Holding her skirt up over her knees, she charged and leapt onto the bath mat. She landed just right, her feet spread but not too far, and as the mat began to slide like a pat of butter across a hot plate, she knew it was going to be a record-breaking run.
She cleared the eighth cannon easily and felt a thrill when the ninth flashed by. The tenth cannon was a peripheral blur. Her momentary excitement was spoiled by the realization that she was picking up speed. She was hurtling toward the front of the ship, toward the vestibule where the stairs for the other floors branched to the left and right, and straight ahead, rushing at her very fast now, was a large steel door.
At last, she realized what was happening: The ship had veered downward, turning her playing field into a slope. Trying to slow herself, she fell backward off the bath mat, onto her skirts, which were nearly as slick. She attempted to use her feet as brakes, but even as the calluses on her heels heated with friction, she saw she wouldn’t stop in time.
She struck the door feetfirst and so forcefully it stood her up. She bounced flat against the door with a tremendous thump and fell again onto her rear with a jolt. She lay back, hugging herself in pain. The bath mat slid to a stop against the top of her head. The ship leveled out again.
As she lay there, waiting for the sting of the collision to crest and subside, she stared up at the plaque on the door that read ENGINE ROOM, and beneath that in bold, NO ADMITTANCE.
“All right, all right, you don’t have to rub it in.” She knew the door was locked because she had tried it several times before. She was preparing to gather her mat and go find something soft to lie down on when she heard what sounded like a soft tap on the other side of the sealed door.
She pressed her ear against the cold steel. She heard the hum of the ship’s engine or perhaps the drone of her blood. She raised a crooked finger, tapped her nail against the steel three times, then listened for a reply.
She didn’t hear another tap, but if she strained, she could hear something else. Something high pitched and regular, like the crying of a mouse.
“Right. That’s it,” she said. She went to her room and rummaged through the luggage Byron had given her until she found a pair of bobby pins. She returned to the engine room door with the rather ambitious intention of picking the lock. It was ambitious because she had never picked a lock before, but she had heard one of the girls in the Steam Pipe describe the process once. How hard could it possibly be? She knelt before the door, straightened the pins, and began probing the keyhole.
As she worked, she heard the mouse squeak now and then and took it as encouragement.
“What are you doing?” Iren asked.
Voleta looked up from the lock to find her immense friend filling the stairwell to the third deck. She had no idea how long she’d been fiddling with the lock. She had completely lost track of time. She backed away from the door, pocketing the pins. She attempted to look nonchalant. “Oh, just cooling my ears. They get so hot, you know.”
“What is that?” Iren pointed at the rectangle of chenille on the floor.
“That is a bath mat.”
Iren squinted, began to ask another question, then thought better of it. Voleta noticed how exhausted her friend looked, and she felt a little guilty for adding another worry line to Iren’s brow.
“What was that dive about?” Voleta asked.
“Nothing, just discouraging prowlers.”
“But who was it? Where did they come from? Were they navy or—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Iren said with a dismissive wave. “The captain wants to see you.”
“Oh, what’ve I done now?”
“Don’t say that. You make me nervous when you say that.” The amazon began to ascend the steel steps but paused halfway up. She bent down so she could look Voleta in the eyes. “Dress rehearsal tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to serve you tea.”
“I’ll wear a helmet.”
Iren stood and began climbing again, but her voice echoed down, “One lump or two, milady?”
Voleta laughed, collected her bath mat, and headed for the captain’s quarters, wondering what sort of scolding she was in for.
The door of the captain’s quarters was ajar and leaking light into the carpeted corridor. Voleta raised her fist to knock, then froze at the sound of a familiar voice.
Thoughtless in her excitement, she shoved the cabin door open and cried, “Hello, Senlin! You’re back!”
Edith leapt in her chair, dropping the brass cylinder she’d been holding a moment before. It rolled across her dining table, then off the edge and onto the rug. Senlin’s voice continued, and it took a moment for Voleta to realize it was emanating from the tube Edith had dropped. He said, “… I just feel grateful that there is someone in this madhouse who I know and can trust. Someone who is an endless source of encouragement and strength. I can hardly say how much I love—”
Edith, who’d been scrambling after the cylinder, finally got her hand around it. She cut off Senlin’s voice with a wrench of the recorder’s head.
“What is that?”
“Nothing. A message from Senlin. And what are you doing bursting into my room like that?” The captain righted the chair she had knocked over in her haste. She had yet to really put her mark on her cabin, Voleta noticed. The velvet settee, gold-leaf desk, and canopy bed all appeared untouched. The only surface that Edith seemed to have claimed was the square dining table, which held a couple days’ worth of dishes, a few rolled-up maps, a silver model of the State of Art, a magnifying glass, a hairbrush, and a pistol. The tabletop seemed a little island of humanity amid the stately furniture and the walls full of decorative curios and the formal portraits of the ship’s previous commanders. When Voleta had seen that stuffy gallery the first time, she had asked Edith when she was planning on growing out her whiskers.
Though to be fair, none of them had really settled in. So far, Voleta had slept in five different cabins, and none of them had felt right. There was just something impervious about the ship. It felt like she was trying to sleep in the lap of a monument.
“What was all that about happiness and love?” Voleta asked, tilting her head suspiciously. “He talked to Marya, didn’t he? He wasn’t supposed to do that. The Sphinx told him not to. Several times. Ha! Looks like I’m not the only one who can’t follow orders!”
“We need to talk about those orders. There’s been a change of plan.”
“Is it about the wig? Because I agree: It’s completely idiotic.”
Edith collected her thick, dark tresses and bound them with a tie. “What? No, it’s not about the wig. When we get to Pelphia, you are going to stay on the ship.”
Voleta couldn’t keep the disappointment from her face. The only thing that had kept her sane since being shut inside that flying casket was the thought of escape. Even if she had to wear a seven-layer dress and curtsy her knees off, it would be worth it so long as she could stretch her legs a little. The low-level claustrophobia that had been pestering her for days suddenly flared again. She tugged at the neckline of her dress. “But what about Marya?”
“You were right. Senlin did speak to her.”
“What did she say?”
“That she is happy where she is and that she doesn’t need rescuing.”
“But how is that—” Voleta was cut off by a knock on the door behind her.
Byron’s black nose pressed through the crack. “You wanted to see me, Captain?”
“Yes, come in. I was just telling Voleta that, as much as I and Senlin appreciate all the work you two have been doing getting Voleta ready for court, it won’t be necessary.”
“She’s canceling my mission, Byron! Can you believe it?”
“You listened to the message,” Byron surmised. “What did he say?”
“Just that he saw his wife, and asked her very plainly what she wanted, and she told him that she wanted to continue her life with the duke.”
�
�And he believed her?” Voleta said, fists on her hips.
“Why wouldn’t he believe her?” Edith shifted a scroll on the table, uncovering a pewter mug. She peered inside, deliberated a moment, then drank its contents. “I know you’re disappointed, Voleta, but—”
“I’m not disappointed. I just don’t believe it. I mean, think about it: The duke all but kidnapped her. What if he coerced her into marrying him? What if he’s a tyrant, and she’s just frightened of crossing him?”
“You think she is so afraid of him that she can’t take the opportunity to escape?” Edith sounded skeptical.
“Yes, exactly! I saw it all the time when I was locked up in the Steam Pipe. If someone has absolute control over you, it’s easy to believe they have absolute power over everything and everyone. They can’t be defied or challenged or disobeyed, and every opportunity for escape just feels like a cruel test. Marya might even think she is protecting Senlin by turning him away. She might not be able to tell the truth until she’s free.”
“But by your logic, the only way to know if Marya wants to leave is to force her to leave. You want to kidnap her?”
“No! But I do want to speak to her. You don’t offer a wounded person assistance once and then strut off, patting yourself on the back for the good deed you almost did. Believe me, desperation makes it hard sometimes to recognize help when it comes, to accept it when it’s offered. If she’s really happy, I think I’ll be able to tell.”
“Is that how you felt?” Byron asked Voleta. “Wounded?”
“This isn’t about me,” Voleta said with a scowl. She wondered if that were true. “We’ve already come this far; we’ve already suffered so much to be here. It seems silly to leave the good deed half done.”
“The risk to Voleta is relatively minimal, Captain,” Byron said. “She might embarrass herself and bring shame to us all—”
“Hey!”
“But,” the stag continued, “the ringdom is lawful enough, and she’ll have Iren to look after her.”
“I don’t think we understand the risk at all,” Edith said, crossing her arms, flesh and iron, into an unhappy knot. “But I suppose you’re right, Voleta. We’ve come this far.”
“And,” Byron said, raising a finger. “I just taught her how to spit gristle into a napkin.”
“I can spit gristle like a lord!” Voleta declared happily.
“Like a lady,” Byron corrected.
“Can we hear the rest of it?” Voleta asked.
“The rest of what?” Edith asked.
“What Senlin said.”
The captain’s expression seemed to suggest that she had forgotten the recorder entirely, though she still held it gripped in her flesh-and-blood hand. “I think seeing Marya again left Senlin a little … overexcited. It seemed to bring up a lot of feelings, and I think he’d be embarrassed to have all that blubbering and carrying on shared with everyone.”
“He loves her very much, doesn’t he?” Voleta sounded almost proud.
“Yes. Yes, he does,” Edith said and slipped the recorder into her pocket.
On the gun deck, Byron blew a short, flat note on his bugle. “Wrong!” he shouted.
The teacup handle snapped free of Iren’s thick finger, and the earless cup fell to the steel floor with a crash.
“Please be careful, Iren!” Byron hissed. “This set was a gift from the King of Bacheral. It’s more than a century old.”
On the card table that had been set up for tea service, Squit, Voleta’s pet flying squirrel, ran twice about the sugar bowl, up the mound of crustless sandwiches, then pounced upon the bud vase, knocking it over. Ignoring the spilled flowers, Voleta concentrated on the mound of clotted cream balanced on the flat of her butter knife. She had managed to maneuver the knife halfway between the pot of cream and her piece of toast when the blob slid off and landed with a plop upon the tablecloth. Squit dashed over and began licking the mess at once.
The dress rehearsal had descended into absolute chaos, much to Byron’s satisfaction. That was, after all, the point of the exercise and particularly the horn, which he said introduced a much-needed element of alarm to the proceedings. He blew another sour note on the bugle. Iren glared at him. Her governess’s uniform was uncomfortable and constrictive. Already her stock tie and brocaded bib were stained with tea. She stepped on her skirts so often it seemed only a matter of time until she fell on her face. She returned to the tea cart to collect a new cup and to rattle out another pour.
Byron raised a book before his snout and read from it with the rolling cadence of a lecturer. The volume was called The Ingenue’s Primer, and Voleta was certain it had been written by a sadist. “Scenario number five: You are attending a gala that includes hors d’oeuvres served from a buffet. You, and only you, observe another guest of equal rank insert his finger into the salmon pâté, remove it, and lick it clean. What do you do?”
Voleta pulled at the fallen sleeve of her puffy yellow gown. “Ask him if it’s any good?”
“Stop fidgeting. Come on. What do you really think you would do?”
“I don’t understand why I have to do anything!”
“Well, what if he licked his finger and put it back into the pâté a second time?”
“I don’t know,” Voleta said, picking Squit up and moving her away from the spill. “I’d offer him a spoon.”
“No!”
“A fish fork?”
Today, Byron wore a pince-nez balanced on the end of his long snout. The spectacles, Voleta knew, were an affectation. The stag had bragged before about his perfect vision, and besides, the lenses didn’t even cover his wide-set eyes. Voleta suspected he wore the pince-nez only because he liked removing them to punctuate his reproving stares, as he did now. “You’re not even trying. No, what you should do is locate a maid or porter and discreetly request that they replace the dish.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you don’t want to embarrass the guest, and you don’t want to eat after his finger. Will you please stop pulling at your dress!”
“I feel like I’m being swallowed by a boa constrictor!”
“It’s called a corset, and it’s meant to be snug.” He blew into his bugle just as Iren turned with a brimming cup of tea balanced upon a saucer. The amazon jumped, and the cup popped upon the floor. Byron tut-tutted, then carried swiftly on. “Scenario number six—”
Voleta held up her hands. “Can’t I just have a mo—”
“Scenario number six: You are a guest in a private parlor, listening to another guest play an impromptu recital upon a poorly tuned harpsichord—”
“Who writes this stuff?” Voleta all but barked. “When does any of this ever hap—”
Byron read on, speaking over her. “She is an amateur, and the performance is quite bad.” Byron paused to toot upon his horn. “After a moment, the host begins to tease her with jeers and boos. What do you do? Now, think before you answer. How could you defuse the situation?”
“I could boo the host and see how he likes it,” Voleta said.
“No! You’re escalating again!”
“I’m tired of this game. Just tell me what I’m supposed to say, and I’ll say it!”
“This isn’t a game!” Byron shouted, shaking the open book. “The whole point of the exercise is to teach you to think of ways to avoid confrontation when it arises. I won’t be there to tell you what to say.”
“You say, ‘avoiding confrontation.’ I call it running from a fight.”
“Voleta, my dear, all society will ever do is throw fights out in front of you. It exists to goad you and get your hackles up. But if you take a swing at every bully that steps into your path, you’re going to end up with a lot of black eyes, and you’re going to make a lot of enemies. You need friends where you’re going. You need allies to shepherd you into Marya’s privileged sphere. If you want to have any chance of seeing her, of saving her, you have to be cordial, pleasant, and contrite.”
Voleta
took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and after a moment’s reflection said, “I suppose I might just applaud louder and try to pass the whole thing off as a good-natured joke.”
“A fine and politic solution. Very good! And all it took was a second of earnest thought.” Pulling his watch from his vest pocket, Byron marked the time with a smirk. “Now, for scenario number seven, I’ve asked the captain to help simulate what it’s like to be in the middle of a roaring party at midnight. Iren, you should probably put down that teacup—”
All thirty-two of the starboard cannons fired. The roar of the blast and the scrape of the recoil sleds drew a scream from Voleta. Even though Byron knew the shot was coming, he still bleated like a lamb. When the stag looked at Iren through the haze of gun smoke, he found she was scowling at him, but still holding the saucer and cup steadily before her.
He gave an approving nod, and in response, Iren tilted the saucer and let the cup crash upon the floor.
“Oops,” she said.
Byron sighed. “Yes, I suppose I deserved that. Now onto scenario eight …”
When Edith found them an hour later, Voleta was red-faced and shouting and Byron was blowing repeatedly on his horn. Iren sat straddled upon the barrel of a cannon with her fingers in her ears.
A spreading lagoon of tea on the floor crackled when Edith crossed it, pulverizing the swimming shards of porcelain.
Edith snatched the bugle from Byron’s lips so abruptly he blew spit on her hand. The sight of the captain was enough to silence Voleta.
“You call this a lesson?” Edith said, glancing at Iren as she rejoined the group. “I’m on the bridge tracking the navies of a dozen different ringdoms, all of whom I’m sure are mustering up the courage to take a stab at us. Meanwhile, you’re down here, throwing tea, blowing horns, and reaching for each other’s throats. This doesn’t give me a lot of confidence.”
“I’m doing my level best, Captain,” Byron said, wringing his hands, which moved as smoothly as cogs. “I’m not sure she has a single civil instinct in her.”
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