Competence Read online

  So Prim lashed out. “Rue dear, despite what being raised by Lord Akeldama may have taught you, we aren’t all deviants.”

  Rue frowned. “I don’t like that word. And that’s your mother talking, not you.”

  Primrose shivered slightly. Rue really did sound upset. “No offence meant. You know I love your Dama, it’s simply that…”

  Rue got all condescending again. She patted Prim’s shoulder in a highly irritating (and sleeve-flattening) manner. “You aren’t ready yet. Fine, yes. It always did take you longer to come around. But I do have that book still, if you’d like it. The one with the pictures that Quesnel gave me when we were courting. It has a whole section. You know.”

  Primrose didn’t know and she couldn’t help giving Rue the satisfaction of asking, “A section on what?”

  “Oh, you know… ladies.”

  Primrose still didn’t quite understand. And wasn’t sure if she was dying of curiosity or humiliation. But she decided to do neither and go see how her impossible brother was doing at the moment. Percy was many things, but he never tried to interfere in her life or choices, and for that Primrose was profoundly grateful.

  It’s a strange day when I seek solace with my brother because my best friend is being too nosy. The world works in mysterious ways. I might be one of the only people on the planet who finds Percival Tunstell restful.

  Percy looked up from an article on the nature of sound that was particularly absorbing. He’d have to ask Miss Sekhmet sometime if sounds resonated differently in her ears when she was a lioness. Or Rue. Rue would be able to tell me not only if they’re different as a lioness but if they’re different as a wolf. I wonder if they’d allow me to conduct some experiments involving pitch and secondary animal forms?

  His contemplative revelry was disturbed, first by Footnote leaping off his lap in a manner that was just this side of painful to the nether region, and then by the reason for Footnote’s excitement, his sister’s bustling into the room.

  Percy considered the library sacred space, and his quarters were attached so it ought to be treated as a private sanctuary, but no one else gave it reverential treatment, barging in at all hours.

  “Percy, you pollock, where are you?”

  “Tiddles, must you?”

  “Well, aren’t you happy to see me safely home and whole and hale and all that rot?”

  “You were only away one night.”

  “Yes, but I might have been stranded there forever. And I came to your rescue with helium.,

  Percy snorted at her, trying to pretend he wasn’t checking her over carefully for signs of distress or injury. “What do you want, sister?” She looked in fine fettle, not a scratch. As if Tasherit would let anything harm her.

  “I need Isinglass.”

  Percy grimaced. Isinglass was the Tunstell family’s great shame. His mother’s widely read and widely critiqued slim travel journal published at great personal expense, and fortunately under a pseudonym. The fact that Lord Akeldama, and then Lady Maccon, and then Rue and his sister insisted on using the horrible little book as a cypher for their secret communiques was only one more nail in the humiliation coffin.

  Could they not leave the awful thing to lie low and be forgotten by all?

  Percy gave a mighty sigh and went to retrieve it from its carefully hidden shelf behind the chair in one corner of the library.

  “Take it away, do.”

  Primrose grinned at him. “I love you too, Percy.”

  “I’m assuming you received a letter of significance?”

  Primrose went all prissy. “That’s for me to know and you not to know.”

  Percy dreaded asking but knew she’d gone to retrieve the mail while on the wheystation. “Anything from Mother for me?”

  “No. Thank your lucky stars, my boy.”

  Percy didn’t like to take instruction from his sister, but in this instance he followed her order to the letter. Nothing disturbed him more than his mother’s notice. The fact that she had not written him a single line was a profound blessing. She was utterly impossible. She was, in fact, the reason he could tolerate Rue and Prim with all their absurd eccentricities. They may be silly, and on occasion even frivolous, but they were never as bad as Ivy Tunstell, vampire queen and Percy’s mama.

  “I do have these for you, brother dear.” Primrose tossed him a few other missives.

  Percy flipped through them. One from his publisher. One from a colleague at university. The latest pamphlet from the Royal Society. Nothing urgent.

  “Percy? Percy!”

  He looked up. “Oh, are you still here?”

  “Anything happen while I was away?”

  Percy frowned, considering. “I have started Mr Tarabotti on a course of study designed to give him an ethical foundation.”

  “You have?”

  Percy instantly defended himself from his sister’s unexpected shock. “Formerly Floote thought it was a sound idea.” I mean really, why should I not teach others? I’m an educated man, and information does no one any benefit if it is not shared.

  Prim blinked at him. “Well, very good then.”

  “No need to be so startled, I believe his granddaughter may be joining us.”

  “Anitra wants to, uh, study ethics?”

  Percy nodded. “We are starting with the Ancient Greeks and logic.”

  Prim’s eyes instantly glazed over, as Percy knew they would. His sister loathed the Greeks. Bunch of stuffy old men dressed in bed linens talking to each other about mathematics, she’d once said to a governess.

  “I take it you aren’t interested in attending the seminars?”

  “Discuss dead treatises? With an Italian murderer? I think not.” Primrose gave a delicate shudder.

  Percy hid his grin of satisfaction. He didn’t want her horning in. This was his philosophy club, not to be shared with sisters.

  He picked up one of his letters and ostentatiously broke the seal.

  Primrose left him to it. “Ta-ta for now, old chump. Bye, Footnote - unless you wanted to come along?”

  She held the door open for the cat. Footnote wavered on the threshold and then caught a whiff of something that caused him to hiss, whirl around, and dash at Percy, seeking refuge under his chair.

  As the door closed behind his sister, Percy heard Tasherit say, “Happy to be back aboard, are you, little one?” in that particularly warm tone she reserved only for Primrose. Her voice was almost a purr.

  Percy wondered how long it would take his sister to realise that their resident werecat was in love with her. Then he shrugged and went back to his letters.

  Primrose pushed into Rue’s quarters after only a perfunctory knock. Quesnel was below in engineering or she wouldn’t have taken the risk. While she was well aware of what her two friends got up to behind closed doors (in principle if not in specifics), she in no way wished to witness such an appalling activity. Of course, the door had a bolt, but Rue always forgot to lock it.

  “I have the mail! You forgot to take it from me earlier,” Prim announced, waving the sealed missives about temptingly.

  Rue looked up from where she was lounging on her bed, going over coal consumption reports from the boiler room. “At last! What took you so long?”

  “Well, you did sort of strand me on a wheystation.”

  “Details, details.”

  “You’ve one from your mother.”

  Rue winced. Her dark eyebrows knitted into a frown. Primrose could feel her mother’s commentary in her head. Don’t frown so, darling heart, you’ll end up with lines, and no one looks good in lines.

  Prim added, to share the burden, “I received one from your mother too.”

  “Really? How odd.”

  “And I think we are going to need this.” Primrose tossed Sand and Shadows on a Sapphire Sea: My Adventures Abroad by Honeysuckle Isinglass down on the bed next to Rue.

  “Oh? Oh! Cypher? Code! Adventure is a
float. How exciting.” Rue brightened considerably and sat up, grabbing her letters from Prim.

  Primrose perched stiffly on the end of the bed. She envied Rue her flexibility of movement. Rue had announced (some time ago now) that she no longer wished to be confined. With no further warning she had given over stays and eventually combinations. She’d done this only after securing her father’s approval. Not her vampire father, mind you, her werewolf father. She’d explained that, as a metanatural, she was safer if shifting forms were easy to do, and stays did not make it easy. Lord Conall Maccon, werewolf Alpha, was a pretty carefree gentleman, unless his daughter’s safety was threatened. If corsetry threatened her safety? Well, then, convention, nicety, honour, purity, and riotousness be damned, his little girl did not need to wear a corset. So Rue didn’t.

  Unless, of course, Quesnel really wanted her to. And then, no doubt, it did not stay on for very long.

  It was at times like this, when Rue could positively lounge, catlike and comfortable, on a bed in full day dress, that Primrose envied her this otherwise unacceptable eccentricity of dress. Or not dress.

  Primrose always wore a corset, and a combination, and stockings, and garters, and all other accoutrements any well-bred English girl ought to wear. However, this did mean that when visiting a friend in her boudoir for a discussion of great secrecy and import, Primrose was unable to lounge in comfort.

  Rue dove into reading her mail, teeth nibbling her full bottom lip as she did so. Rue was always moving, shifting, and fidgeting, even if it was only a tiny nibble. It drove many people spare, but Prim had grown accustomed to it over the years. She fancied her friend was rather like a hummingbird. In those few moments of stillness she did allow herself, the whole world took a breath with her and paused to admire her shine. Rue wasn’t beautiful, but she was most awfully shiny. It was something in the manner of a master painting, where one is drawn into admiring the skill of the brushstrokes rather than the composition as a whole.

  In addition to the letter from Lady Maccon in Cairo that Prim suspected was a counter to her own, Rue had one from her vampire father in London, and another from her many times grandniece in Scotland. The grandniece was actually a werewolf and a great deal older than Rue, because family trees got bushy when immortals were involved.

  “Dama’s very cheeky about us visiting something in Singapore called the Shrine of Iskander Shah. I suspect he thinks he’s being funny.”

  Prim frowned, trying to remember if any of the books she’d read had said anything about it. “Do we have time to play tourist?”

  Rue shook her head. “It’s not important. Not in that way that sometimes his frivolous statements can be. I believe we can give it a miss. The rest of his letter is full of gossip. London is rife with rumours since we exposed the world to both werecats and weremonkeys. The gossip rags have new kinds of shifter creatures coming out the woodwork. Selkies have been reported off the Irish coast, bear shifters in the Scandinavian woodlands, and even a fox shifter in Nottingham. Oh, and one very amusing tale of a weregoat breaking into someone’s wardrobe and eating all her hats. Dama doesn’t give any of them much credence, especially the fox. He says something about Lavoisier’s Law.”

  Primrose nodded. “That makes sense, and it is certainly supported by what we’ve observed so far. I’ve been meaning to say, I believe Miss Sekhmet is denser as a human, which is how she manages to be larger as a lioness. Preservation of mass and all that rot.”

  Rue stared at her. “Primrose darling, what are you on about? You sound like Percy, and how would you know anything about Tash’s density? Has she been on top of you recently?”

  “What? No!” Primrose hurried on from that. “And Percy is my brother, I’d have to have picked up something. You didn’t study Lavoisier? He has several interesting papers on the chemical and physical nature of shifter physiology. Originally in French, of course, but the formative ones have been translated.” Rue only frowned at her. Primrose tried for a quote. “Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.”

  “Oh, that Lavoisier.”

  Clearly, Rue had never read a word written by the infamous scientist. Prim scoffed. “Really, Prudence, you shift your form regularly - aren’t you at all interested in how it works?”

  “Not really. Considering that it does work. Why mess with a good thing?”

  Primrose shook her head. And went back to analysing the coded letter she’d received from Lady Maccon.

  Rue resumed reading her correspondences in silence. She left her mother’s missive to last. Because, well, Lady Maccon took a lot of preparation, even in letter form. Especially if you were Lady Maccon’s daughter.

  Prim watched her friend, covertly, when Rue finally did read over her mother’s words. Rue’s face was a study in small smiles, grimaces, and exasperated eye rolls.

  Eventually she came to the end. “Well, they seem to be settling just fine in Cairo. The tea business is taking up a great deal of Mother’s time. Although I don’t believe that will keep her from interfering.”

  “Interfering in what?”

  “Oh, you know, everything. My mother would spin the world faster, if she felt it more efficient.”

  Prim grimaced. She didn’t like the idea of someone as important as Lady Maccon engaged in trade. It seemed indicative of a general lowering of standards.

  Rue had no such scruples. So far as she was concerned, anything that kept her mother occupied was a good thing.

  Rue continued, “She’s upset to discover she has a brother, dead or not, and wants us to bring Rodrigo to her for a proper introduction, once we’re done with him and he’s sufficiently reformed. Whatever that means. And she says she has a great deal of faith in our integration abilities. Integration abilities indeed. Bah.”

  Prim nodded. “She thinks we can save him from himself and from the Templars. And she knows us well enough to realise we would try.”

  “My mother is three biscuits short of a trifle.”

  “Oh no. She’s right. I, too, believe we can do it.” Primrose nodded her understanding.

  Rue glared at her.

  Primrose was confused. “What? You mean to say that’s not what you’ve been having Percy and Anitra do with the man?”

  “Uh, is it? Am I? What’s going on?”

  “Oh, Rue. You don’t know?”

  “What don’t I know?”

  “Percy has started a sort of book discussion group. I believe Formerly Floote recommended it. To give Mr Tarabotti some ethics, apparently. Anitra has joined in the reformation effort.”

  “Oh, I say. He might have said something. Or perhaps he did and I didn’t notice. You know me and Percy, I was likely thinking of something rather pleasant while he droned on about it. You believe it might work, Percy and ethics?” Rue looked unconvinced.

  “Anything is possible when Greek philosophers get involved. Can’t stand them myself. But then, you know, they aren’t for women.”

  Rue nodded. “Did you have anything interesting in your letters? I presume you read them yesterday on the station.”

  Prim nodded. “The usual ridiculousness from my mother. She is exhausting. And then there’s this one from your mother, which needs to be decoded.”

  “Also exhausting.”

  Prim nodded. “And one from Norman, of course.”

  “Norman?” Rue squinted her eyes.

  Prim rolled her eyes. “My fiance, remember?”

  “Primrose darling, it’s terribly difficult to keep track.”

  “Well, it will continue to be so. He broke it off with me.”

  Rue looked mixed at this revelation. Delighted, because she hadn’t approved of the man (she rarely did), but also horrified and upset on Prim’s behalf. “He broke it off with you? Isn’t it customarily the other way around?”

  “I know. I didn’t think he was that intelligent.” Or had that much gumption. Two reasons I chose him for a husband. Primrose gave a tiny
grimace. She wasn’t upset. Her pride was a little bruised, but it wasn’t like she’d been in love with the fellow. Love had nothing to do with marriage, every sensible young lady knew that.

  “Shocking behaviour. And via a letter no less. I am sorry, Prim.” Rue, who had a certain generosity of spirit, even looked a little sorry for her.

  Primrose did not shrug. She would very much have liked to, but shrugging was not something nice refined young British ladies did. Not even with their best friends when hearts were not broken but perhaps should have been. Instead she said, “These things happen.”

  Rue nodded. “Have you told Tash about this yet?”

  “No, and I very much hope you will not. This is a private matter. It is no one’s business but my own.” Prim kept her tone of voice firm.

  Rue snorted at her. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Primrose, really!”

  “Stop it, Rue. This is not your concern. Now, I’ve got this letter from your mother deciphered and I’m afraid it’s as I suspected. We have been activated as agents of the Parasol Protectorate. She uses both Ledger and Hot Cross Bun, so the instructions are for the both of us. However, mine is only the first half of the necessary information. She wishes for us to investigate something. Some report or another. Yours is likely the second part explaining what, precisely, we are to look into. Would it be all right if I…?”

  Rue handed over her own Lady Maccon letter with alacrity. Clearly correspondences from her mother were neither sacred nor private.

  Primrose began the laborious task of using the Isinglass cypher to break the second part of their code and see whatever it was that Rue’s infamous mother actually wanted them to do.

  After a long moment she said, “Well, this is odd.”

  “Go on?” Rue had finished with her own letters and was back to the coal stocks listings. Thus she was eager to be disturbed.

  “I believe your mother wishes for us to visit the Andean highlands.”