A woman in black walked past with a wrapped object approximately the length of a butter churn or rifle. “Excuse me,” Cecilia said, and the woman paused. “Would you be able to direct me toward Chanters House?”

“Sorry,” the woman replied. “Not from around here.” Without further word, she hoisted her parcel against her shoulder and crossed the street toward the teahouse.

“I think it’s that direction,” said a gentleman passerby, tipping his head toward the northwest. Cecilia was caught between gratitude, alarm that a male stranger had addressed her, and bewilderment that he was carrying a steering wheel beneath one arm.

“Thank you,” she said, and he lifted his hat politely before crossing the street.

She looked in the direction the gentleman had indicated, wondering if it might be wiser to ask for more specific guidance from a shopkeeper. Her immediate options were limited: a gentlemen’s tailor, a butchery, and a purveyor of popular magazines. Clearly the only shop she might enter without damage to her reputation was the butchery, but she disliked the atmosphere of violence within such a place. She was turning to see what might exist further along the street when a woman almost collided with her. Cecilia instinctively reached for her concealed pistol before remembering she was surrounded by innocent civilians.

“Watch where you’re going,” the woman scolded, then hurried across the street, drawing a long knife from her sleeve as she went. Another woman with a cutlass met up with her and they nodded to each other before continuing toward the teahouse. Cecilia turned back to the shops, thinking that she could visit the bakery farther along, where she might ask for directions and purchase some shortbread at the same time.

Three large men in black coats, each carrying guns, strode down the center of the street. Pedestrians began hurrying away. Cecilia checked her fob watch. Half past one. She might even have enough time to tour the village museum on her way back from the library. She had been on the lookout lately for a small silver dish in which to keep her earrings, and museums often had fine, inadequately guarded specimens of these.

Pleased with this plan, she replaced her fob watch, straightened her gloves, closed her parasol, withdrew her pistol from a lace-trimmed pocket, and turned sharply on her heel.

With two quick shots she felled one of the men in the middle of the street and sent the others running. She then spun back to embed her parasol’s blade in the arm of a woman hurrying up behind her with a sword. The butcher slammed his door shut, the tailor pulled down his blinds, and as Cecilia began striding toward the teahouse she noted with relief that the civilian population had fled. There was nothing worse than having to shout at people to run—most indelicate indeed.

Tossing aside her blood-soaked parasol, she pulled a small revolver from her waistband and shot it and the pistol at the remaining two men just as they reached the teahouse’s door. A bullet skimmed one’s arm, but it was too late—The Ancient Mariner was beginning to levitate. Both men leaped up through the open door and slammed it shut behind them, and the building rose sharply.