Lady Maccon glanced about at the four standing around her. “One should always visit one’s roots once in one’s lifetime, don’t you feel? I expect the carriage with my things has arrived by now.” She turned to leave. The others followed. “I shall have to repack. Better do it quickly, before anything else goes wrong today.”
Madame Lefoux touched her arm before she could dash off. “What else happened to you this morning?”
“Aside from the announcement of my rather embarrassing condition in the public papers and an attack of virulent ladybugs? Well, Queen Victoria fired me from the Shadow Council, my family ejected me from their house, and Lord Akeldama vanished, leaving me a very terse message about a cat. Which reminds me.” Lady Maccon took the mysterious metal cat collar out of her reticule and waved it at Madame Lefoux. “What do you make of this?”
“Magnetic auditory resonance tape.”
“I thought it might be something like.”
Professor Lyall looked on with interest. “Do you have a resonance decoding cavity?”
Madame Lefoux nodded. “Of course, over here somewhere.” She disappeared behind a vast pile of parts that looked to be the dismembered components of a dirigible’s steam engine combined with half a dozen enormous spoons. She returned carrying an object that gave every indication of being a very tall stovepipe-style top hat, with no brim, mounted on a teapot stand with a crank attachment and a trumpet coming out its underside.
Lady Maccon had nothing to say upon seeing such a bizarre-looking contraption. She handed over the metal tape in mystified silence.
The inventor fed the tape in through a slit in the underside of the hat, turning the crank to run it through the device. As she did so, a pinging sound began to emerge, akin to the noise a piano might make after inhaling helium. She cranked faster and faster. The pings began meshing together, and eventually a high voice came into existence.
“Leave England,” it said in a tinny, mechanical tone. “And beware Italians who embroider.”
“Useful,” was Madame Lefoux’s only comment.
“How on earth did he know I would choose Italy?” Sometimes Lord Akeldama still managed to surprise Alexia. She pursed her lips. “Embroidery?” Lord Akeldama was never one to prioritize one vital factor, such as murder, over another, such as fashion. “I’m worried about him. Is it safe for him to be away from his house? I mean to say, I understand his being a rove detaches him from the hive, but I was under the impression roves also became part of a place. Tethered, a little like ghosts.”
Professor Lyall tugged on one earlobe thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t concern yourself overly, my lady. Roves have a much larger roaming ability than hive-bound vampires. It takes considerable strength of soul to break the queen dependency to begin with, and the older the rove, the more mobile. It is their very capacity for movement that keeps most roves in favor with a local hive. They are untrustworthy but useful. And since the rove needs the queen to convert his drones, they are vested in each other’s survival. Have you seen Lord Akeldama’s BUR file?”
Lady Maccon shrugged noncommittally. She was not above poking about her husband’s office, but she did not think Lyall needed to be made aware of that little fact.
“Well, it is quite substantial. We’ve no record of his original hive, which suggests he has been a rove some considerable time. I should think he could easily travel outside London city limits, perhaps even as far as Oxford, with very few psychological or physiological consequences. He is probably not mobile enough to handle floating the aether or crossing the water out of England, but he is certainly capable of making himself difficult to find.”
“Difficult to find? We are talking about the same Lord Akeldama?” The vampire in question had many sterling qualities—admirable taste in waistcoats and an acerbic wit to name but a few—but subtlety was not among them.
Professor Lyall grinned. “I should rest easy if I were you, Lady Maccon. Lord Akeldama can take care of himself.”
“Somehow I do not find a werewolf’s reassurances on behalf of a vampire all that heartening.”
“Shouldn’t you be worrying about your own problems?”
“What enjoyment is there in that? Other people’s are always far more entertaining.”
With that, Lady Maccon led the way back into the hallway, up in the ascension room, through the hat shop, and out into the street. There she supervised the removal of her luggage and sent the waiting coachman off. He was clearly