Sophronia wasn’t so foolish as to think her enemy asleep. Still, when Monique spoke, it startled her.
“You’re a queer one, Sophronia. You had Lord Mersey on your string and let him go. Regardless of his political connection, that marriage could have been lucrative. And imagine, if you managed to turn him, you would have gone down in the record books as one of the best Mademoiselle Geraldine ever produced.”
“And lose the love of my husband by driving away his family?”
Monique scoffed. “Love, what has love to do with any of this? If you’re throwing over a peer in favor of that simpering, soot-covered savage, you’re more puerile than even I realized.”
Sophronia went hot about the ears. No one spoke about Soap that way, especially not Monique! Her temper got the better of her.
“How dare you say such a thing. You’re not even fit to lick his boots!” Sophronia hissed, afraid of waking the others.
“Boots! He’s too poor to have any. That boy wouldn’t know how to clean boots, let alone wear them. You’re barely class yourself, Sophronia. Who are your parents, after all? You can’t afford to marry down, and no one can afford to marry a sootie!”
This made Sophronia all the more upset, because it was true. Had she been rejecting Soap all along not because he was ruining their friendship but because of his station in life? “Clap your trap shut, Monique, or I’ll fill it with something disagreeable.” She lashed out, angrier with herself than Monique, but taking it out on her regardless.
Monique snorted. “I’m only offering you a bit of helpful advice.”
“Because we both know you’ve got my best interests at heart? You’re nothing more than a failure, Monique. You couldn’t finish properly, so you ride the coattails of a vampire hive because no decent family would take you for their son.”
Now it was Monique’s turn to gasp in outrage. “I wanted to become a drone! I’ll have a chance at immortality. What are you going to do the rest of your life? Cozy up with a sootie and pop out half-breed babies to muck in the coal dust like their father?”
Sophronia considered all the various ways she had learned to kill someone. She catalogued them in her brain and spent a satisfying few moments applying each to Monique in order. Then she concentrated on her breathing, attempting to stopper up her anger and regain control of the situation. Then she stood and, casually, tore another strip off her much-abused shirt and gagged Monique with it. Tightly. Monique drooled a bit around the edges of the rag, which was satisfying to see.
The rest of the night was blissfully uneventful, outwardly at least. Sophronia was troubled by her own feelings of guilt. She was traumatized by the realization that she had never given Soap a fair chance because she was afraid of his lowly position. She tortured herself with imagining what-ifs. What if Soap were not a sootie? What if Soap were the same class or race? Would she have closed herself off to his feelings so brutally? Had she been cruel as well as snobbish? The speculation kept her wide eyed and staring out into the night the whole rest of her watch.
Everyone was awake at dawn. There was a sense of nervous urgency that drew them, uncomplaining, into the cab. They stoked the boiler, started the engine up, and got the train moving northward with silent efficiency. No one commented on Monique’s gag.
Sophronia felt awkward and uncomfortable around Soap. More aware of the way he stood, the set of his shoulders, the nuances of his expression. She tried to monitor her own reactions, to be friendly but not too friendly. She tried not to think about his affection for her, or their future apart.
They chugged along at a slow but steady pace. They learned more about the switches and how to operate them, neatly avoiding several collisions. They were getting cocky about the whole proceeding. They were also running dangerously low on coal, not to mention food.
They stopped for lunch, ate the last of their reserves, and had to un-gag Monique to feed her. Which meant they had to listen to her. Which meant they had to gag her again right quick.
“She’s only a drone,” sneered Sidheag. “And she lost the operation, so Countess Nadasdy will not be happy with her. I say we dispose of her.”
“She is trained. If we let her go, she’s not without resources,” cautioned Dimity.
“She’s a rotten egg waiting to explode,” said Sophronia.
Soap said, “I’d rather we don’t actually kill her, I’d as soon not go down for murder.”
Dusty only looked embarrassed by the whole conversation.
In the end, they elected to push Monique out the door as the train crossed a small bridge over a goose pond. The water looked particularly dirty. Soap slowed the train while Dimity untied Monique’s wrists. The girl made a delightful squawking noise around the gag as she fell. She also made a decidedly satisfying splash. Hopefully, there wouldn’t be another train along for ages.
With Monique gone the mood lifted. They began to plan how to acquire more coal and food.
Then Dimity gave a holler. She’d spent most of the afternoon hanging by one arm out the doorway, while Sophronia took the same position behind Soap. This left room in the middle for Sidheag and Dusty to stoke.
Dimity explained her holler. “I see a dirigible on the horizon.”
“Flywaymen?”
“Hard to tell, they’re far off.”
Sophronia came over, shading her eyes. “I don’t think it’s the one we crashed into, how could they repair it that fast? Besides, this one looks armored.”
“Wonderful, does it have a cannon mount and recoil guard?” Sidheag asked.
“Looks like.”
“I guess the Picklemen decided we know too much,” said Dimity. Rather calm, Sophronia thought proudly, under the circumstances.
“Or your darling Lord Mersey ratted us out,” said Sidheag.
“Not my darling anything, Sidheag.” Sophronia was abruptly tired of that game. And she didn’t like the way Soap’s shoulders hunched at Sidheag’s words.
“If they know we’re Mademoiselle Geraldine’s girls and not Bunson’s boys…” Sidheag stressed her point. Bunson’s boys on the loose larking up to Scotland were one thing. Bunson’s boys were dangerous with exotic inventions but could be depended upon to come ’round to the Pickleman agenda eventually. Mademoiselle Geraldine’s girls, on the other hand, were dangerous with information and couldn’t be depended upon by anyone but their patrons.
That was the moment when Sophronia realized their safest course of action would have been to return to school. The Picklemen would never make a direct move against Mademoiselle Geraldine’s, for that would only get intelligencers investigating. Plus, they couldn’t afford to make an outright enemy of Lady Linette.
The dirigible following them had a propeller spinning at high speed. It had also caught a stiff breeze and was gaining on them.
Nevertheless, a train was faster than most dirigibles, except those new high-flyers out of France. They could tell even at a distance that this was an older model, of the kind Queen Victoria once employed in the Royal Float Force, heavy and heavily armed.
They had only one choice.
“I guess we try to outrun it,” said Soap. “All hands to the boilers!”
By this point in the journey, most of the girls had given Dusty a hand with the boilers, breaking whenever he needed a rest. As a result, they had all developed some rudimentary shoveling savvy. They also had arms screaming from the unexpected activity. Sophronia had thought, before this journey, that she was rather fit. She was, after all, prone to climbing around airships and swinging from hurlies. But stoking was a whole different beast. It was awfully hard work, and explained Soap’s delightful muscles. There were only two shovels on the train, so they took turns going as fast as they could, working their way through what coal was left in the tender at an alarming rate. One girl, inside the tender, scooped it forward into range, then the stoker shoved it as fast as possible into the boiler.