LEAVE HER FOR N-N-NOW, the red-eye commanded. WE H-H-HAVE WHAT WE NEED.
Blackness swallowed her at the same moment Emily woke, thrashing wildly under the white sheets.
She leapt from the bed as if it were on fire. Her heart was racing as she sucked in great gulps of air. Coming for her … razors and needles and knives …
She rushed to the door, fumbled at the bolt with a shaking, weak hand. When she’d released the lock, she threw the door open. She looked down the hall.
She had to find someone, tell them … tell them that …
… that …
… that what?
She looked up and down the hall, blinking. What had she dreamed? Suddenly, she could not remember, and the harder she tried, the more the memory retreated from her.
Rabbits.
There were huge rabbits with red eyes, and a train …
A flash of light, followed by a rattling boom, threw the room into stark relief. The brightness and noise startled her, making thoughts fly from her head like frightened birds.
The beating of her heart was subsiding now. She blinked, holding the nightgown tightly around herself. Why on earth was she standing out in the hall? She didn’t remember coming here.
Letting out her breath, she softly closed the door of her room and went back to bed.
And when she woke the next morning, she’d forgotten that she’d dreamed at all.
In fact, all she knew was that she had slept deeply, and for a long time, and that she felt a great deal better for having done so. The next thing she realized was that the sound of explosions had ceased. She went to the window and peeked through the curtains. The sun was high in a clear blue sky. Birds darted over the trees, chirping merrily.
From behind her came the sound of a cleared throat, followed by mock thoughtful, soft-drawled words:
“All the way from California with a succulent little skycladdische. How very nice for our dear Dreadnought! I wonder if they’ll put that in the serial.”
Emily whirled, frowning. Tarnham, Mirabilis’ red-haired secretary, stood leaning against the doorjamb. In his arms he had a package wrapped in paper. Her hand flew to the neck of her nightgown.
“What the devil!” she spluttered.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I say that out loud?” Tarnham’s voice was oily with assumed innocence. On his shoulder, the ferret watched her with beady eyes, climbing across the back of Tarnham’s neck to get to his other shoulder. “My mouth, it has a mind of its own sometimes.”
“I couldn’t care less the kind of mind your mouth has!” Emily blazed, lifting a finger to point at the door. “Get out of here!”
“Now, now. Don’t get all huffy. I was asked to bring you this. It’s a clean dress.”
“Well, you can leave it on the table,” Emily said. Tarnham complied, but didn’t stop grinning. He paused at the door on his way out.
“The Sophos and that Friendly Society person are downstairs waiting for you. I suppose you’ve got a lot of practice throwing clothes on quickly. I’ll tell them you’ll be down soon.”
Then, chuckling to himself, he pushed himself away from the doorjamb and vanished, not even bothering to close the door.
Cheeks burning, she crossed the room and slammed the door shut, locking it. How had the door gotten unlocked, anyway? She remembered locking it before going to bed.
No, she must have forgotten. But she certainly wouldn’t forget after this.
She took her time unwrapping the package Tarnham had brought; in fact, she took a good long time. What exactly did he mean, a lot of practice throwing clothes on quickly? And that word again, “skycladdische”… She didn’t know what it meant, but she’d only heard it out of the mouths of men like Tarnham and Caul, which meant that it couldn’t be anything nice.
The dress he’d brought her, while clean, was coarse and gray and looked like a servant’s uniform. Emily pulled it on with the resignation of one who’d become accustomed to being dressed like a moron, a pauper, or both. It was overlarge and overshort, which meant that her ugly men’s boots would be on full display. The one piece of luck was that the dress buttoned up the front, but even so, it was hard to get the buttons done up using just one hand.
When she was finally ready, she walked downstairs slowly. She hardly looked in Tarnham’s direction as she noticed him waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, stroking