No, he thought again, raising hands to the sides of his head. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Shape up, Wayne. This was your plan. You’ve gotta make it work.

What was wrong? He… He was a…

He stopped. Then reached into the pocket of his vest and took out a charcoal pencil. He held it up, inspecting it, before slipping it behind his ear. He let out a long sigh.

He was an engineer. A no-nonsense man who saw that things got done. He liked it here, as they had a military way about them—they said what they wanted, and were straight with him. Men were rewarded for hard work.

He didn’t like all those guns. And he certainly didn’t like the men in charge of this place. There was something off about them. But he held his tongue.

Relaxing, Wayne crossed the rest of the way to the door guard. False nose, mustache, a little extra air in the cheeks to fatten his face, and a perpetual squint in the right eye. Came from looking at plans all the time, he figured. But he didn’t need a monocle. Those things looked downright stupid.

He stepped up to the guard. “The lattice supports of the apricity are completely liminal!”

The man blinked at him.

“Don’t just stand there!” Wayne said, waving toward the walls of the warehouse. “Can’t you see that the forebode malefactors are starting to bow? We could have a full-blown bannock on our hands at any minute!”

“What…” the guard said. “What am I supposed to—”

“Please,” Wayne said, pushing him aside—the man let him—and pulling open the door.

The scene beyond was as Wax had described it. That was Telsin, all right. Dark hair, rugged body. Almost like a Roughs woman. He’d seen her evanotypes all over the mansion. Looked older now. Being a prisoner could do that to somebody.

Tweaked-leg and thick-neck stood beside her table, and both turned with annoyance toward him.

Now, Wayne thought, focusing on tweaked-leg, the real test.

“We’ve got a serious problem,” Wayne said. “I’ve been checking the integrity of the structure, and the caronals are completely nepheligenous out there! We are about to have a full-blown case of ximelolagnia if somebody doesn’t do something.”

The bespectacled man looked at Wayne, blinked once, then said, “Well, of course we will, you idiot. But what do we do about it?”

Wayne held back a smile, tucking it into his pocket for later use. It seemed to him that the smarter a man was, the more likely he was to pretend he knew more than he did. Like the way the drunkest fellow at the pub was always the one who was most sure he could handle another pint. Tweaked-leg would sooner sell his own grandmother as a footstool than admit he didn’t know what Wayne was talking about.

“Quickly,” Wayne said, gesturing. “We’ve got to hold it up while I ratchet the saprostomous underlays! You’ll need to supervise while I work!”

Tweaked-leg sighed, but walked out. Thankfully, his thick-necked companion followed. Within moments, Wayne had this guy pushing against the supports of the ship’s pontoon while tweaked-leg observed, a few guards joining in to help.