“Hold fast, young persons of quali-tay. Hold fast!” sang out Mademoiselle Geraldine.

“We’re sinking.” Dimity’s round face was pale and she clutched her tassel jet necklace as if it were a talisman she could wish upon.

“Come on.” Sophronia led them to the starboard side of the room, which was now a steep downhill jaunt. The four of them backed up against the wall in the corner furthest from the head table. “Brace yourselves. We’re going down.”

“How do you know?” Pillover quivered in apprehension.

Sophronia tilted her head to where the Pistons had flipped a table on its edge, legs toward the starboard wall, and arranged themselves behind it, barricaded. If the ship continued to tilt, they would be effectively protected from tea party fallout. Except, perhaps, liquid damage.

Part of her wanted to stay with the Pistons, since they obviously knew what was going on. But the rest of her knew that the safest place from falling objects was actually the hallway, if they could only get past the mechanicals. Then again, with gas lines running throughout, if they did crash, the hallways might explode.

The floor was almost at a forty-five-degree angle. Everything that could slide, did. Things upended, and crashed and tumbled about. Several of the young ladies and—it must be admitted—the young gentlemen screamed. The young ladies were more properly padded for sliding, but it made for an undignified sight—ruffled skirts and petticoats, legs kicking about. In a few cases undergarments were visible!

Pillover fainted.

They all ended up bumped and bruised, piled together and leaning up against one another in an extremely intimate crush. As the proximity alarm bells continued to clang, any attempt at politely awkward conversation was impossible.

Mademoiselle Geraldine was looking quite worried.

Sophronia suspected that they were the only ones who realized they were sinking. One of the things about dirigibles, as with all balloon travel, was that without seeing the ground, it was difficult to know when one was falling out of the sky.

That is, of course, until one crashed.

Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality crashed into the moor with an impossibly loud thud. It shuddered in a way that put all previous shakes to shame. Then it rocked back and forth a few times, before ending up beached like a whale on its starboard side.

It was, after all, not designed to land.

No one screamed this time, but there were a number of gasps. A few of the young ladies who were nested near gentlemen of interest fainted delicately in said gentlemen’s direction.

It was a very stately crash. Mademoiselle Geraldine had reason to be proud. True, tea was spilled, and cakes dropped, but general behavior could not be faulted. Even the debuts confined themselves to squeaks of alarm.

“Is anyone injured?” Mademoiselle Geraldine’s voice rang out.

One of the young men had sprained his wrist and a debut had managed to scratch her cheek on a flower arrangement, but otherwise nothing serious. Everyone breathed sighs of relief and began to extract themselves from the pile.

Dimity slapped her brother awake.

They were still trapped in the dining hall. The mechanicals were unaffected by the tilting, since they were hooked into tracks. They could stay blocking the doors no matter what the angle of repose. However, Lady Linette’s voice could be heard ordering them into movement.

Sophronia and her friends remained flattened against the wall, out of the way. Pillover, still pale and shaking, stuck close to Agatha, solicitous of her well-being, or more likely, she was solicitous of his.

Apart from Pillover, her little band was unperturbed by the fact that they had crashed. Except, of course, that they had no idea what exactly had caused the unexpected plummet. Falling out of the sky was one thing, but doing so for unknown reasons was quite unacceptable.

Having set the mechanicals back in motion, Lady Linette skidded into the room, teetering on her heeled shoes to lean against the tilt.

“Oh, good, you’re all still here. Mademoiselle Geraldine, is everyone well?”

Mademoiselle Geraldine had collapsed back into her seat at the high table. “It appears so. But, my dear, whatever has happened?”

“Flywaymen,” reported Lady Linette. “We’re grounded, I’m afraid. And we suspect a gas leak on the record-room level, so we must evacuate. Luckily, we drifted back toward Swiffle. We are only a few miles from Bunson’s.”

The teachers moved to inspect the refugees. Sophronia had no doubt there was more to the story, but this was what had been decided was worthy of headmistress and student ears.

Lady Linette began barking orders. “Ladies and visiting gentlemen, please congregate separately by year. Form orderly groups and follow me. We’re going to climb out one of the nearest side balconies and drop to the ground from there. Ladies, grab your wraps and switch to practical shoes, if you have them. Dancing slippers over heels, walking boots over both. I will not have you catching cold or twisting ankles needlessly. Gentlemen, do not forget your hats. This is no lark—everyone is to stay respectable. We are safely landed, such as it is, so there is no cause to lose our sense of propriety.”

Students scrambled about, searching for clothing and dropped objects. It took a few moments to get sorted, but they managed. Many of the more resourceful young ladies pocketed crumpets and other portable nibbles. Some even wrapped up whole cakes in their shawls. Everyone had heard stories about how bad the food was at the boys’ school.

There was disappointment at the precipitous end to the celebration, not to mention the prospect of tromping across a damp moor in dinner slippers, but it was somewhat mitigated by excitement. There was an undercurrent of eagerness among some of the older girls. Preshea positively glowed. A late-night stroll across the moor might be utterly unpleasant, but it was an opportunity for liaison unprecedented by a mere tea party. After all, they were Geraldine’s girls, always eager for a bit of peril. And this, it could not be denied, was shaping up to be a most perilous evening.

Sophronia’s mind was calculating. She couldn’t accept that flywaymen would attack for no other reason than to crash the airship. She would wager Dimity’s jet necklace that they were being grounded for a specific purpose, and that the flywaymen—if indeed it was them—were under orders from the Picklemen. Sophronia had not forgotten that there were already Picklemen on board.

She had, however, forgotten Professor Braithwope.

EVACUATION SITUATION

Professor Braithwope came running in, mustache aquiver. He was still wearing full evening garb, but over it he had donned a yellow brocade banyan and sleeping cap. In one hand he clutched his knitting, and in the other a very special crossbow. He was quite absentminded about holding it, as though the crossbow were a stray profiterole that had caught on his sleeve. Sophronia had seen that miniature crossbow only once before, when she first arrived at the school. It shot a kind of targeting bolt, upon which the soldier mechanicals aimed their cannons. She had thought such an important weapon would be removed from the vampire’s possession the moment his tether snapped. But for some reason he still had it, which meant the school had been unprotected during the previous battle.

He’s been running around with that and the teachers didn’t know where to find him because Dimity and I abandoned our post. Sophronia winced, guilt ridden. Was she responsible for the airship crashing, because she hadn’t stayed to nanny a vampire?