“British. Italian. Egyptian.” The old man looked thoughtful. “I suppose he never did fit in.”

Rue nodded. “Like Mother. Preternaturals find it hard to fit in. I sympathise.”

He raised an eyebrow.

Rue was surprised to find herself saying, “Imagine being the world’s only metanatural.”

“You have Lord Akeldama as guardian.”

“Not any more. I reached my majority.”

His eyes narrowed. “Have you indeed. I am getting old.”

“And Paw lost the pack.”

“Inevitable, of course.”

“So I don’t belong anywhere.” I’m supposed to be getting him talking, yet here I am babbling about my problems.

Floote looked around, taking in the ship, decklings chattering away as they shifted from night to day watch. The deck vibrated slightly as the boilers picked up steam. Soon Primrose would appear and herd them to breakfast.

“I think you’ve found your place.”

Rue smiled. “She’s called The Spotted Custard.”

“You always did like ladybugs.”

“I did?”

“Indeed. Your grandfather was fond of crimson, too. His favourite jacket would have matched your balloon to perfection.” The old valet stopped himself before relaying anything further.

It must be hard, thought Rue, to always curtail one’s speech. The elderly folk she knew liked nothing more than to mutter about the past. With Floote it was like pulling essential gears from an ornithopter, painful and possibly resulting in a crash.

“I wager you know all the stories,” she tried to encourage.

He inclined his head. “Which is why I had my dirigibles painted red with black spots.” He closed his eyes then.

“You don’t really want to talk about Grandfather, do you?” Rue put some of Dama’s training to work reading the man’s tone, even as his face remained impassive.

Floote did not respond or move.

“Would you tell me about my mother when she was little? I am beginning to think there is much I do not know. Or did not think to ask. Or heard and forgot.”

The old man smiled like a proud parent. “What do you want to know?”

“What do I need to know?”

“Once upon a time,” he started, clearly humouring her, “the Templars kidnapped Alexia.”

It turned out to be a most entertaining afternoon.

The day passed in sleepy progress. It was gruellingly hot, although the proximity of their companion Drifters cast shadows over the Custard’s deck, alleviating some of the direct sunlight.

“The heads of the families will want to meet with you,” said Anitra. “Discuss plans.”

Rue nodded. “I’m afraid I don’t speak your language.”

Anitra shrugged. “Grandfather and I will interpret for you.”

Rue didn’t like that this put her in a dependent position but she supposed she was already dependent upon these two for this whole arrangement, so she might as well cast herself adrift on the Drifters’ whims.

“About your grandfather…”

“He told you more?”

Rue nodded.

“He’s a good man, loyal. It has cost him much, I think, that loyalty.”

Rue wondered if that loyalty was to her mother or her grandfather or someone else further back in time. He was, after all, ancient. Instead she asked, “The name, Panettone?”

“Is an old one around here. He is not the first to use it. We remember only because we Drifters have dancers of record whose steps stretch back for a thousand years. Panettone is not as old as Goldenrod, but whose name is?”

Rue gave a small smile. “Tasherit perhaps?”

“Ah, that one. Best if she not come to our meeting this evening.”

“Are Drifters not fond of the shape-shifters?”

“It depends entirely on the shape. They ruled the Two Lands as gods for a very long time, before they didn’t. While the fettered of the earth remember only their harshness, we Drifters remember more. The Daughters of Sekhmet left of their own volition. They were not thrown over. They have ever been the hot breath of the desert winds. We make our living by those winds. Your deadly lady, without her shape, unable to prove her true nature, with all that beauty, she would be unsettling, confusing. Confusion is dangerous to negotiations.”

Rue thought about the God-Breaker Plague. Even floating as they did, high above the river, she could feel its oppressiveness – so much like her mother’s touch. It was getting worse the closer they got to Luxor. Taking away the sparkle of opportunity, the possibility of other’s shapes. Rue didn’t like the sensation. Perhaps I truly am the inhuman parasite some have thought me to be. Rue shook off that depressing thought.

“Are you Drifters against the God-Breaker Plague?”

Anitra tilted her head. “How is one to be against reality? It is what it is, a plague of unmaking. It is no political party to protest. We have accepted it but we are Drifters, so we need not live within it. It no longer expands, of course, not now, but it will remain as long as the Creature in the Sands still reaches out into the desert.”

Rue didn’t follow. “If you say so. I suppose it has its uses. If you’re a supernatural who wants to die, for example.” She tried to keep the hurt out of her voice. To lose her father in such a way… it was still difficult to face.

The closer they got to Luxor, the more profound the nullifying feeling of the plague. Rue learned to tolerate it. She spent most of her time standing on the main deck, eyes glued to magnification lenses, watching the Nile below. Paddle ferries chugged along while old-style dahabiyas, with their two triangular sails, nipped in and around them. Closer to the embankments, small reed rafts floated, from which scantily clad young men slapped the water with big sticks in a pretty, if confusing, method of fishing. Or was it crocodile control?