Miss Sekhmet shook herself, like a dog after a swim, her thick golden fur silvered in the moonlight.

With instinct dampened and safety assured, Rue realised that she, too, had felt it lift. The numbing oppression that surrounded her since they entered Egypt was gone.

They were outside of the God-Breaker Plague.

FIFTEEN

Coal and Consequences

It took them another full day of floating to meet the Nile again where she bent, eastwards this time, below the tiny Nubian village of Abu Hammad. There the dervish met them with a porcupine of bristling guns. Rue had no interest in encountering those whirling automated cannons. They gave the town a respectably high float-over.

Several miles upstream, the Nile narrowed, digging out a deep undulating blackness with sheer cliffs to either side. Miss Sekhmet scented the air, pronounced it safe, and they dipped down to the river to take on boiler water.

At Quesnel’s request and Spoo’s big eyes, Rue allowed the crew a short swim. They deserved some little luxury. Rue envied them their delighted splashing, but it was beneath the dignity of a captain, let alone a lady, to submerge herself in water. That was assuming Rue could swim, which she could not. In fact, Rue had never been a great bather of any kind. There was something about being surrounded by water that made her feel dulled, half her senses cut off from the world, rather like the God-Breaker Plague. She preferred a shower, although rarely available, or a sponge bath.

Quesnel, who had no dignity, joined the crew. He kept his smalls on, although the way the cloth fairly stuck to everything, he might as well not have. It seemed more scandalous than nudity. You’d think, since she’d seen it all already, Rue could pull her eyes away. But she was hypnotised watching him cavort about, tossing Spoo and Virgil up into the air. The youngsters shrieked in delight.

“Lovely.” Tasherit came to watch. She shared Rue’s abhorrence of bathing.

She was shrouded in robes to protect her from sunlight, wearing a hat and carrying one of Prim’s surviving parasols. She looked tired. Were she the type to obey, Rue would have ordered her back to her quarters to sleep the day away like a respectable immortal.

Orders being wasted on cats, Rue said instead, “I didn’t think you favoured men.”

“I make exceptions. However, in this instance, I wasn’t looking at your pet. See, there?” The werecat pointed to where Primrose joined the bathers.

Prim was in a full swimming costume, navy blue with white piping. She was a darn good swimmer for an aristocrat, as was Percy, who paddled next to his sister in a striped costume of white and red contrasting with his hair. Incongruously, he wore a top hat as he bobbed about.

“Oh, sir.” Virgil was distracted from his play into noticing his master. “This is the one time you are supposed to leave off your hat!”

Percy only floated by, looking dignified and pleased with life. Rue would never have thought Percival Tunstell fond of a nice swim. Funny, she had known the twins her whole life. When had they become sporty?

Primrose completed her exercise and went to paddle in the shallows, retrieving a wide-brimmed straw hat. Even damp she was pretty as a picture, her waist enviably small without a corset. Rue sighed. She’d never have Prim’s figure, not without giving up her beloved puff pastry for ever.

Tasherit couldn’t take her eyes off the girl.

“She’s not ready for you.” Rue wanted to urge caution without discouraging too much.

“Can’t help chasing. It’s my nature.”

Rue grinned. “I think perhaps you are old enough to control your nature, should you really wish it. Admit it, you like chasing.”

“It’s been decades since I’ve been this intrigued.”

“Well, tread lightly.” Rue wondered if she ought to stop this conversation. Primrose was her dearest friend; she didn’t want to say anything that would betray that friendship.

“That, too, is in my nature.” The werelioness smiled. Her liquid brown eyes gleamed when Prim laughed at Quesnel and Spoo’s antics. “I’m patient.”

“You’ll have to be.”

“She’s special.”

“I know.”

“He’s special, too.” They both knew the werecat was talking about Quesnel.

“Don’t matchmake me, old godling.”

The werelioness wheezed out a laugh. “Mortals! Everything is fuss and bother with you.”

At that, Rue decided it was time to hurry everyone back aboard.

Rue watched Quesnel that evening at dinner, more than usual. He was solicitous of Anitra, even attentive. He also took great care of Floote. Really, Quesnel flirted with everyone, except maybe Percy. He’d probably flirt with Percy if they hadn’t been perennially at odds over the finer points of academic publication theory.

After dinner, when the gentlemen would have gone to partake of brandy on one side of the deck while the ladies drank sherry on the other, Rue put a hand on Quesnel’s arm.

“A private word, Mr Lefoux, if you would be so kind?”

The others looked curious but no one was brave enough to insist on a chaperone.

Quesnel followed Rue belowdecks to the stateroom.

Rue didn’t know what he was expecting, but from his expression it wasn’t what she asked. “Quesnel, have you figured out a way to determine excess soul?”

His answer was flat, with no artifice to it, almost shocked. “No. Of course not.”

Rue let out a breath of profound relief. “Oh good. Because a whole lot of people would want to kill us if we had that technology on board.”