Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School, #1)(48)

They climbed down a small flight of stairs out onto an internal balcony that overlooked the engine chamber. It was like being in a box at the theater. From that vantage, Sophronia and Vieve could see the entirety of the boiler room spread out below them: the four huge boilers with orange mouths agape, the mountain of coal over to one side, and smaller piles near the boilers. There were giant pumps and pistons, and rotary gears and belts, some cycling round, others moving up and down, and some utterly still. Lit by the flickering of the boilers, the colossal machinery glowed. Even all the coal dust and steam in the air had not dulled the shine. Sophronia wondered if they polished the metal regularly. Threading through and around and within the machines were the sooties, like ants. The larger forms of the greasers, mechanics, and firemen stood as points of stillness within this movement; fulcrums to which the sooties would periodically gather for instructions, as if those selfsame ants had discovered a nice crumb of cheese.

“Impressive, from this angle,” said Sophronia.

“Beautiful.” Vieve’s eyes gleamed. “Someday I want a whole massive laboratory exactly like this all to myself.”

“Oh?”

“I shall name it my contrivance chamber.” She had clearly given this a great deal of thought.

“Excellent name. Perhaps we should move on before we’re noticed by an engineer?”

“Well put.” Vieve led Sophronia over to a set of steep stairs that spiraled to the boiler room floor. Vieve scuttled down. Sophronia, who was in a dark blue visiting dress with multiple petticoats, followed as nimbly as those petticoats would allow.

Vieve knew the way once they got down. She moved with purpose through the machines and around the coal hea c th

Sophronia, on the other hand, felt self-conscious. She stuck out like a puff pastry among meat pies in her prim dress. She was glad that when they stopped it was behind a massive rotary engine to one side of the room, mostly out of sight.

Vieve grabbed an impish towheaded boy by one elbow. “Rafe, fetch Soap, would ya?”

“Do it yourself, Trouble.”

“Can’t. I got important company. Couldn’t leave a lady alone in this dangerous place, now could I?”

“Her?” The blond boy squinted into the shadows where Sophronia stood. “What’s one of them doing down ’ere?”

“Same as everybody else: minding her own business. Now get Soap, would ya?”

The blond sniffed, but ambled off.

“Pleasant young man,” commented Sophronia.

“They can’t all be as charming as me,” Vieve replied with a smile.

“Or as adorable as me,” added Soap, coming up behind Vieve and nicking her cap. “Good evening, Miss Temminnick; Vieve. To what do we owe this honor? Shouldn’t you be watching a play or something highfalutin in town?”

“Give it back!” Vieve made a grab for her hat, but Soap held it out of reach. “Can’t stand the theater.”

“And I’m not allowed,” Sophronia added. “But Soap, Vieve and I were wondering if you could help us get out?”

“Out?”

“We want to pay a visit to Bunson’s.”

“But why? No one will be there.”

“Exactly,” crowed Vieve.

“They’ve got something we want to see.”

Soap was suspicious. “What kind of something?”

“A communication machine,” Sophronia explained.

Vieve nodded, grinning.

Soap looked back and forth between them. He ended with Sophronia. “Not you as well? Gone barmy over mechanics, have you? I should never have introduced you two. It’ll all end in tears and oil.”

“Not really. I’m more intrigued by this one’s desirability.”

“What?”

“Flywaymen want it, or parts of it. Monique failed because of it. I’ve seen two air battles so far over stray bits of it.”

Soap latched on to the last part of her statement. “You saw what happened with the mid-balloon?”

“Yes, and I saw you repairing it.”

“No joke. I was squeaking for nigh on an hour because of all that helium. Funniest thing, repairs up top. So?”

“Someone fired a cannon at us.”

“Because of this communication machine?”

“Not exactly. Because of a piece that might make the communication machines actually communicate with each other.”

Soap looked confused but willing to play along. “Well, very good, then, but I better come with you. Can cwitp widt’t have you two scrabbling about groundside unsupervised.”

Sophronia arched her eyebrows. “I assure you, I have been sneaking around with impunity for years.”

Soap glowered at her.

“Oh, very well,” said Sophronia, unwilling to waste any more time.

Soap enlisted a few off-duty sooties so that a small, dirty herd escorted Sophronia and Vieve over to yet another hatch in the boiler room floor. This was one Sophronia hadn’t noticed before, in a corner behind what she assumed was a hot water pump for the school’s serpentine room-heating system. Up top, in the residential rooms, the heating contraptions looked like grates in the walls, and they kicked in at night if it got icy, which it often did up high. The one in Dimity and Sophronia’s room made such a rumbling and growling that Dimity named it “Boris the Indigestive.” This, then, was Boris’s origin.