Sophronia turned away, uncomfortable. Bumbersnoot was sitting smugly by Soap’s feet. He’d emitted the prototype and the hurlie. Sophronia retrieved both, stuffing them into pockets.

Dimity said to Monique, “And why haven’t the vampires brought this to the attention of the government?”

“The potentate knows. And the dewan, of course. But what can the Shadow Council do against such a maneuver? Parliament has a daylight hold on operations, and too many MPs are affiliated with Picklemen. Cultivator-rank peons are everywhere. If we made any overt move against them, they would simply deny everything. Intent to commit a crime is not a crime. Besides which, we don’t know exactly what they propose to do with the power. Any public outcry would be greeted with grave suspicion as vampire hysteria. Those supernaturals see plots everywhere, they always do. Secrecy was our only option, and now you’ve botched that up, too. What a plague you are, Sophronia!”

Sophronia said, “You started it.”

Monique rolled her eyes. “You are a child.”

Sophronia asked, “What’s our school’s position been in all this?”

“Is that your loyalty? Are you going to fight for a finishing school, Sophronia, for the rest of your career? It’s not a very wealthy patron.”

“I have other options.” After the Pickleman revelation, Sophronia was looking favorably, once more, on Lord Akeldama. At least she knew he wasn’t a Pickleman!

Monique scoffed. “You are going to have to choose sides. We all do, in the end.”

Sophronia cocked her head. “Are you trying to recruit me?”

“Cut me down and I’ll consider putting in a good word with Countess Nadasdy.”

“Thank you for the thought, but I have a better vampire offer.” Sophronia was, however, in a quandary. What was she going to do now? Even if she told Lord Akeldama, would he put a stop to the Picklemen? The other vampires were doing a piss-poor job of it. Lord Akeldama didn’t seem the type to involve himself directly, which left… well… her.

Monique, having spoken her piece, corked up.

Sidheag and Dimity joined Sophronia in a huddle close to Soap, so they could discuss without being overheard.

“Options?” said Sophronia.

Sidheag said, “You know my wishes.”

“You can’t flog Monique, it’s not done at your age,” said Dimity, presuming as to Sidheag’s feelings.

Sidheag said, “No. Well, yes. A switch tickle would do her some good. But what I meant is that I want to continue on to Scotland. My pack needs me; that is the reason we started this whole thing.”

Sophronia nodded. “Soap, do you think you can make it all the way there on the back tracks without danger?”

“Birmingham and Leeds areas might give us stick. But if necessary we can stash the train and continue on in a more traditional manner.”

“Oh, yes, simply hide a whole train somewhere.” Even Sophronia was doubtful.

Soap smiled cheekily.

Dimity said, “Monique said it’s going to take the Picklemen a while to get all mechanicals installed with the crystalline valves. They must be ramping up valve production.”

Sophronia nodded. “After we get her to Scotland, if we sourced the factory site, we might be able to cause a delay in manufacturing.”

Dimity said, “We do need to get back to school eventually.”

“Can’t do anything substantial from there,” objected Sophronia.

“Do we have to do something substantial? Is this really our problem? What does it matter if Picklemen control mechanicals?” Dimity had already been kidnapped by vampires in the interest of subverting Pickleman interests. She was tetchy on the subject and preferred to remain out of it.

Sophronia said, “Just think, Dimity, what if they controlled the soldier mechanicals in our school? Mechanicals aren’t only servants, they can also be weapons. This is not something we can simply float away from and go back to studying poisoned tea. This is important.”

Dimity sighed. “But we do have time?”

Sophronia walked back to Monique. “What’s your best estimate on how long until the Picklemen control a usable majority of the nation’s mechanicals, given valve production and distribution times?”

Monique glared at her.

“Tell me and I’ll let you down.”

Monique narrowed her eyes. “Six months, a year at the outside. Mine was supposed to be a covert operation tracking their activities, designed to discover just such useful information. You messed it up.”

“Covert? In a train?”

“They didn’t realize, until you came on board.”

“That’s debatable,” Sophronia said, but cut Monique down with her bladed fan.

The blonde girl lowered her arms slowly, wincing from the pain.

Sophronia left Monique’s wrists bound together. Dimity took up a position, watchfully close. They couldn’t let Monique get into anything. However, the girl seemed more concerned with getting her shoulders back in order and making snide remarks about Dimity’s dreadful attire.

For the rest of the afternoon, Sophronia, Soap, and Sidheag concentrated on stoking the boilers and making certain the train kept up a steady pace. There were no switches for a while, so they clipped along smoothly and in relative peace. Soon the full moon rose over the horizon and night descended.

Sophronia distracted herself from thoughts of Felix by wondering if crashing a train into the Picklemen’s operation had managed to stall their dastardly plans all that much, or was it merely a minor inconvenience? Would more mechanicals be singing “Rule, Britannia!” soon or would it be months from now?