The nice gentlemen in question was looking dazed. “And what ship name should I put on the registry?”

“Dandelion Fluff Upon a Spoon,” replied Rue.

“Very good, Miss Hisselpenny.”

“Will there be anything else, my good sir?”

“No, ladies. Thank you for your cooperation. Your steward?”

“Is aboard and will handle all the necessities. My purser will pay you any additional monies for supplies and stores. Is that the right way of it?”

“Yes, indeed, Miss Hisselpenny.”

“Thank you again, kind sir.” Rue delicately passed the man another handful of coinage. She also flashed him a brilliant smile.

Mr Stukely, bowled over by both the gratuity and the smile, doffed his hat, and the two ladies continued on their way without further impediment. Although their deft interactions with the official seemed to have made them more of a spectacle rather than less.

Quesnel tilted his hat at the man sympathetically and followed after them. He caught up as they attained the door to the central area of the port. “Why the façade?”

Rue looked at him, surprised. “Did you miss the part where this was a covert mission? One should try to keep one’s identity a secret.”

“Especially when one is the world’s only metanatural, daughter of some very famous aristocrats?” Quesnel nodded at this precaution.

“Don’t discount Prim either – she’s got some infamous parents herself.”

“But the names you chose!” Quesnel looked as if he really would laugh.

Primrose said, affronted, “Hisselpenny is my mother’s maiden name, and Dandelion Fluff Upon a Spoon is Lord Akeldama’s pleasure dirigible. They are perfectly respectable names.”

Rue explained, “If one must lie, make it memorable. Hisselpenny is a name which, if called out in a crowd we would both respond to, and that ship name is easy for us to remember and exactly the moniker two frivolous ladies of fashion would give to their craft.”

With which Rue determined she owed Quesnel no further explanation, and pushed open the door into the docking centre.

“Oh, my goodness me!” she squeaked.

It looked rather like the Reading Room of the British Museum, only a great deal larger and without any books in it. Instead there were stalls selling wares around the edge, like at a street fair with various interesting-looking sculptures, booths, and gatherings in the middle. The place was humming with humanity, some fashionable, many questionable. Somehow the centre harnessed part of the orange light of the beacon far above, and it spilled down into the interior in umber shafts.

Quesnel said, “Only you didn’t tell your crew, my beautiful witless wonder.”

Rue turned back to her chief engineer. “What was that?”

“About your plan to change the names of everything. You didn’t tell your crew, yet you gave them permission to leave the ship,” explained Quesnel carefully. “Aren’t you worried they’ll spoil the act?”