Rue expected Bombay to play host to the bustle of an exotic marketplace as her mother had described Alexandria. But the place was remarkably still. They were in the imperial section of the peninsula and not the city itself, but she could see the tops of buildings outside the ramparts and even there Bombay seemed… well… dead.

Prim said, “Perhaps respectable folk stay in during the hottest part of the day.”

A few boys in white shifts, brown limbs exposed, scampered by, tossing a large fruit back and forth. Here and there a stray dog wandered, but that was all.

“Either that or there’s a plague,” replied Rue, making light and then regretting it at Prim’s panicked expression.

They walked along the beach or – properly – mudflats, and then up onto the promenade around the edge of the barracks. This brought them closer to the city proper, looming beyond the walls of what Prim said were the Cotton Godowns and the Victoria Bunder. Beyond the walls were rows of massive trees forming a demarcation between representatives of Her Majesty Abroad and everyone else.

The city was pleasingly unfamiliar in shape and smell. The rooftops were all red or covered in coloured tiles. They boasted tall spires or the occasional onion-shaped protrusion. It had its fair share of empire builders too – sky trains, massive rotary carriers, and evidence of other steam transport was everywhere, from rails to divots to cycle hooks. Unlike London, all these machines were decorated. The local sky rail, likely used for transporting goods from warehouses to shipyards up and down the peninsula, loomed high above the buildings. It too was at rest in the heat of the day, hanging from its one massive cable. It featured all the expected components – steam vents, smoke stacks, guidance arms – but it had been made to look like a large elephant. The elephant had huge ears made of brightly coloured animal skins and chains of fresh flowers and paper lanterns garlanded about its neck. Rue marvelled at how close this sky rail came to breaking the Clandestine Information Act, entering the realm of Forbidden Machines. The elephant component must be purely decorative and have no independent protocols, doing nothing more risky than running up and down its cables like any other delivery steamer – only prettier. Otherwise, surely it would have been destroyed.

Rue grinned. England had brought steam to India, but the locals were clearly insistent that steam be attractive. She liked it very much. It was irrepressibly cheerful, a word Rue doubted anyone had ever used to describe a sky train before.

Primrose, the aestheticist, clearly felt the same, for she revived out of her wilted state long enough to remark in wonder, pointing down near the water with her parasol. “Would you look at that? I think it’s a garment washer, but it looks like a monkey. Charming, quite charming.”

Rue pointed at the sky rail.

Prim gasped. “How lovely!”