Curtsies & Conspiracies (Finishing School, #2)(63)
Under the moon’s bright light Felix could see what Sophronia meant by her slur. His friends were indeed seated below. A goodly number of gentlemen wore top hats with green satin bands about the crown. There were others as well—a group of well-dressed dandies, some scruffy types who could only belong to a nearby werewolf pack, and two pale, debonair gentlemen who must be vampires. The potentate sat with them.
Sophronia noted that the sky was becoming overcast. Not with clouds but with airships. A small armada approached and hovered at a distance. There were little airdinghies with four small balloons and sails up high in the middle—flywaymen. There were larger, proper dirigibles, a matched set with dark-colored balloons—sky pirates or private-airs. No doubt Madame Spetuna and Bumbersnoot are up there somewhere watching.
Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy sunk down as low as possible, proving that the scaffolding all around it was quite fake. A counting was conducted, and the staircase was cranked down. As they began shambling toward it, Sophronia drifted to one side, her eyes on the professors. Dimity gave a shriek and a wobble, veering toward the side banister of the stairway. She lurched, almost tumbling down several stories to the ground below. Agatha peeped in fear and pretended a faint backward. Sidheag made a lunge after Dimity and nearly went over the edge herself. They were doing beautifully.
Everyone burbled in perturbation. The crowd boiled upward as ladies raised on tiptoe to see what was happening. Teachers and other staff pressed forward to ascertain the cause of the commotion. Lady Linette, trained as she was, sensed the manufactured nature of the distraction and surveyed the crowd, but with over three dozen on the midship deck it was easy for Sophronia to wait until her teacher’s gaze passed her over.
The moment Lady Linette looked elsewhere, Sophronia crouched. The fashion for large hats, even at night, afforded her some protection from view. Removing her own bonnet, she made a break for the staircase that led to the upper decks. She’d be exposed if she actually took those stairs, but she could hide behind them until everyone had disembarked.
Sophronia waited patiently until blasts of steam and the sound of cranking indicated the staircase was being pulled back up. The ship lurched upward. It was safe to emerge.
Professor Braithwope was visible on the upper forward squeak deck far above. He was climbing into the contraption Professors Lefoux and Shrimpdittle had built. It fit him like those suits designed for undersea exploration. What are they called? Diving suits. Once it was fully in place, he looked a little like an oversized mechanical, only more liquid in his movements.
Sophronia made her way around to the far side of the ship, out of view from the watchers below. But not before she saw Sidheag sit next to Captain Niall, along with Dimity and Pillover.
Giffard’s aether-current floater, the Puffy Nimbus Eighteen, swooped into sight, ululating in their direction. Sophronia had once manned an airdinghy, and she knew enough to admire Giffard’s skill. Once the other airship was level with Mademoiselle Geraldine’s, the school extended a long gangplank to it, and Professor Braithwope ran across with a tightrope walker’s skill. The gangplank was drawn back and the two ships began to rise ponderously, keeping pace with each other. Sophronia had intended to check up on the sooties, but she was hypnotized by the action above her, so she stayed hanging where she was. Professor Braithwope and Mr. Giffard exchanged pleasantries, and then Mr. Giffard went back to work steering his small vessel. The two ships rose together, so high the people below became little specks. Then so did the trees of the park. Finally, London herself was nothing but a blob of twinkling lights. They were above the clouds at last, and then higher than Sophronia had ever floated. The air was glacial and the winds howled by; the propeller pushed hard against the breezes through which the school normally drifted peaceably.
Sophronia wondered if there would be a defining shift when they hit the aetherosphere. She knew that it must be close, that invisible onion skin, the thing that protected them all from the void beyond. She couldn’t believe they intended to take Mademoiselle Geraldine’s up that high. Giffard’s aether-current floater was built for the changeable humors of the upper sphere, but Geraldine’s was not.
She turned her attention to Professor Braithwope. The vampire stood stiff and straight, leaning back against the railing of the Puffy Nimbus’s one squeak deck and looking up. Sophronia could hardly fathom that he intended to enter aetherosphere. Very little was known about it, except that it was breathable but dense, not like normal air, and dangerous. Only humans had ever been inside it, and only very few of them. But no other vampire could float up even a short distance; Professor Braithwope was the exception, by virtue of his inhabiting their school. So the school had to go up with him as far as it could, keeping his tether as short as possible.
They intended all along to send the vampire, suited in his protective gear, into the aetherosphere on Giffard’s ship. He will be the first supernatural creature to enter aether. They want to know—vampires, werewolves, government, Picklemen. They all want to know: what happens to a supernatural creature in the aetherosphere? They built him a suit as a nod to safety, but they really have no idea what will occur up there.
Professor Braithwope was undergoing a very dangerous test indeed. For queen and country, the potentate had said. For science, Sophronia thought.
Mademoiselle Geraldine’s stopped rising and held steady, the propeller fighting to keep the school in place. They had gone up as high up as possible. Directly above us, thought Sophronia, must be the aetherosphere. It boggled her mind. She looked but couldn’t see anything apart from very bright stars. The aetherosphere was invisible from below, and opaque from within, or so she’d heard.