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"Teair

Alexia narrowed her eyes

"Why should we do what you say?" Dubh was militant

Alexia shoved the letter of , and the oddest expression suffused his wide, angry face

Lady Kingair grabbed the paperwork and held it up to the indifferent light of a nearby oil lamp Satisfied, she passed it on to Lachlan, who appeared the least surprised by its contents

"I take it you were not inforave her a hard look "I take it you didna marry Lord Maccon purely for love?"

"Oh, the political position was a surprise advantage, I assure you"

"And one that wouldna have been given to a spinster"

"So you know the queen’s disposition sufficiently to predict that at least?" Alexia took her marque back and tucked it carefully down the front of her bodice It would not do for the pack to be made aware of her parasol’s hidden pockets

"Muhjah has been vacant for generations Why you? Why now?" Dubh was looking less angry and htful than Alexia had yet seen him Perhaps there was brain behind all that brawn and bluster

"She did offer it to your father," Lachlan pointed out

"I had heard so to that effect I understand he turned it down"

"Oh no, no" Lachlan gave a little half-smile "We filibustered"

"The olves?"

"The olves and the vahosts as well"

"What is it with you people and my father?"

At that Dubh snorted "How randfather clock, locked in the rooes, tolled a quarter ’til

"Apparently, not enough I take it you accept the letter as authentic?"

Lady Kingair was looking at Alexia as though a good number of her previous questions about one Lady Maccon had now all been answered "We will accept it, and ill defer to your authority in this" She gestured to the closed parlor door "For the ti," she added, so as not to lose face in front of the pack

Lady Maccon knew this was as good as she was going to get, so, in characteristic fashion, she took it and asked for ood Next I will need to coraphor While I a that, if you would please collect all the artifacts you brought back froypt into one rooe has been sent If I cannot deter the huohere he should return to supernatural and recover with no ill effects" With that, she headed up to the top of the castle and the aethographor

She was in for a prodigious surprise For what should she find on the floor of the aethographor rooer as caretaker of the air’s library broken to s crystalline shards

"Oh dear, I knew they ought to have been locked away" Lady Maccon checked the claviger, as still breathing and as fast asleep as her husband, and then picked her way through the wreckage

The apparatus itself was undaed Whichthe valve frequensors was to prevent outside coraphor itself? It was, after all, an awfully delicate gadget easily and quickly disabled Why smash all the valves instead? Unless, of course, the culprit wanted continued access to the aethographor

Alexia rushed into the transer had disturbed the vandal in the act It looked like he had, for there, still sitting in the emitter cradle, was a unrolled scroll of e clearly visible upon it And it was not thebefore Oh no, this ood at reading French as she should have been, so it took her long precious h metal

"Weapon here but unknown," it said

Lady Maccon was disgruntled that the bloody thing did not read like an old-fashioned ink-and-paper letter, with a "dear so-and-so" and a "sincerely, so-and-so," thus revealing all to her without fuss Who had Madae been sent--just before she was shot, or earlier? Was it really the inventor who had also destroyed the valve frequensors? Lady Maccon could not believe that wanton destruction of technology was Madaetry; it would be against her nature to destroy it with such abandon And, regardless of all else, what had she been trying to tell theht before she was shot?

With a start, Alexia realized it was getting on toward eleven o’clock, and she had best etch her ht away Currently, the only concrete action she could think to take was consultation with Lord Akeldama She did not have the valves to contact the Crown or BUR, so the outrageous vae read siypt, huair"

It was a long raphor to handle, but it was the shortest she could formulate Lady Maccon hoped she could reer had used the evening before She was generally good about such things, but shefor it but to try

The tiny trans room was much less croith only one person She extracted Lord Akeldama’s valve from her parasol and placed it carefully into the resonator cradle She slotted the inscribed metal into the frame and pulled down the switch that activated the aetheric convector and chemical wash The etched letters burned away, and the hydrodine engines spun to life It was easier than she had thought The director of the Crown’s aethographic trans and certification to run the complicated apparatus--little liar