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daughter,
    Claire
     
    There was much more she could have said on the subject of the advertisements, but she restrained herself and rolled the letter up, tucking it in a tube and addressing it. Then she went downstairs, opened the hatch, and with a pneumatic slurp, the Royal Mail system sucked both tubes away into its gullet. In the case of the one to Gwynn Place, it would take a few days to be sorted through the manual switches down to Cornwall, so she had as much as a week to look forward to before she received a reply.
    She hoped Mr. Arundel would be much quicker.
    That task complete, she fetched the lightning rifle from its concealment beneath the seat of the landau, and sat in the wicker chair outside the back door of the cottage. She laid it across her lap and gazed at it thoughtfully.
    A Mopsie popped out the back door like a jack-in-the-box. “Wotcher doin’, Lady?”
    Since Lizzie never spoke to her voluntarily, this must be Maggie. “I am thinking.”
    “Wot of?”
    “Lightning and electricks and other puzzling things.”
    “Oh.” Maggie lost interest. “Where’s our Rosie?”
    Claire looked up into the rafters of the rickety porch. Rosie sat perched upon a blackened beam, blending neatly into the shadows now that twilight was upon them. Maggie followed her gaze. “Ah. Gone to bed already. I’d like to know ’ow she gets up there, I would.”
    “It’s the safest place she knows, and I agree with her. She could be snatched if she roosted on the wall, and an otter could come up out of the water and take her if she slept on the ground. All in all, she has used her powers of deduction and found the most suitable spot, as any lady of resources would do.”
    “I ent never seen ’er fly.”
    “Chickens will surprise you. How are you coming with your plans for a traveling coop? Did you find supplies today?”
    Maggie nodded. “Them folks at the metalworks sure waste a lot. We found pistons and a set of legs. Bit banged up, but useful. T’boys met us by our old squat on t’river and we loaded up the boat.”
    “Did you find any hens?”
    “No, but we didn’t get near any of the markets. Tomorrow, Snouts says.” A call from the upper floor made her withdraw. “G’night, Lady.”
    “Good night, Maggie. Sweet dreams.”
    With only Rosie for company, Claire sat in the gathering dark and let her thoughts drift. This aggravating niggle in her mind had something to do with the lightning. Electricks were yellow for the most part. Or green, sometimes, if there wasn’t much current. Andrew was running full current through his glass tube, so its yellow color was perfectly healthy and to be expected.
    Then why ...?
    Why was the firing charge from the lightning rifle white edged with blue?
    What was the difference?
    Electricks had never harmed anyone. They were strictly for domestic and industrial use. The glass tube had got hot, but the current itself was not dangerous.
    Then why had one blast from this rifle been able to kill a man?
    Was it hundreds of times stronger than ordinary electricks? Or was it a different kind altogether—something only the builder of this weapon knew?
    She needed to lay the rifle before Andrew Malvern and ask these questions. She needed to know what the difference in color and power signified—and more important, how it was created. The cell in the rifle did not seem any different than those that powered household items like the mother’s helper, which cleaned the floors using kinetick energy.
    What made this so different? So lethal?
    Andrew would—
    No. She could not bring this to Andrew. While he might not know who Lightning Luke was or how he’d come by his moniker, he would certainly know that gently reared ladies of Blood families did not go about with deadly weapons in their soft, gloved hands.
    Claire set her teeth.
    Blast it all. She needed to know.
    Just how much was she going to allow convention to dictate her behavior when it clearly obstructed the path to