Imprudence

Quesnel frowned. “It would save lives. To know beforehand if someone could survive the bite. It would be a miracle.”

“It would also limit the number of people who would petition to be drone or claviger. Society as we know it would collapse. Vampires would have much less blood to draw on and werewolves fewer guards at full moon. Both would have to hire out. The balance of power would shift.”

Quesnel nodded. “It’s not possible to measure the soul, last I heard. Although there is always someone researching it. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Well, I hope I’m not in London when it happens.”

“Why did you think I might, chérie?”

“That preservation tank of yours. You brought it with us on purpose. You brought it because Mr Floote is dying.”

Quesnel didn’t try to deny it. His face shuttered.

“Is he particularly creative? Do you think he has excess soul?”

“Mother says the man always did come up with the most original cravat knots.”

“Is that enough?”

“He expressed a fondness for flower arranging.”

Rue quirked an eyebrow, hoping she looked sardonic.

“He fights as if he were dancing.”

“My grandfather’s valet, my mother’s butler, fights?”

“According to maman, quite beautifully.”

“So the preservation tank is for him. Why?”

“He knows too much.”

Rue narrowed her eyes. “According to whom? Your mother? The OBO? My mother? Someone else? Who are you really working for, Quesnel?”

“I’m working for you. For this ship.”

Rue snorted.

“You don’t trust me at all, do you?”

“Give me one good reason why I should?”

“I can give you ten; my chamber is right down the hall.” He moved towards her.

Rue wanted, very badly, to lean in to those clever hands and that sweet mouth. But he was using both to avoid conversation and she knew it. “Quesnel, I trust you to be very good at what you do, under an engine or a coverlet. And I trust you to take that expertise to the highest bidder, in money or beauty.”

Quesnel put a hand to his chest as though mortally wounded.

Rue gritted her teeth at his flippancy. “Oh for goodness’ sake.”

“You already have your answer, chérie. I’ve given it to you. Think. Who would want a man preserved because he knows too much?”

Rue’s mind clicked over, like a slow but inexorable cog. Who had insisted that Rue put Quesnel to work in engineering? Who knew Quesnel’s patroness of old, when Countess Nadasdy and not Baroness Tunstell had ruled the London hive? Who could afford to invest in a preservation tank – new technology at great expense – on the mere whiff of an old man’s memory?

“Dama,” said Rue. “Blast him. Why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t you?” He’s trying to meddle from afar!

Quesnel gave one of his French shrugs. “It’s morbid, non? Perhaps he was trying to protect your finer sensibilities.”

Rue narrowed her eyes. “Or perhaps Floote knows something Dama wishes me to know. Perhaps this is Dama’s roundabout way of helping, of trying to keep me safe.” She was thinking about her conversations with Floote concerning her mother’s past and all the things he hadn’t told Rue about her grandfather.

Quesnel shrugged again. “Information is vampire currency. I shouldn’t take it as an intentional slight.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“What’s that supposed to imply?”

Rue examined the world through her eyelids for a moment. Her nerves hummed, from anger, or discovery, or Quesnel’s proximity it was hard to determine which. Unable to cope with any of it, she left the room.

They abandoned the Nile for the desert once more. At one point they saw, far away in the rocky sands to the west, the black smoke of a nomadic centacopper. Powerful, town-carrying, mechanical turtles of the great empty, those major feats of engineering could crawl over the desert for weeks on little fuel and less water. Quesnel came up from engineering at the first word of a sighting and kept his amplified glassicals trained for as long as he could.

“I’ve always wanted to see one up close.” He seemed wistful. Almost subdued.

Rue was briefly tempted to hare off in pursuit of the centacopper; perhaps then Quesnel would smile again. But she was not so foolish. If only, she thought, we really were a ship of exploration and not a ship near constantly under siege.

“See?” Primrose also noticed Quesnel’s odd behaviour, later at supper. He had said only the nicest and most politic things and then left early. “Happy now?”

Rue narrowed yellow eyes at her friend and mouthed, “Not now.” Anything Prim had to say to her in that particular tone of voice was best kept for private chambers.

They retreated there as soon as politeness allowed.

“Out with it.” Rue faced her demons as soon as they were alone in Prim’s room.

“You’ve broken that boy’s heart.” Primrose was getting rather dramatic, even for Aunt Ivy’s daughter.

Rue let out a burst of surprised laughter.

Primrose was not amused. “Oh, stop it. What is really going on?”

Rue paused to examine her feelings. What was really going on? Finally she said, before she could stop herself, “I don’t trust him not to break my heart.”