“Perhaps he didn’t know?” suggested Quesnel.

“That would be highly unlike him but possible, I suppose. Too focused on tea.”

Quesnel looked a little worried. “Are you in any further danger?”

“I don’t think so. Hard to tell. You know, she said Mrs Featherstonehaugh went with the dissidents voluntarily. Then she said it had something to do with an agreement.”

“The agreement that makes the Rakshasas the tax collectors?”

“That would be my guess. After all, the taxes were stolen too. Do you think we’ve stumbled into local economic hostility? How droll.”

“Perhaps those black-clad men were Rakshasa drones putting a stop to any information that might be relayed against them.”

“Or possibly these dissidents are setting the Rakshasas up to take the fall in an effort to keep the money themselves? From what Percy said, the locals are terrified by the very idea of vampires. Do they have the courage to undertake direct opposition? Who is Miss Sekhmet working with?”

The flowers yielded up nothing concrete. Rue did find a small necklace – a bit of stone strung on a length of cord. The stone was carved to look like a monkey. Rue popped it into her reticule, uncertain of its significance – if any – and whether it might be connected to Miss Sekhmet, her kidnappers, or merely dropped by one of the hundreds milling about the square.

Rue said, “We’d better find Percy and Primrose. We must get back to the Custard and we’ve no guide any more.”

They extracted Prim, laden down with bolts of cloth and packages full of embroidered shawls and scarves. “What happened? Where’s our lovely guide? A flower cart exploded? Oh, Rue, really.”

Quesnel said, deadpan, “Miss Tunstell, might I suggest in future that any time you hear an explosion, you check to see if our Prudence is involved?”

Rue objected. “It wasn’t my fault. Never you mind it now, Prim. I will explain once we collect Percy. No sense in telling the story twice.”

Percy was immersed in books and chillies. He was neither surprised nor worried to learn of the explosion, nor their lost guide. “I have a map of Bombay,” he said, as if that alone could safely get them through an alien city.

Rue said on a sudden realisation, “Percy, we need books that illuminate the nature of the Rakshasas, and anything to do with the Indian agreement to the Supernatural Acceptance Decree. Anything at all. That is the parliamentary act under which the agreement that made local vampires tax collections would fall, yes?”

Percy was easily distracted. “Nature of the Rakshasas? Analytical or mythological books?”

“Both.”

He dived back into the stacks all around him, emerging with various volumes and bound journals, a few rolled parchments, some looking quite old, and a string of dried red chillies draped about his neck. “It won’t be inexpensive.”