain.” Percy reached down and twisted something. The ship rose up an infinitesimal amount. The propeller whirred madly. The ship began to tilt sideways as though being pushed from the side. The main deck angled more than was comfortable. Anything not fastened down began to slide. Including Primrose, who looked resigned to the indignity.

Percy grabbed the tiller and wrenched it upright. “Come on, sweetness,” he growled, straining against invisible aether forces.

Rue dashed over and reached for the other side of the tiller, pushing at it with all her might to assist his pulling. She was tougher than she looked–Dama’s drones liked to arm-wrestle on occasion to keep themselves in shape for competitive whist. Together they managed to push the ship upright and facing the correct direction: due east.

The Spotted Custard stopped shuddering and settled into a bobbing motion.

Percy gave Rue a relieved nod.

Rue stepped back, shaking out arms trembling from effort. Then she bounced a little at their success. “Victory is ours, current!”

She remembered her duty as captain. “Decklings, mainsail up if you would.”

Spoo began to point and shout. The decklings hopped to it with no discussion–the sootie already had them better trained than whoever had previously been in charge. Rue began to suspect that Spoo’s black eye had something to do with her jump to head deckling.

The sail was raised in no time and Rue definitely approved of Spoo in her new position. As soon as it hooked the breeze, the Custard stopped shaking and smoothed out.

Rue relaxed but only for a moment, for her ship began to spin. The Spotted Custard was still floating upright with the current, east–the aetheric particles told them that much–but the sail had caused her to start rotating like a sedate top, slowly, clockwise, round and round. It was disconcerting.

Rue leapt to help Percy with the helm but her navigator shook his head.

Rue was incredulous. “This is it?”

“They don’t call it the Tripoli Twister for nothing.”

The sensation, while not unpleasant, did make Rue slightly dizzy. “And how long are we in this waltz?”

“Three days, I’m afraid. Best not to look out into the grey, they say.”

Rue could believe it–the sensation was perturbing, to say the least.

“Very good. I shall head below. If you’re well up here? I believe your sister would like her chance to lecture me now.”

Percy’s eyes twinkled. “Aye aye, captain. Although I think it’s jolly unfair I must miss the spectacle.”

“You have the deck, Professor Navigator, sir.” Rue made her way over to Primrose who seemed recovered from her deck-chair slide. “Things are tip-top up top–to the stateroom for a scolding?”

But Prim no longer looked like she wanted to lecture Rue–instead, she was wiggling the little pink book as though it were some strange new species of musical instrument worthy of further examination in order to make it toot.

“That can wait. First, Rue my darling, my sweet, my precious…”

“You sound like Quesnel–what has your bloomers in a twist?”

“Language,” said her friend without rancour.

“I await your pleasure.” Rue’s voice was laden with sarcasm.

“What are you doing with my mother’s book?”

Rue felt a tingle of shock. Instinctively, she looked around to see if Prim had been overheard. Apparently not, so she hissed: “Aunt Ivy wrote a book? Wait, wait. Aunt Ivy can write?”