“Like we haven’t been keeping stuff back from her? How does that make her an illusion?”
Eluned, who had slept badly thanks to a collection of chafed patches of skin, shrugged and regretted it. Their aunt, finishing arrangements for their baggage to be called for, smiled brightly at their arrival and led them outside, lowering her veil. Only the speed with which she was getting things done betrayed any hint that she might be worried.
“Cab, dama?”
“Please.”
“May we have that autocarriage, instead of a hummingbird?” Eleri asked immediately, pointing to the single automaton-drawn carriage standing behind two more modern self-propelled vehicles.
“Good choice,” the hotel doorman said. “No-one knows London better than Mama Lu.” He made a complicated beckoning gesture, and the autocarriage drew out of line.
Eluned, who preferred hummingbirds both for their speed and relative quiet, hid her sigh and reflected that at least the open carriage was wide and looked comfortably sprung, unlike many of the boxy little hummingbirds. A plump woman wearing a straw hat decorated with flowers was sitting at the controls, and nodded them in cheerfully.
The automaton—for Eleri had explained on past occasions that only a single device was involved, even though it looked like the front half of two horses—was quite detailed: the two proud metal necks could lift and turn, and the ears even swivelled. The legs, hooves shod neatly in vulcanised rubber booties, had a fine stepping movement, and the thing was obviously better at making turns than the last couple of autocarriages Eluned had seen.
Unlike Eluned, Eleri never had the slightest difficulty striking up conversations with strangers, and immediately asked if she could sit up front.
“If you like, duck,” the driver replied, obligingly making room on her bench. “Call me Mama Lu. Where can I take you?”
“Do you know Vine Street, Lamhythe?” Aunt Arianne asked, tugging at her veil again even though the sun was still quite low.
“That I do.” Mama Lu touched her own hat in response, her round and amiable face lighting with curiosity before she turned to answer Eleri’s questions about the controls.
Eluned settled down next to her aunt with a sigh, and inched a finger beneath the strap that crossed her shoulder. No matter how she shifted it, the leather would slide back to wear against the raw spots. And yet she hadn’t left it off, despite Eleri and Griff both making pointed remarks. It was true that she was stared at no less when wearing such an obviously artificial arm, but she could do more.
The autocarriage started off, drawn effortlessly by its four front hooves, and Eluned caught at Griff’s shirt as he stood to better peer into the great open pit next to Paddington Station, where part of the new underground track was being laid.
“Think of it, Ned,” he said, sitting down as they picked up speed. “Miles of it, everywhere underneath us. There’s entire brickworks dedicated to the project.” Sitting in the rear-facing seat, he slewed around to address the cab driver. “Will you learn to drive a train instead, when people can get anywhere in London by going underground?”
“Won’t happen, duck. Even with the clever digging machines, there’s years upon years of construction to go, and when there’s a station under every part of London, there’ll still be gaps in between them. Some folk wouldn’t walk to the end of the street, if they could help it.”
Eluned tilted her head back to take in the red brick buildings, the spinning blades driving household dynamos, the golden cap of the nearest pyramid, and a minor fleet of airships lifting into the blue vault of sky. “Look, the new Wingbird type!”
“They’re getting off ahead of the morning windstorm,” the driver said. “Hold on, this turn’s a sharp one.”
The intersection was frenetically busy, with hummingbirds, a bus, and two big haulers all converging, but Mama Lu took them through it at a smart pace. As they swung sharply onto a main road, Eluned’s eyes widened as she spotted a girl with a sharply pointed face raised up on a seat above a single middle-sized wheel in the centre of three tiny wheels on extended legs that flexed and bent as she turned. The curious machine’s engine made a sound like a frantically purring kitten.
The girl, alertly watching the traffic, caught Eluned looking and spun effortlessly to match pace with the autocarriage.
“Newspaper, damini?”
“That—what is that called?” Eleri’s tone matched Eluned’s own excitement.
“Not seen a dragonfly before? Out of Nathaner’s Workshop. Sweet, yes?” The girl reached out adroitly to accept the coin Aunt Arianne was holding out to her, and fished into metal panniers built into her seat. “Daily Yell?”
“Courant.”
Eluned glanced at her aunt, and before the girl could zip off pushed herself to say: “How fast is that thing? Could you go buy something and come back before we get too far?”
“That would depend on what it is,” the girl replied, with a wide grin.
“Umbrella. Or parasol.”
“Not a problem.”
“I’ll take them around the Circus, Sun Li Sen,” their driver said, as Aunt Arianne silently reopened her purse. “Don’t drag your heels.”
“No, Grandmother.” The girl bowed her head hastily to their driver, took the new coin, and zoomed away.
“She’s your granddaughter?” Griff asked, still trying to look in every direction at once as they passed a thousand fascinations.
“One of them.” Mama Lu clicked her tongue. “She’ll go far, little minx.”
Eluned eyed her aunt, who had tucked her purse away and now unfolded the paper, holding it up so it blocked the slanting light of early morning.
“Well spotted,” Aunt Arianne murmured.
“At first I thought you were worried about running out of time, but you wanted to get there before the sun was too far up, right?”
“Sunlight seems much harder to deal with than lamplight. As for running out of time, according to Lord Msrah I should have a couple of days before I’m in real danger. Besides, from what I’ve seen of Dem Makepeace, he’s likely to not be home, or be conveniently out of town, purely for the entertainment value of keeping me waiting.”
This prompted a rich and unexpected chuckle from their driver. “You four are heading for Forest House?”
“If that’s number three Vine Street.” Aunt Arianne lowered her paper a little, then hastily raised it back up. “You know the place?”
“The House of the Keeper of the Deep Grove? I should think so.”
This sounded promising. Aunt Arianne’s description of her new vampire had made it seem like they’d be stuck in a cellar with barely room to turn around.
“So Dem Makepeace is a vampire and a dryw?” Griff asked.
“He’s no seer.” Mama Lu laughed again. “Vampire, yes, and technically the true Keeper of the Deep Grove, but he has nothing to do with the Order of the Oak, and has long appointed someone else to look after Forest House. It’s stood empty these past eight years, since Dama Fulbright passed. It’s good to learn he’s found another Keeper.”
Eluned glanced at Aunt Arianne, but the veil made it impossible to read any reaction. Still, she had to be pleased, as Eleri and Griff so obviously were, because ‘the House of the Keeper’ would maybe have room for a workshop, and perhaps be an interesting building in itself, and surely this Deep Grove would offer a wealth of the shapes and forms that Eluned so liked to work with. A garden, unlikely to be as large as the one at Sheerside House, but more than the postage stamp they’d had back in Caerlleon.