Growing up in Widget Manor had bestowed upon Emmeline some remarkable talents, including the ability to walk as silently as a fly and hold her breath far longer than a respectable young lady should, as well as reflexes faster than a whipcrack. However, in an entirely different environment—for, in truth, no matter how challenging Widget Manor had been to live in, after a while none of its secret traps had retained their secrecy—she was discovering that things didn’t come to her so easily. Another thing that wasn’t helping was the furry hood of her unfamiliar coat, which, no matter how often she shoved it back where it should be, kept deciding to flop down over her head at just the wrong moment.
“Gah!” she whispered as the hood whopped down over her eyes yet again. Angrily she whipped it off and tried to peer around a corner. The boat was suspiciously quiet, she thought. Where was everyone? She crept down an empty corridor, keeping a close eye and ear out for anyone approaching.
Then she heard something. Something huge.
She tiptoed forward, her heart whooshing in her ears, her eyes open wide to catch every last droplet of light.
She came to a ladder, bolted to a wall, and an open hatch above it.
Carefully, slowly, and very, very quietly she began to climb.
“Disband! Go home!” she heard a voice shout from somewhere beyond the hatch. The sound of it made her freeze on the ladder. “Do you hear me? I say, go home and let us disembark!”
And then Emmeline heard the huge noise again and realized it was a crowd of people, all shouting at the same time. She couldn’t pick out any voices, or even any words, but she had a feeling she knew what was being said: Leave. We do not want you here.
The air creeping down from the night outside was cold and crisp. Emmeline breathed deeply—it was like being cleaned out, she felt, like the air was scrubbing her out until she sparkled.
Whomp. Her hood decided this would be a good moment to flip down again. She raised an impatient hand and flipped it back before stretching herself to her full height and straining to see.
Up at the front of the boat, she could barely make out some shapes that had to be Dr. Bauer and most of the sailors. Beyond their heads all she could see was a dull orange glow, like that thrown off by a huge fire.
“Interesting,” she muttered, and quickly pulled herself up the rest of the way. Keeping low, she cleared the hatch and scurried around to the side of the boat.
She found a secure-looking nook. Nestling herself between some discarded sacking and a pile of old packing crates, she finally got a chance to have a proper look at what was waiting for Dr. Bauer on the shoreline of this strange new country.
No wonder he wasn’t happy, she thought.
A sound caught Thing’s ear like a hook catching a fish.
“Oi,” he said, his voice low. “Psst! You lot!”
“What?” said Edgar irritably.
“Cops!” Thing’s eyes, wide and red-rimmed, flicked toward the front door of 224 rue du Démiurge. “We’ve gotta clear out of here!”
“I don’t hear anything,” mumbled Sasha, her face soft and puffy in the candlelight. Her hair was coming undone, and her cheek was covered in deep creases where she’d fallen asleep on her folded arms.
“I don’t hear anythin’ neither,” muttered Thing. “I just know they’re comin’.”
“But how is that even—”
“Don’t question it, mate. It’s an instinct, right?”
“Madame?” asked Edgar. “What do you think?”
Madame Blancheflour turned to Thing and regarded him quietly for a few seconds. “I do not think they are police,” she said. “They are henchmen of the North—thugs in the pay of Bauer, would be my guess. But the boy is correct about one thing—they are coming.”
“Well—yeah! Told yer! Get a move on, yeah?” Thing stood up from the table, scraping the chair legs against the stone floor. In a panic, he started trying to stuff Madame Blancheflour’s plates and cutlery into his seemingly bottomless pockets while his eyes scanned the room, looking for escape routes.
“Thing! Thing!” Edgar called. “Calm down!”
“Calm down? Calm down? Are you jokin’? How are we goin’ to help Ems if we’re locked up?”
“Put back Madame’s belongings, please,” instructed Edgar in a quiet voice, keeping his eyes on Thing’s. Thing looked down at his hands and seemed amazed to find them full of dirty silver cutlery, and he was even more shocked to realize he’d shoved a plate into the pocket on the left leg of his overalls, and several more into the one on the right.
“Sorry—sorry, Madame,” he mumbled, placing everything back on the table as carefully as he could. “I’ll—I can wash ’em for yer, if ya like.” He tried to polish one of the knives with his sleeve but realized after a few seconds that he was only making things worse.
“Non, mon cher,” Madame Blancheflour said with a smile. “Not necessary. Now—are we going to listen to this wise child and get moving, or are we going to waste time talking nonsense, like adults? Alors!”
“But we can’t just go—what about the plan? The others?” Sasha had two spots of red high up on her cheeks, making her look like a doll in a shop window.
“There is, how do you say, a shortage of choices at the moment, ma chérie,” said Madame Blancheflour. As she spoke, Thing noticed her reach under her kitchen table, where, after a few seconds of searching, she seemed to find whatever she was looking for. A satisfied expression settled over her face.
“Now. Go! Take what you can—food, mais oui. But you must leave!”
“What about you?” asked Thing, already wrapping up a small loaf of bread and shoving it into a handy pocket. “Ain’t you comin’?”
“At my age? Non. I have never been a fan of ice and snow. I will stay here, with the house, until your safe return—until all of you return safely.”
“But we can’t leave you here!” said Edgar, shrugging into his jacket. “Please, Madame. I offer you my personal—”
“Ça suffit, Edgar. You have a larger duty now. And besides—I am not without my own means of self-protection.” With a jerk of her skinny frame, she pulled something free from beneath the kitchen table. When her hand reemerged, it was clutching a gun so large and so well polished that the sight of it knocked every single thought out of Thing’s head.
“Madame!” breathed Sasha. “I thought you didn’t approve of weapons!”
“There is a time for diplomacy,” said Madame Blancheflour in a quiet and definite tone, “and there is a time for force. We passed the time for talking long ago.”
Thing glanced at his friends as he looped Emmeline’s satchel across his body. Sasha’s eyes glittered with tears, which she blinked back as Thing watched, and Edgar’s face was dull with something like sorrow.
Sasha shook her head, just once, and clapped her hands. “Right, then,” she said, her voice tight and her eyes dry. “Let’s get moving! Coats, food, whatever we can carry. Come on!”
Just as Sasha was tying the belt of her coat, and Edgar was filling an old food sack with some meat, a few apples, and a couple of half-finished loaves of bread, there was a noise—barely there, but a noise all the same.
This time they all heard it. Everyone’s eyes slid to Thing, and he nodded slowly.
It was the sound of a heavy boot being placed carefully—but not, as it turned out, quite carefully enough—onto the top step, just outside the front door.