burn not just for Sebastien, but on behalf of the mortals as well—a peculiar choice
for a wampyr. A peculiar choice for this wampyr, whom Jack had not held in high regard.
It seemed that even when Sebastien chose poorly, he chose better than most.
Jack might have phrased the reminder more gently, all the same.
* * *
There was no chance of a direct route.
Lady Abigail Irene Garrett, Th.D., knew they were lucky—in that winter of 1902, in time of war—to find an airship making the Atlantic passage at all. That they were not fugitives was only by the grace through which
Sebastien was presumed dead—though Garrett doubted the former Don
Sebastien de Ulloa, now traveling as Mr. John Nast, would perceive the instrumentality of his salvation as grace—and even asking after a direct route to Paris would have been begging for arrest and questioning.
A little research into airship, steamer, and overland routes convinced her that it would be easiest to go by way of Köln out of the great port of New Amsterdam. And she did find an Italian dirigible bound back to Europe and away from the site of colonial squabbling with all haste—which was a massive stroke of luck, and she didn't in the slightest mind spending Christmas and the New Year aloft. She initially purchased passage for herself and her housekeeper Mary only as far as London, where the Andrea Doria would pause in its eastward journey for fuel and supplies.
She no longer had any obligations in New Amsterdam. She could be seen to be returning to England without arousing suspicion, and once the airship was enroute she could extend her ticket.
A day later, Jack Priest arranged travel for himself and two others—ostensibly his parents, in actuality Sebastien and Mrs. Smith, who had refused to be dissuaded from this adventure, no matter how hair-brained—on the same ship, but continuing on to San Marino. Thus, they would not seem to be travelling with Garrett and Mary until they took train in Germany, and it would not be obvious in advance that all five intended to jump ship in Köln.
Despite the elaborations of her ruse, when Garrett stood on the boarding platform on a winter night at the end of 1902, her hands shook in their fur-lined gloves. And it was not with cold, though she folded her arms across her breast and hugged herself tight, her carpetbag hanging awkwardly to one side. Mary, warm in plain gray felted wool and carrying the flannel-lined basket in which Garrett's little dog traveled, shifted closer, though propriety did not permit her to take her mistress' elbow.
"Come along then, ma'am," she said, when Garrett had stood shivering and staring at the great, fluted, floodlit, dull-silver body of the grounded dirigible curving overhead for at least five minutes. "We'll be warm once we're in, and we can get you a nice cup of tea."
Their trunks and suitcases were already loaded. Garrett had only her blue velvet carpetbag of sorcerer's tools to manage, and Mary only the dog. Garrett nodded, gathered herself, and joined the other passengers queuing at the base of a short flight of stairs. As she climbed them, her ticket and passport in her hand, she forced herself to stop chewing on her lip.
She wondered when she had moved from mere conspiracy to treason.
* * *
The journey passed uneventfully, although with a certain clandestine air that leant it spice. "Mr. Nast" took ill on the first night of the journey. His "wife" and "son" were busy tending him, and so barely in evidence. D.C.I. Garrett—or Doctor Garrett, now that she was no longer a Crown Investigator—was all by herself enough of a scandal to serve as a distraction, and with her blue carpetbag never out of arm's reach and her busy terrier and silent servant as a travelling companion, suspected she was very nearly the only topic of conversation among the other passengers and the crew.
They certainly weren't talking to her.
The strangest stage of the journey, for Garrett, was the passage over England. It occurred in daylight, when Sebastien was of necessity confined to his cabin or otherwise the interior of the ship—not that he could have acknowledged her under any circumstances, until they were safely on the ground in Germany. Garrett feigned enjoyment of a solitary luncheon in the salon and watched green English countryside glide by, dotted with copses and the white specks of sheep. The shadow of the Andrea Doria scudded across the earth below as clouds scudded across the sky above,