Once she’d circled the room, she conferred with a tall man in a top hat, who stepped over to a device that looked like a giant trumpet and spoke into it. His voice echoed throughout the vast hall as he said, “The winner is Everett, who will receive a grant to help him finish devising a nonmagical means to power an airship.” The crowd cheered, and the Mechanics slapped Everett on the back as the band resumed playing.

“Care for another dance?” Alec asked. I shifted the notebook into my left hand and rested it on his shoulder as he swept me onto the floor. We’d barely made a circuit when the music stopped again. The dancers grumbled, but then there was a shout from above.

Everyone looked up to the old theater’s balcony to see a man waving a long streamer of paper. “They’re searching the area again! Everyone out!”

Chaos ensued as people ran left and right, gathering machines and running with them toward the exits. Others pulled banners off the balcony railing. I saw the rest of the newcomers being herded back to the basement, the way we’d come in, and I started to follow them, but Alec grabbed my hand and hustled me to a doorway beside the stage. “I know another way out,” he explained.

Down in the basement, where a steam engine that looked like it had been built from the building’s furnace chugged away, Alec shut and barred the door before pulling the goggles off his forehead and donning a coat that hung on the back of a chair. “This is our dynamo that powers the lights,” he explained as he moved a ladder beneath an open window. “I hope they don’t seize it. I’ll go up first to make sure it’s safe, then you climb up after me.”

He clambered up the ladder and out through the ground-level window. A moment later he gestured to me. I gathered my skirts and climbed as quickly as I could. When I reached the top, Alec pulled me through the window and lifted me to my feet.

We were in what must have been an alley behind the theater. Alec pulled a large handkerchief out of his pocket and said, “I’m sorry, but you aren’t yet a member.”