front of the room. The crowd parted for her as she began walking.
Gradually, the noise level rose from dead silence to a low murmur as conversation resumed. “Who is she?” I whispered to Alec. “Wasn’t she on the bus?”
“She’s our patroness. She’s come to select the project she’ll fund. My steam engine won last year, which was why she was on board for the race.” He took my hand. “Come on, I want to see how she reacts.”
Lizzie intercepted us. “I was wondering if you could help me,” she said to me after a glance at Alec.
“How?” I asked.
“I’m covering this event for the newspaper, and I need another set of eyes to make sure I don’t miss anything. You mentioned that journalism sounded exciting. Are you interested?”
“I don’t know anything about being a reporter.”
“Just write about what you see. You’ve read a newspaper, so you know how it goes. I could submit it for you. We’d have to come up with a pen name for you, of course. I wouldn’t want to jeopardize your current position.”
I imagined myself as an intrepid reporter and liked the image. I knew I didn’t intend to be a governess the rest of my life. “I can try,” I said.
“Here, you’ll need this,” she said, pinning the Mechanics’ gear-and-ribbon insignia onto my bodice. “Don’t worry, this doesn’t make you a member, but it will make people more willing to talk to you.” Then she handed me a notebook and pencil.
Alec and I followed the woman in black as she moved from exhibit to exhibit, watching silently as the inventors showed off their creations and explained the benefits while I frantically scribbled notes. “She’s polished brass, that one is,” Everett said with an admiring smile after the woman moved on from his airship demonstration.
Once she’d made a circuit of the room, she conferred with a tall man in a top hat, who stepped over to a device that looked like a giant trumpet and spoke into it. His voice echoed throughout the vast hall as he said, “The winner is Everett, who will receive a grant to help him finish devising a nonmagical means to power an airship.” The crowd cheered, and the Mechanics slapped Everett on the back as the band resumed playing.
“Care for another dance?” Alec asked. I shifted the notebook into my left hand and rested it on his shoulder as he swept me onto the floor. We’d barely made a circuit when the music stopped again. The dancers grumbled, but then there was a shout from above.
Everyone looked up to the old theater’s balcony to see a man waving a long streamer of paper. “They’re searching the area again! Everyone out!”
Chaos ensued as people ran left and right, gathering machines and running with them toward the exits. Others pulled banners off the balcony railing. I saw the rest of the newcomers being herded back to the basement, the way we’d come in, and I started to follow them, but Alec grabbed my hand and hustled me to a doorway beside the stage. “I know another way out,” he explained.
Down in the basement, where a steam engine that looked like it had been built from the building’s furnace chugged away, Alec shut and barred the door before pulling the goggles off his forehead and donning a coat that hung on the back of a chair. “This is our dynamo that powers the lights,” he explained as he moved a ladder beneath an open window. “I hope they don’t seize it. I’ll go up first to make sure it’s safe, then you climb up after me.”
He clambered up the ladder and out through the ground-level window. A moment later he gestured to me. I gathered my skirts and climbed as quickly as I could. When I reached the top, Alec pulled me through the window and lifted me to my feet.
We were in what must have been an alley behind the theater. Alec pulled a large handkerchief out of his pocket and said, “I’m sorry, but you aren’t yet a member.”
I realized he was going to blindfold me. I didn’t feel I had the option to protest, so I let him wrap the handkerchief around my eyes and tie it. He guided me down the alley, his arm around my waist. We made two or three turns, and soon I heard street noise. He stopped and untied my blindfold, then unpinned his Mechanics insignia and put it in his pocket with the handkerchief.