“Messy,” Eleri commented, managing in her usual abbreviated way to encompass all and nothing of what Eluned burned to say. “What’s the progress?”
“A Lyndsey. Or a Lynsey, rather. The connection is tenuous—Lynsey is the sister of a friend of Dem Carstairs—but a few pointed questions have produced no others. She is going to call on us in London.”
“We’re going to London? Now?”
Eluned struggled to keep her dismay out of her voice, while Griff said: “There was something worse,” and glared openly.
“When the Express arrives,” their aunt replied, her cool voice never wavering, even though the swaying veil suggested she’d turned to look directly at Griff. “To a mystery destination, which we will track down tomorrow morning. The vampire involved, who is known as Comfrey Makepeace, has connections that may be useful to us, if he can be brought to exercise them. But before we reach that point, I wanted to ask you about Monsieur Doré, Eleri.”
“You found it then.” Eleri glanced at Eluned, then back at their aunt. “Thought it better not to show you that until you’d stopped selling everything.”
The sale of the house and workshop had been a sore point with Eleri in particular, and one reason for not telling Aunt Arianne the whole story.
“That huge chunk of fulgite was related to the automaton that’s missing?”
“Commission came with two pieces of fulgite the same size and shape, possibly artificial. Seemed to take charge, but wouldn’t release it consistently, and said to be haunted. Mother was asked to investigate normalising the release, design automaton that self-activates.”
“So the second piece—?”
“Gone like the Commissions Book and the automaton.”
This was the test moment, far more than any reaction their aunt might have to their expulsion. All along they’d kept the existence of the fulgite from her, telling her only about a mysterious commission for an automaton. Not truly because they were worried she’d sell the fulgite, but because she was a stranger, and their mother had thought her unreliable.
All Aunt Arianne said was: “Why did you send Monsieur Doré with me, Eleri?”
“Ran out of ideas to make it release the charge. And problems at school. No place to keep it safe.”
Their aunt’s response was cut short by Griff, twisting sharply away from his contemplation of Sheerside House to blurt in a spray of crumbs: “Do we really have to go to London? Now?”
The veil swayed again. “Your father was a bad traveller as well. Yes, we have to go to London. Dem Makepeace…Dem Makepeace was not able to see me through this bonding, and I need to make contact with him before it takes me rather further than I care for.” She fished in a pocket of her dress and tossed a labelled key to Griff. “Think of it as a treasure hunt, with that our only clue. The reward for success is not having a vampire for an aunt.”
The man who was Lord Msrah’s Bound came back before they could properly react to this calm announcement, and Aunt Arianne introduced each of them in turn.
“A pleasure,” Dem Carstairs said, drawing his sandal-shod feet together and bowing. In his calf-length pleated shendy and light tunic he looked like he was never anything but completely unruffled, and his gaze didn’t linger any longer on Eluned than it did on Eleri and Griff. Of course, Aunt Arianne had probably warned him.
“Would Lord Msrah allow me to return with Griff?” Aunt Arianne asked. “He has a particular interest in architecture, and was looking forward to Sheerside House enormously.”
Dem Carstairs immediately volunteered to give Griff a personal tour, and entertained them with problems caused by the Nomal House’s convoluted structure, and how often guests ‘looking for the bathroom’ ended up in Lord Msrah’s private office in the Underhouse. He completely diverted Griff, and Eluned was glad to sit in the shade and try not think about sweltering carriages.
“Is that the storm or the train?”
Aunt Arianne’s question broke Eluned out of a threatened doze, and she looked over the vivid green valley to discover a bank of black clouds crashing across the sky. But it wasn’t distant thunder they could hear.
“It’s a Dragon!”
Bad humour entirely forgotten, Griff surged to his feet and raced back to the platform, pelting at full speed to keep pace with the ornate engine steaming to a halt.
There were only three dragon engines in Prytennia—the newest and the best, and beautifully constructed in honour of the three dragons who slept beneath the land. Eluned and Eleri couldn’t resist chasing Griff down and joining him in admiring the beautiful flowing lines of the engine, all black and silver in honour of the Sulevia Seolfor, who tended the dragons and could draw on their pale fire.
“Why is it Nimelleth?” Griff shouted, over the hiss of venting steam. “Shouldn’t it be the Dragon of the South?”
Despite the heat of the day, they crowded around the heavy engine and Eleri, as usual, somehow communicated a technical interest to the driver and won them a brief invitation into the dragon’s head to admire the boiler: fulquus-powered rather than using coal.
“…swapped stokers for a guard,” the driver was saying, when Eluned followed Griff and their sister, and the man who had lent a hand to haul them up patted the twin guns at his belt.
“Is it true the new engines won’t use steam at all?” Eleri asked. “Or fulgite?”
“The short-haul ones servicing London won’t,” the driver agreed, swiping a handkerchief across her ruddy face. “The ones they’re digging tunnels for will run on special charged tracks. Though if you followed the line back, you’d still find steam and coal behind the power. It’s simply the delivery that will be different.”
“Less easily stolen,” said the guard, with a glance toward the heavily-reinforced hatch that shielded the train’s fulgite.
“Have you been raided?” Eluned asked, eyeing the man’s weaponry with interest.
“Not yet the Dragons. But the exchange stations where we swap out our spent fulgite are having some fine and exciting nights.”
“Best get to your compartment,” the driver advised. “This is only a short stop. You’ll see London as the sun sets.”
Reluctantly they clambered down and peered along the length of the train for any glimpse of Aunt Arianne. No sign.
“Through-way carriages,” Eleri said, pleased. “We won’t be stuck in the one compartment.”
Before they could clamber into the nearest carriage, the tall Dem Carstairs emerged from the farthest and beckoned, and they raced all the way down again. He laughed as they panted up.
“The cooling-down exercise seems to have been wasted. Though the rain should make up the difference. Pile on, pile on, before you’re left behind. I shall hope to see you again, for a tour in more pleasant weather.”
As Griff and Eleri obeyed, Eluned paused to hold out her hand, because she would not let herself be rude, no matter how daunted she happened to be. “Thank you for the lunch.”
“My pleasure.” He took her hand and bowed over it, even though it was her left and that usually caused at least a moment’s hesitation. Then, lowering his voice, he added: “Your Aunt appears determined not to show it, but she suffered a very violent and painful attack, one that nearly took her life. Look after her.”
He handed Eluned up before she could properly react, as the guard came along to close the door.