“This is obviously some shared delusion of ability. Unless”—Felix paused—“you haven’t been taught train stealing at Mademoiselle Geraldine’s, have you?”

“Not as such,” admitted Sophronia, with a grin. She was enjoying Felix’s discomfort. He so rarely got riled over anything, it was a pleasure to see his beautifully sullen face animated, even if that animation was frustration.

Felix ran his hands through his dark hair, sounding like a resigned maiden aunt. “It’ll all end in tears and coal dust, you see if it doesn’t.”

“Well, since we’ve already started, might as well continue.” Sophronia led her little band over the top of the passenger carriage toward the aetherographic transmitter.

They stopped before the coupler.

“Sidheag, Soap, and I will take the engine room. Felix and Dimity, you’re on the drone in that transmitter.” She overrode Felix’s protests. “Try not to kill him and try not to damage the machine. Both could be valuable. Your target is the crystalline valve. Get Bumbersnoot to eat it. Then if everything goes wrong, at least we have the one key piece of the puzzle, and evidence.”

“Has she always been this bossy?” Felix asked Dimity.

“Imagine being her best friend,” replied Dimity.

“Crikey.”

“Dimity, am I really? That’s so sweet.” Sophronia was distracted from bossiness by affection. She thought of Dimity as her best friend, but they had never talked about it, and she’d no idea Dimity felt the same. After all, Dimity was more popular and gregarious, and had lots more friends than Sophronia. Possibly because she wasn’t so bossy.

“Of course. Sorry, Sidheag,” Dimity answered with a grin.

Sidheag made a face. “You two are attached at the hip, everyone knows that.”

To Felix, Sophronia said, “I only get bossy when it’s important. Speaking of which, you should let Dimity go first, she has more training. Besides, and I do apologize, Dimity, but the shock value alone of your outlandish appearance might give you the edge.”

Dimity’s resigned expression, combined with the oddball clothing, gave her a marked resemblance to her brother in his younger, portlier days.

“Definitely bossy,” said Felix, resigned.

“Oh, hush up, you like it,” said Sophronia.

Felix grabbed her hand, and before she could protest, pressed a swift kiss to her arm above the hurlie. It was shockingly forward and very daring. Of course, Sophronia was delighted.

“I do,” he murmured against her skin, letting her go just before she would have felt it necessary to jerk away.

Soap hissed a little, like an offended cat.

Dimity clasped her hands together. “Don’t worry, Sophronia, I’ll look after him for you.”

“Oh, I say,” huffed Felix, glaring doubtfully at Dimity.

So they left Felix crouched behind Dimity, ready to climb down and enter the freight carriage. They could only pray the drone had no gun. Sophronia hated to think her friends were going into danger on her orders. The price of bossiness, she thought.

But she had to trust in Dimity’s abilities; it needed to be a coordinated attack. So she led the other two onward, over the two passenger coaches, hopefully empty, and then over the tender to the cab. The cab had open doorways on both sides. She crouched on the right and Soap on the left, ready to swing down and in. Sidheag held position on the roof behind them, to follow as soon as possible, whichever side seemed necessary.

Sophronia waved her arm back at Dimity.

Her friend signaled acknowledgment. Then Dimity and Felix disappeared from sight.

Sophronia looked over and was about to nod to Soap when he pointed up. Ahead and above them, through a break in the clouds, was that same dirigible. The one Soap had spotted before. No time to think about that. Sophronia spread her hands in mystification and then nodded at him, once.

They each crossed their own arms, grabbing on to the top edge of the cab roof, then swinging out and twisting around feet first through the doorway to land inside the cab proper. Sophronia, trained in acrobatic execution, had had ample opportunity to practice as she climbed about the school. In trousers, it was easy as buttered crumpets. She had no idea why Soap knew the maneuver, but sooties were universally fit and Soap very athletic. He did get a bit tangled up in the doorframe, being taller than she, so his landing was one knee down.

A good thing, too, for Monique had taken a swing at him with a wicked-looking dagger. Her arm swooshed right over his head.

The driver with the huge mustache, who happened to be near Sophronia, was concentrating on the controls and only half noticed the intruders. It helped that the noise was deafening so close to the engine—the hiss of steam and roar from the firebox combined with clanging cables and pistons.

Monique hadn’t noticed Sophronia yet. Her attention was on Soap.

Sophronia wasn’t really a killer. She’d never particularly enjoyed the assassination part of her lessons, but she couldn’t have the driver messing things up, either. So she simply tapped the man on the arm. “Pardon me, sir?”

“Ho, there, lad, what are you doing…?”

“I do apologize, but we require the use of your train.”

“You what?”

Sophronia grinned at him, very cheeky, in the meantime sliding around to his other side so he was near the open door and she was not.

He was very confused.

Meanwhile, behind them, Monique and Soap grappled, Monique hurling some very unladylike profanity at the sootie—what had she been learning among vampires?—and telling him he had no right, and to keep his dirty, nasty guttersnipe hands off her!