But at Madame Lefoux’s summoning gesture, she wandered into their private boudoir and, in answer to her friend’s polite inquiry as to her health, said, “As it turned out, it was Floote.”
Genevieve looked confused.
Ivy gasped and said, “But he was here . Floote was here, looking for you. We sent him down the Nile after you. I thought… Oh, silly me, he isn’t with you? I thought he would have caught up. Oh, I don’t know what I thought.”
Even that didn’t pull Alexia back to the here and now. “Floote was looking for me? He probably wanted to explain himself.”
Madame Lefoux pressed for details. “Explain what, exactly, Alexia?”
“Oh, you know, the God-Breaker Plague. Killing Dubh. That kind of thing.” Alexia tossed Genevieve the little stack of papyrus papers from the aethographor station. “Biffy says…” Alexia trailed off, standing quietly while Madame Lefoux read over the notes.
Ivy said, “Oh, Alexia, do sit down!”
“Oh, should I?” Alexia sat.
Prudence came running in. “Mama!”
Alexia didn’t look up.
The little girl grabbed at her hand. “Mama, bad men! Back.”
“Oh, yes? Did you hide under the bed again?”
“Yes!”
The nursemaid came in, clutching Percy to her trembling breast. “They came back, Mrs. Tunstell! They came back!”
Ivy stood, face pale, clutching at her throat with both hands. “Oh, heavens. Percy, is he all right?”
“Yes, madam. Yes.” The nursemaid passed over the redheaded infant to Ivy’s clutching embrace. Percy, unperturbed, burped contentedly.
“See,” said Prudence, still trying to get her mother’s attention.
“Yes, dear, very wise. Hiding under the bed, good girl.” Alexia was busy staring off into space.
“Mama, see!” Prudence was waving something in front of her mother’s face.
Madame Lefoux took it from her gently. It was a roll of heavy papyrus tied with cord. The inventor unwound it and read the missive aloud.
“ ‘Send Lady Maccon for the baby, alone. Tonight, after sunset.’ ” She added, “And they provide an address.”
“Oh, Primrose!” Ivy burst into floods of tears.
Alexia said, “I suppose they were waiting for me to return.”
“Do you think they wanted you all along?” Madame Lefoux looked upset.
Alexia blinked. She felt as though her brain were moving like a snail—a real snail, slow and slimy. “That’s possible, but then, they kidnapped the wrong infant, didn’t they?”
The Frenchwoman frowned in deep thought. “Yes, I suppose they did. What if that’s it? What if they were after Prudence? What if they are taking you as a substitute? What if they still think they have Prudence, not Primrose?”
Alexia was already standing and wandering toward the door, her footsteps slow and measured.
“Where are you going?”
“It’s after sunset,” said Lady Maccon, as though it were perfectly obvious.
“But, Alexia, be sensible. You can’t simply trot to their orders!”
“Why not? If it returns Primrose to us?”
Ivy, trembling, could not speak. She looked back and forth between Alexia and the Frenchwoman. Her hat, a mushroom-puff turban affair with a peacock-style fan of feathers out the back, quivered with a surfeit of emotion.
“It could be dangerous!” protested Madame Lefoux.
“It’s always dangerous,” replied Lady Maccon flatly.
“Alexia, don’t be a peewit! You can’t want to die. You’re not one for melodrama. Conall is gone . You have to keep on going without him.”
“I am going. I’m going right out to find the kidnappers and retrieve Primrose.”
“That’s not what I meant! What about Prudence? She needs her mother.”
“She has Lord Akeldama.”
“That’s not quite the same thing.”
“No, it’s better—mother and father all rolled into one attractive package, and he doesn’t look to be dying anytime soon.”
“Oh, goodness, Alexia, please, wait. We must talk about this, devise a plan.”
Alexia paused, not really thinking out her next maneuver.
The hotel clerk came in to the parlor at that moment.
He approached Genevieve. “Mr. Lefoux? There is a gentleman for you. A Mr. Naville. Claims he has some important information to impart.”
Genevieve rose and brushed past Lady Maccon. “Just wait a few minutes, please, Alexia?”
Alexia merely stood, unresponsive. She watched as the Frenchwoman strode across the reception room to a small gaggle of gentlemen. One of them was very young. Another was carrying a leather case stamped with the image of an octopus. She watched Madame Lefoux tilt her head, lift up her short hair, and pull down her cravat and collar, exposing the back of her neck. She was showing them her octopus tattoo. Alexia’s brain said, Those are members of the Order of the Brass Octopus . Her practical side said, I hope she doesn’t tell them about the preternatural mummies . There will be a race to the bodies, to use them in munitions, to shift the balance against immortals . Her even more practical side remembered that there were men dressed in white willing to defend those mummies to the death. Her husband’s death.
The rest of her kept walking, in defiance of Genevieve’s request. She had her parasol hanging from its chatelaine at her waist. She had the address of the location on a scrap of paper. She moved across the reception room and out into the street, Genevieve unaware of her movements.
There Alexia hailed a donkey boy and told him the address. The boy nodded eagerly. With very little effort at all, she climbed astride, the boy yelled to his creature in Arabic, and they started forward.
The donkey took her into an unfamiliar sector of the city, a sad and abandoned-looking structure behind the customs house. She slid off the animal and paid the boy generously, sending him away when he would have waited. She climbed the step and pushed through the reed mats of the doorway into what looked to be some kind of warehouse, possibly for bananas, if the sweet smell was to be believed.
“Come in, Lady Maccon,” said a polite, slightly accented voice out of the dim echoing interior.
With a flitter of speed customary to the breed, the vampire was right up next to her, almost too close, showing his fangs.
“Good evening, Chancellor Neshi.”
“You are alone.”
“As you see.”
“Good. You will explain to me why the child isn’t working.”
“First let me see that Primrose is safe.”
“You thought I would bring her here? Oh, no, she is left behind, and she is safe. But I thought the abomination’s name was Prudence? You English and your many names.”
“It is Prudence. Did you want my daughter? You got the wrong child.”
The chancellor reeled back and blinked at her. “I did?”
“You did. You got my friend’s baby. She has not been happy about that.”
“Not the abomination?”
“Not the abomination.”
There was a long pause.
“So might we have her back, then?” Alexia asked.
The vampire went from confused, to angry, to resolved. “No. If I cannot use the abomination, I will use you. She cannot be let to suffer any longer.”
“Is this about Queen Matakara?”
“Of course.”
“Or should I say Queen Hatshepsut?”
“To use that name, you should say King Hatshepsut.”
“What does your queen want with my daughter?”
“She wants a solution. An easy solution. One that could be smuggled in and then back out with none of the others noticing. But, no, this had to be difficult. There had to be two black-haired English babies, and we got the wrong one. Now I am stuck with you.”
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