“Boy, are you alive?”

Felix blinked at him in genuine surprise. Perhaps it was true and he had never fully believed in the intimacy between his father’s secret society and the criminal element. Here, however, the duke had come popping out of a flywayman craft. He was either their hostage or their accomplice. And he had not wanted his son to know, or he would have been the one to contact them.

Felix seemed startled enough to forget that he had been shot, or perhaps to think it slightly less important and put on a brave face.

“Father? What are you doing here?” he asked, tremulously.

“Oh, no, no. What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in school.”

“Technically,” answered Felix, “I’m supposed to be at a ball. Remember, I wrote you of the invitation?”

“Ah, yes, some two-bit country gentry. Odd acquaintance to cultivate, but you thought the father’s business interests valuable to the cause.”

Sophronia blinked, tempted to doubt all Felix’s attentions. Had he been courting her all along because of something Papa was up to in civil service? Then she realized—hoped, really—that Felix must have said this to get permission to attend the masquerade.

“Yes, but things change, as they do. It became necessary to borrow a train and head north.”

“Oh, it did, did it?” The duke did not look convinced. “And you interfered with our business why, exactly?”

“I didn’t know, Father. We took this train off a handful of drones.”

Sophronia risked a small squeeze of warning in the guise of checking his bandages: Please don’t tell the duke too much!

Felix ignored her and went on, “And they happened to be at a station near the ball, and headed in the right direction. So we took their train and bumped them off.”

The duke nodded. “And what happened at that ball?”

Felix frowned at this sudden change of topic. “Well, the two-bit country gentleman, I don’t think he’ll be all that useful.”

“No, I mean to say, boy, did anything unusual occur?”

“You mean the mechanical failure in all the papers?”

“Ah, so you read about it. Did you see it in action?”

Felix came over suddenly quite still and suspicious. “Father, what are you up to? What’s going on? Did you…? Was it…?” He trailed off.

But Sophronia put all the pieces together at that moment. The Picklemen had chosen her brother’s party on purpose because they knew Felix would be there. They knew he would give them a full report if asked. Perhaps they hadn’t known how wide-reaching the effect would be, or that the papers would pick it up. Or perhaps they had run that test again in the Oxford area, to see what would happen. But Felix’s father, these flywaymen, they were responsible for all of it. And the drones, Monique and the train, they had been tracking them: gathering data, staying out of the way. Sophronia and her band had come in and messed everything up.

The train hadn’t fortuitously been at Wootton Bassett, and the mechanicals hadn’t spontaneously chosen the Temminnicks for “Rule, Britannia!” As Lady Linette always said, there were no coincidences, certainly not with Picklemen, simply an endless stream of increased probability.

Because she wanted confirmation, and because she hoped Duke Golborne thought her one of Felix’s Piston cronies and thus safe, Sophronia asked, “You caused that entertaining malfunction, didn’t you, my lord?”

The duke focused his attention on her. And because he, too, had training, he didn’t give her the outright answer she wanted. He wasn’t loose lipped enough, or he didn’t have that kind of hubris. “Who are you? You’re not one of my boy’s regular associates. You do look awfully familiar, though.”

Sophronia said, “I have that kind of face.”

The duke’s eyes turned to Sidheag and the prostrate Dimity. Bumbersnoot had righted himself and was nosing her in the side in a worried manner. “None of your usual companions, boy,” he said suspiciously. “Are they even Pistons? You know I don’t like you fraternizing with the hoi polloi of the aristocracy.” He seemed genuinely angry about it; did he go so far as to control Felix’s friendships? How awful for Felix, thought Sophronia, briefly distracted from concerns over her immediate welfare.

Stubby stepped in at this juncture. “Sir, there is definitely something funny about those boys. Particularly that one.” He pointed at Dimity.

The duke glanced again at her fallen form. “That one is the least of my concerns—he’s got himself a mechanimal. He has all the right connections. No, it’s these other two I don’t know.”

Sidheag said, “I’m Scottish,” as if that would explain everything.

The duke nodded, as if it did. “Yes, well, we can’t all be from the right side of the country. Would I know your family?”

Sidheag looked uncomfortable. The duke was probably aware of the Kingair scandal. She scrabbled for the right kind of family to call her own, but Scotland was a funny place, progressive as a rule, mostly not in favor of the conservative referendum. So she dodged the question. “Probably not, Your Grace.”

That didn’t mollify him, since he had practically demanded an introduction. He turned wrathful eyes on Sophronia. “And you, little man?”

Sophronia said, “I’m one of those two-bit country gentry, Your Grace.” She bowed. “Mr. Temminnick, at your service.”

At that precise moment, Monique decided to start screaming.

The duke looked at his son. “And what exactly is that?”

“One of the vampire drones. We kept her for collateral,” explained Felix, happy for a change of subject.

“Is she always that noisy? Seems hardly worth the bother.”

Sophronia was growing uncomfortable with this encounter. It was getting beyond her control. She wandered over, with the pretext of checking on Dimity. Dimity seemed perfectly fine, although deep in her faint.

Sophronia pulled out her smelling salts.

Dimity sneezed herself awake.

“What?” she sputtered.

“You fainted and Felix’s father, the duke, has turned up.”

“Oh, dear,” said Dimity, accurately.

“Felix is well, thank you for asking, a scrape to the leg.”

“Oh, good.”

“But I think it is time we extracted ourselves.”

Dimity nodded. “And?”

“I’m sending you back to the train, with the pretext that you aren’t well. Tell Soap he needs to charge the dirigible.”

“What?”

“Oh, keep your voice down, do. They won’t let us actually crash. That ship must be full of some very valuable equipment. Just tell him to head at it full throttle.”

Dimity nodded and stood shakily.

Sophronia helped her up, all solicitation. She took Bumbersnoot for herself. If the mechanimal was going to confer credence, she wanted to keep him with her.

Dimity began trudging back toward the locomotive.

The flywayman with the gun, Shaggy, his face welted from where Duke Golborne had struck him, was having none of it. “Oh, no you don’t, young master!”

Dimity froze, then turned slowly back.

“He needs to recuperate,” objected Sophronia. “I suggested he return to the train for a snifter.”