“Whot?” The vampire sucked on a fang, looking thoughtful. He turned dark eyes on his newest student. “Appears as if they haven’t. Wait a moment there, whot! Where did you come from, young lady?”
“Your class, sir. Remember, we were just there.”
The vampire only looked at her, not even acknowledging her levity. “Tell me, Miss Temminnick. What was the first thing you wanted to know, just now, before the explosion?”
Sophronia saw no reason to prevaricate. If he really wanted a window to her thoughts, then any possible rudeness was irrelevant. “Your range, sir. Being that you’re a rove, as I’m assuming this school is no hive, I was wondering how a vampire in a dirigible managed to float all over the place the way you do. Then I figured you must be bound to the school itself, or something like.”
“Something like, indeed.”
“Then I was wondering, since you were instructing us in defense against vampires, what would happen if you fell overboard. What would happen to your tether? Would it snap? Would you die?”
The vampire narrowed his eyes, looking down his nose at her. He avoided her question by asking her one of his own. “And the explosion—what do you make of it?”
“Perhaps Professor Lefoux should not have tried steel first.”
“My goodness, you do pay attention.”
“Will you be able to convince Monique to tell you where she stashed the prototype?”
He said nothing at that.
But she’s only a student. Sophronia wanted to ask why they didn’t torture Monique or something. After all, this seemed as if it might be that kind of school.
Professor Lefoux came bustling over. “Ah, Professor Braithwope. Sorry to disturb. Little problem with the you-know-what, probably shouldn’t have used steel. Copper is obviously superior.”
Professor Braithwope looked down at Sophronia, who gave the vampire an arch look and returned to his classroom and the other girls.
They were crowding the doorway, but had not followed her beyond leaving their own seats.
“What happened?” Dimity asked breathlessly.
“Someone seems to have exploded something black and powdery in the room next to ours.”
“Professor Lefoux and the fourth years,” said Monique, no doubt preferring to have been among them herself, explosion or no.
Sophronia returned to her couch and took a seat, crossing her hands demurely in her lap.
Dimity plopped down next to her. “Was it the…?” she hissed.
“Yes.”
“What could explode like that?”
“Lots of things, I suspect.”
“Sometimes I wish Pill were still with us. He knows all about accidental explosions. Then again, he is my brother, so it’s nice to be away from him.”
“I managed to extract a bit of the black powder.” Sophronia showed Dimity the fingertip of one of her gloved hands, which she’d purposefully run along the wall inside Professor Lefoux’s classroom.
“I wonder if we could send it to Pill for analysis. Or, uh, drop it to him, I guess is a better way of putting it.”
“Do we get post on board this thing?” Sophronia wondered. “If no one even knows where the school is at any given time, how would mail find us?”
“Mummy said she would send me some of my favorite emulsified biscuits, so it must. She mentioned Pillover as well, so perhaps we pick ours up from Bunson’s.”
“Oh, dear, Sophronia, your glove is dirty! Let me help you with that.” Preshea looked more distressed by the black on Sophronia’s white fingertip than she had been by the explosion.
Monique said, “You aren’t permitted to have a soiled glove, not at Mademoiselle Geraldine’s!”
Sophronia quickly placed her hand in her lap and tucked the offending digit under a fold of skirt. “Oh, I believe I have the glove under control, thank you.”
“Right, ladies, shall we get back to our studies?” Professor Braithwope said as he reentered the room. “We are going to try to address first the best and most deadly application of wooden stakes, hatpins, and hair sticks. If we have time, I will move us on to how to properly judge a gentleman by the color and knot of his cravat. Believe you me, ladies, the two subjects are far more intimately entangled than you might first suppose.”
Sophronia straightened her spine and prepared to be educated.
THE PROPER PLACE FOR SOOTIES
The rest of the evening proceeded in a much milder manner. They moved from classroom to classroom for every new teacher, each professor having arranged his or her room to their own particular taste. Each time the lesson was more in the manner of a visiting call or an intellectual salon than any school lesson Sophronia’s siblings had ever relayed to her.
Sister Mathilde Hershel-Teape’s room, which led out onto a small deck, was half potting shed, half manor-house kitchen. Their lesson was on emulsification and the fine art of egg whites as applied to sugared violets, fake eyelashes, skin care, and poison control. She left them with the wise, if somewhat confusing, “Now, remember, my dears, a separated egg is worth two in the bush.”
Lady Linette’s room was a combination conservatory, boudoir, and house of ill repute. It featured a good deal of red, three chubby, long-haired cats with funny, scrunched-up faces, fringe wherever fringe might be stuck, and some highly questionable artwork. The girls sat in prim rows on long velvet fainting couches. A stuffed duck in a lace mobcap stared austerely down at them from the mantelpiece.