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few footsteps, and then added, “I like this, Eliza.”
    “Like what?”
    “Sharing this. With you.” She turned to see him smiling, and her heart leapt. If there was a way for him to always look at her in this fashion, that would suit her just fine. “I thought I should—”
    “Why are we standing out here, in the hallway?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we be in our room, telling one another this?”
    “Naked?”
    “Preferably.”
    Wellington pushed past her, digging deep into his pockets for their room key. “You are quite right. Why are we having this conversation here?”
    On reaching the door to their suite, Wellington hesitated, then looked over to her. “What is that?”
    Eliza stretched out her arms as if to ask
“Whatever do you mean?”
but then heard the odd chirping sound coming from inside their suite. She went to reach inside the slit of her skirts to retrieve the ’81 from her thigh when she paused.
    That was her signature distress signal from the Ministry ETS.
    “Wellington, open the door now,” she insisted.
    Once the door was open, it was Eliza’s turn to push aside Wellington. Now she could hear the signal loud and clear. Eliza felt her heart leap into her throat again—but not in a good way. Dashing to the pile of discarded clothes from their first night, she rummaged through them, the sound of the alarm growing louder as she did so.
    “Eliza?” Wellington said, locking the door behind him. “Whatever are you on about? What is that infernal noise?”
    Finally, from the bottom of her discarded skirts, she located the tiny golden locket that was the source of the wailing. When Eliza flicked the hidden switch, the sound stopped, but there was no corresponding relief, at least not for her. Clenching the little device in her hand, she turned to Wellington. She would have loved to leap back into bed with him then and there, but the message the little locket had delivered had cooled her ardour like an Arctic plunge.
    Wellington’s face was now contorted with concern. “What is it?”
    Eliza clambered to her feet, tossing the locket across to him. “It’s the Seven,” she said, feeling a sudden fear-fuelled alertness course through her. Only scant moments before, she had been exhausted and ready to settle in next to Wellington, perhaps for a hint of intimacy before drifting to sleep. Now, she only felt the thrumming of her heart, her mind racing with what she needed to do next. Something had to be done, even from where they were. “They’re in trouble. Real trouble.”
    “I don’t mean to sound flippant,” Wellington began, his thumb tracing the edge of the tiny alarm, “but that is hardly out of charac—”
    “No, Wellington,” Eliza said, going to the dresser and opening it to fetch clothes. She had no clue what kind of clothes she had, needed, or wanted for whatever she was about to do. She was finding her mind quite flustered, if not muddled, by the signal. “The last time we received an alert like this was during our case with Kate and the disappearing suffragists. It was what I used to call the children to my apartments.”
    “Yes, I recall.”
    “That was in London,” she said, rummaging through her clothes and fishing out denim jeans, a waistcoat, and a weapons harness. “We’re over the Atlantic. The alert I have for the children has a safety feature wherein if it is destroyed, the Ministry ETS powers and delivers a strong sonic alert to me. It lasts for only twelve hours, but I should be able to pick it up wherever in the world I am.” She shook her head. “Welly, only Alice knows of this safety feature.”
    “So Alice triggered this distress call,” he said.
    “Which means Alice has the children, and they are all on the run,” Eliza said, trying not to think of the Seven’s faces. The signal had been in Serena’s keeping. Sweet, little Serena. “She knows what to do, what we have planned, but if the tracker has been compromised . . .” She could not