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"Ah, yes, of course"
Biffy felt a nuzzle at the back of his neck and then sharp teeth as Lyall bit hi to be asleep and said, "No, Professor, save that for later Naughty an looked horribly eer helped hiown, and slippers Under ordinary circumstances, he would not leave his roo less than shoes, spats, trousers, shirt, waistcoat, cravat, and jacket But there was no time to waste, and he would have to complete his toilette at leisure later He only hoped he should not encounter anyone with fixed opinions on his foray to the aethographor--a faint hope in a den of olves
Thus informally attired, he hurried up to the attic of the house, where Lady Maccon had had her aethographic transmitter installed The device looked on the outside to be nothing h to house two horses, raised up off the floor via a cos The exterior was quilted in thick blue velvet to prevent a its interior The box was divided into two se for the Alexandria codes fro cha switched to the on position, he sat as still as possible Utter silence was necessary or the receivers ht be disrupted in their response to aetheric vibrations He watched intently and just as the sun set--he could feel the sensation in his olf bones--a lass with black particulate sandwiched between, and a an to move One by one, letters for this time this location until departure" And there ca of numbers Biffy had an excellent memory, so he simply made a mental note of the codes and then dashed out and over to the trans chamber
As quickly as supernaturally possible, he dialed the aethero into the frequency trans only the latest and raphors Biffy needed no companion valve on his end That done, he double-checked his nu roll He corid square This first communication was simple and had to be sent itip Spectator" He slotted the metal slate into the brackets and activated the transrid squares of the slate, one on the top side and the other underneath, sparking whenever they were exposed to one another through the etched letters
Without waiting for a reply, he bent to co the bulk of his recent discoveries It was a lot of vital information to transfer in code, but he did his very best Once , he watched the sparks fly and hoped against hope that the e ay and that he was not too late
"Wait," Biffy’s tip Spectator" Lady Maccon looked from the clerk to the scrap of papyrus paper he had passed to her and then back again
"Is the receiving chamber booked just now?"
"Not for another fewit for one additional enerous amount of money The clerk’s eyebrows rose
"As you wish, raphor’s receiving charaphite pencil in one hand, a fresh scrap of papyrus in the other
He returned a few e Alexia snatched it froo GBP start expand" Alexia puzzled over this for only a ured out that the God-Breaker Plague was increasing and that this expansion had coo A fact that confirmed what she and Conall had surmised She wished she kne nificant for Biffy to think it iiven her a tio? This ood can I do? Or Prudence, for that ue Given that Biffy had determined the rate of expansion, Alexia wondered if he had also deterh into Alexandria, I suppose Queen Matakara will have to swarrafted into a chair, afterlife supported by artificial ain, someone had once said that the older the queen, the shorter amount of tie it at all? Had she lost the capacity?
Troubled by these thoughts, Lady Maccon almost didn’t notice that there was a second scrap of paper with another e
It read, "Lady K knows PL past Wrote Lord M"
Alexia Maccon felt her heart sink down and lodge somewhere in the vicinity of her stoled as the blood drained out of her face, and she was certain, had she been the kind of woht then and there But she was not, so she panicked instead
The e was cryptic to be sure, but it could only air had soair assassination atte him of Lyall’s duplicity This should not, ordinarily, upset Alexia all that much Except, of course, that she, too, had known And in knowing such an awful thing, she had also chosen for the last few years to keep it secret from her husband A wifely betrayal she had hoped would not be revealed in her lifetiive such subterfuge
At that moment, Lady Maccon remembered the innocent little letter, the one with the handwriting she had not recognized The one she had picked up fro and placed upon Conall’s bedside table, thinking it a iddy aunt!" she cried, cru out without further conversation The surprised clerk had not the ti to her retreating back
"Ivy! Mrs Tunstell! Ivy! Wethe offices
But Ivy and the children, having grown tired of waiting in the street, were busy exploring the exotic world around them Some species of little old lady in black robes, her face wrinkled into obscurity, was telling an anihly appreciative audience on the far side of the street The crowd participated and responded to her words with cries of excite the watchers, with Primrose on one hip and Percival on the other Behind her was the nursemaid and the donkey with Ivy’s parasol and the babies’ hats Prudence, however, was nowhere to be seen
Seized by additional panic, Alexia dashed over, narrowly es The vendor hurled obscenities at her Alexia shook her parasol at him
"Ivy, Ivy, where is Prudence? We must return to the hotel directly"
"Oh, Alexia! This lady is an Antari, a singer of tales Isn’t she marvelous? Of course, I can’t understand a word, but simply listen to the verbal intonations And her projection is one of the finest I’ve ever experienced, even on the London stage Such somnolence Or do I mean resonance? Anyould you look at this crowd? They are riveted! Tunny would be so intrigued Do you think we should go back to the hotel and wake him?"