There was only Handle.
“What’s happening?” she whispered around the pain.
Handle attempted to prop her up against a pouf. She was still on the floor, mind you, but he was aiming for a more refined position. Sophronia managed it. Once modestly upright, she noticed a prone body on an improvised couch made of two chairs and a hassock wedged together.
“Who’s that?”
“The headmistress was also hurt pretty bad. Took a bullet to the calf. I brought her in. The vampire’s been sleeping in the potting shed, over there.” Handle gestured to Sister Mattie’s large wardrobe, which had been converted to a potting shed long before Sophronia’s time.
“Oh, dear,” said Sophronia. “I suppose you will have to pop my shoulder back in, then.”
“What’s that, miss?”
“It’s out of the socket. We learned about it in a lesson on basic field medicinals and mock injuries. You have to put it back in for me. My nose, too, if possible. I’m pretty enough, but a crooked nose won’t ever be fashionable. That’s assuming none of my face cuts need stitches. If I’m scarring, we won’t bother. Might as well have a crooked nose.”
Handle looked sick as she explained, but he’d have to get over it, if the headmistress wasn’t available.
On the other hand, instructing him made Sophronia feel better. She was injured, but she had a plan.
Mademoiselle Geraldine woke up at that moment. She looked hale enough, except her skirts were hiked up in a manner no gentlewoman ought to hike, and there was a large bandage around one calf.
“Miss Temminnick, what do you look like?” was quickly followed by “We gave you up for lost. Now I see we were nearly correct.”
Sophronia was relieved, for Mademoiselle Geraldine could guide poor Handle through the steps of a surgeon’s dance. Fortunately, the headmistress did not flinch away from this duty. Even more fortunately, for Handle’s sake, Sophronia did faint during the shoulder adjustment and stayed fainted for the rest.
She awoke some time later to find her arm braced and bound against her side and her head wrapped. The bandages probably started life as a petticoat and were a bright lavender color with cream lace.
“Ah, good, you’re awake.” Mademoiselle Geraldine was sitting up and drinking…
“Tea?” Sophronia whimpered pathetically. Oh, glorious thing!
Handle, that scruffy angel of mercy, immediately handed her a cup. Sophronia sipped in a reverent manner. She didn’t complain that he’d put in a vast amount of sugar. Being a sootie, he rarely got sugar, and he likely thought he was spoiling her.
The headmistress reported in. “We put the shoulder back in and checked the nose, which wasn’t broken, thank goodness, just askew. You’ll have two black eyes, I’m afraid, and us with no raw meat to apply. None of the cuts were deep, so we dressed them with vinegar and one of Mathilde’s best poultices. They should heal fine. So your career is safe. The sootie boy here did very well.”
Handle was grinning, ear to juglike ear. “I never thought I had the healing touch.”
Mademoiselle Geraldine nodded. “Real skill there. You help get us out of this safe and sound, young man, and I’ll set you on a path to study medicine. You see if I don’t.”
Handle glowed with pleasure at the praise and the thought of a soot-free future.
Sophronia sipped her sweet tea and, much to her surprise, began to cry. Well, sob, really.
“Stop that!” ordered the headmistress. “Your bandages will get damp.”
Sophronia wasn’t certain if it was relief that her face wasn’t worse—she’d never thought herself a particularly vain person—or grief over poor Madame Spetuna. Perhaps it was simply residual emotion from a very trying evening. Or something like joy, at the prospect of one of her sootie friends making himself a good life out of this awful situation. More chance than poor Soap had before the bite.
The thought of Soap seemed to cause her shoulder to ache even worse, which made her cry harder. Which made her hurt more.
“I’m a wreck,” she blubbered. “Oh, this is so embarrassing.”
Handle sidled over and handed her a smudged handkerchief, his face scrunched in sympathy.
Sophronia controlled her emotions by turning on her observational eye. She noticed that Mademoiselle Geraldine had returned the obstructor. Handle had strapped it onto Sophronia’s good wrist. He’d moved the hurlie to that side as well, so both devices were on the same arm. Her sleeve had to be rolled up to compensate. It made her feel lopsided and unfashionable. Then again, what did she care for an exposed wrist? She was bloodied and bound and dressed as a boy anyway.
“What happened?” demanded Mademoiselle Geraldine.
Sophronia told her everything. Including Madame Spetuna’s voluntary spectacular demise. “Why would she do that? I might have been able to rescue her. Instead, I handed her a deadly wicker chicken.” She felt the sickening broiling acid of guilt, familiar since Professor Braithwope’s fall.
Handle gave her a soft bread roll.
Sophronia gummed it gratefully, eating slowly, in tiny bites, sipping the tea in between. It settled her tummy.
Mademoiselle Geraldine looked infinitely sad. “She was a fine intelligencer and a good friend, but she knew the risks. And she knew her duty. You can’t fault her for doing something you would have done in her place. She would have taken as many key agents with her as possible. And it’s likely she saw no possible extraction for herself. Death and glory rather than torture and ignominy. Much alike, you and she. You know, wicker chicken would be a good code name. Suitably innocuous and an ode to her.”
“You can’t rescue them all, miss,” added Handle.
Sophronia recovered enough to say, “Speaking of which, how did you get here, Handle?”
The sootie looked to the headmistress.
Mademoiselle Geraldine explained that Professor Braithwope had ejected two Picklemen out of the pilot’s bubble. Then she had taken a bullet to the leg during their squeak deck liberation. All four were now gone, thrown overboard with guns and ill intentions in tow.
Professor Braithwope had brought the injured headmistress to the rendezvous point and then left to find food, driven to hunger by her bleeding leg. He’d returned with Handle, whom he’d managed to rescue during a chaotic moment in the boiler room and fuzzily determined was necessary to their cause, although he mistakenly identified him as Lady Linette’s stuffed badger. Professor Braithwope safely asleep, Handle had fetched tea. They’d stayed holed up all day, waiting for Sophronia. Also, they needed the vampire’s help to do anything further.
Handle reported that the sooties were fine and in reasonably good spirits, having seen him rescued by the vampire. “None of us have much interaction with old fangs, but if we have anyone on our side, we’re grateful it’s him. After that first attack, we all assumed he’d been killed.”
“Handle,” ordered Mademoiselle Geraldine, “give Sophronia my grenadines. Keep some for yourself, of course, but I won’t be going anywhere soon and she’s got working legs and one good arm.”
Sophronia took a fortifying breath. The tea and food were helping, and Mademoiselle Geraldine was correct. There was work to do as soon as the sun set. Those attack mechanimals hadn’t yet been used. The Picklemen weren’t done. She had to gather her strength. She couldn’t stop now.