Eventually, Rue managed to extract herself. “Mr Lefoux!” she said severely, because she ought.

“How could you?” said the engineer, looking more harried than it suited his customary persona of urbane intellectual meets boyishly charming flirt.

“How could I what?” Rue replied, attempting to make reparations to her hair, which had survived a mad dash across the Maltese Tower but not the enthusiastic regard of her chief engineer.

“Just disappear like that, running off after a raging lioness? I thought we had lost you. I thought you’d end up disembowelled in the nearest warehouse. I was just about to mount a rescue. Spoo was going to come, weren’t you, Spoo?”

“Of course I was,” said Spoo, looking forthright.

“Well, as you can see, you thought wrong. I found the parasol but not the cat.” It was pretty close to the truth of the matter.

Quesnel took a deep breath, rediscovering his devil-may-care self. “Of course you did, mon petit chou, so silly of me to doubt you.” He backed away. Rue wondered which was really the act – his previous concern or his standard behaviour.

“Exactly. Now, is everyone else back on board?” Rue looked over at Prim who was smiling at Rue’s discomfort and Quesnel’s display of concern, and Percy who was frowning down at his book.

Percy ignored her question but Prim glanced at a roster. She had scripted it neatly, like a party invitation, on pale yellow paper.

“Looks like,” said she, running one glove-covered finger down the list and whispering out a count. “Yes, everyone back except you. Shall we get on?”

“By all means,” replied Rue, skirting around Quesnel at a wary distance. The Frenchman ran his hands through his hair distractedly. He then realised he’d knocked off his hat when he’d grabbed Rue and went looking for it. By the time it had been recovered, Spoo having chased it down the gangplank, he was calmness itself, and Rue had made her way up to navigation.

“Professor Tunstell?”

Percy put down his book and took up position without looking at her, the sourpuss.

Rue turned back to Quesnel. “Chief engineer?”

Rue fancied she sensed a certain reluctance to go below, which was ridiculous, of course. Quesnel was simply an emotional Frenchman who had thought her dead and reacted as he would a missing sister.

He gave her a cheery smile. “Delighted you retrieved your parasol, captain.”

Rue looked down at the item in question. “Oh, yes, me too. Gift from my mother. Hideous, of course, but it has sentimental value.”

“Of course it does.” Quesnel looked at the parasol as though it hid some secret and then he disappeared below.

Rue turned to her topside crew, giving Percy the nod. “Prepare for float-off, Professor Tunstell.”

She then put down her parasol and lifted the speaking tube.

Aggie Phinkerlington said, “Yes?” sharply from the other end.

“Mr Lefoux will be with you shortly. Prepare for float-off.”

“You shouldn’t scare him like that, miss,” remonstrated the mechanic.

“I beg your pardon!” Rue was genuinely shocked at a reprimand from an underling.

The greaser did not seem to care that Rue took offence at the intrusive comment, compounding insult with instruction: “Next time, don’t be so impetuous.”

Rue hung up the speaking tube without reply, afraid she might say something unforgivable.

“Well, I say!” said Rue to no one in particular.

Percy looked up from twiddling his knobs and levers. “Gave you a talking to, did she?”

“Are you going to lecture me as well?”

Percy, blast him, took that as permission. “You’re captain of a ship now, Rue. You can’t go tearing off willy-nilly like you did when I was in short pants.”

“Wonderful. You are going to have at me.”

Percy rolled his eyes. “Next time, think about your actions before you take them, all right? You don’t have werewolf or vampire skin to fall back on. Up here in the skies, you’re as mortal as the rest of us.”

Rue bristled. Was he implying that she used her metanatural abilities as a crutch to get out of sticky situations?

Percy went back to preparing for float-off, so Rue turned to her last and best ally, Primrose.

Prim was looking inscrutably placid.

Rue knew that expression all too well. “Really, you too?”

Prim arched one eyebrow.

“Oh, bother,” said Rue. “We’ll talk about this later, after the hops. I do have an excuse.”

“Darling,” said Prim. “You always have an excuse.”

Rue ignored this. “Percy, what’s our course looking like?”

Percy grimaced. “I hate to do it, but our best option is the Tripoli Twister. The Damascus Draw is smoother and more reliable but that’ll add an extra day to the journey, possibly two.”

Rue grinned. After being roundly scolded for taking unnecessary risks, she was obstreperous enough to stay with the theme. “Twister it is. Get the Pudding Probe up and calibrated.”

Percy’s face was blank. “I guessed you’d say that. The Mandenall is already set. Shall we proceed?”

Without further ado The Spotted Custard cast off, wound up her propeller, farted gently, and eased her way out of the Maltese Tower docking port. She glided sedately up into the aetherosphere, a fat satisfied ladybird.

Little differentiated this series of hops from those previously except that they were a great deal more bumpy. The Custard handled the intervening Charybdis currents with aplomb, as did Percy who was now almost comfortable with the procedure. The first two hops went as specified by charts and calculations, but the Tripoli Twister was one of the highest, and one of the hardest to stay the course. They’d need to reef the mainsail for the rough breezes. The decklings were scrambling about belaying ropes and tying items down as if The Spotted Custard were facing a storm. They were all more seasoned floaters than Rue and her officers. A few of them had even run the Twister before. For all of them, the Tripoli Twister was considered a worthy challenge, one that would yield bragging rights once they returned to London. Very few ships dared the Twister for any distance and the Custard was about to try for the full course.