even and there’s getting even. Yours was the latter, and it was completely uncalled for. For the sake of my friendship, Mikael Sorensen has agreed to let the matter drop, but believe me, I have no such intention.”
“But Father, you don’t know what it was like three years ago. You weren’t—”
“That’s enough,” he snapped at Meredith. “You’ve clung to that hate long enough. It’s not normal. It’s not rational. Your mother would have been appalled. No, I’ll decide a fitting punishment for you both later. Now, not another word about it.”
How dare he trivialise what we went through! The rotten— Meredith flung her magazine across the cabin. It flapped and then struck the door to the W.C., drawing an angry call from the occupant, a woman from the next section.
“That’s quite enough from you, young lady.” Aunt Lily leapt up and pointed a lace-gloved finger at Meredith from across the aisle. “If you don’t want a thick ear, you won’t utter another sound until we reach Portsmouth. That goes for you, too, Miss Backchat,” she aimed at her poor sister, who hadn’t uttered a sound.
In reply, Sonja stood on her seat, made a particularly rude noise for the benefit of the entire airship, then sulked in her seat. After biting her lip and flicking her eyebrows up at Aunt Lily, Meredith joined her sister in their shared Coventry.
So the whole world really was against them. Well then, so be it.
If it’s war they want, it’s war they’ll get.
A dour afternoon, muggy between a heavy downpour and the pressing of a thick sea fog, did little to lift their spirits as they alighted from the train at East Southsea Station. Newspaper vendors plied their disaster headlines in the faces of passers-by, shouting to compete with the steam carwash working overtime as it re-minted muddy vehicles.
Near the ticket booth—a mite too near for the ticket seller’s liking—a goggled dandy wearing a white flying suit was exhibiting his automaton invention to a group of awed schoolchildren. The faceless machine gurgled oil, hissed steam, and generally rattled its way through an attempt at the latest dance steps, though its quick-shuffling feet were really quite impressive. The children laughed at the man’s next African jig, and even harder when his metal protégé aped him step for step.
Science wasn’t all doom and gloom, at least.
When Father, Aunt Lily and Lady Catarina seated themselves at the station cafe for a cup of tea and began to peruse the snack menu, Meredith psst her sister and nodded toward the telegraph booth. Poor Sonja shrugged, mouthed her puzzlement, so Meredith beckoned her to follow on trust alone. She used the next group of passengers for cover, mingling for a moment, then broke away to the Halfpenny Arcade, a row of over two dozen glass-cased novelty attractions adjacent to the telegraph booth and ticket offices.
She halted at Pieces of Eight, an ingenious sonograph machine that could read anything you typed onto its ribbon spool—well, the mechanical parrot on the pirate figure’s shoulder made you think it intoned the words—for a halfpenny per twenty words. The Jungle Monkey machine opposite performed an identical function, and punters often had a good laugh insulting one another as parrot and monkey across the arcade.
“You don’t think we’re in enough trouble?” Sonja looked over her shoulder to make sure Father wasn’t following. “He’s in a rare muck sweat as it is.”
“Exactly why we have to escape for a while. Unless you fancy a full day of his belly-aching. And anyhow, we’ve got some sleuthing to do, remember?”
“We do?”
“My word, you’re an obtuse wet rag today, girl.” Meredith didn’t mind so much having to take charge, but they were far more formidable as a team. Her little sister hadn’t been her usual outspoken, caustic self ever since Niflheim. Understandable considering what they’d been through, but they were back home now, and Meredith’s vim had returned tenfold. “The peeping tom’s pocket watch. If it has something to do with the Leviacrum, like we suppose, then we should be able to get to the bottom of it. First we’ll try Parnell at the bookstore, then we’ll swing by the library. Sound fair?”
Sonja rolled her eyes, then bobbed her head in amused assent. “If Parnell didn’t hate us before, he’ll burn us in effigy after this.”
“Ha! You know it.”
“Right, then—” Sonja retrieved a halfpenny from her purse and sank it into the Pieces of Eight coin slot, “—who’s the message for? Father?”
“No, how about...Aunt Lily!”
“Genius.” As she positioned her