As it turns out, the captain and crew of the Kelpie have no intention of letting passengers topside. This includes ex-midshipmen-turned-personal-assistants and honorary directors of the Zoological Society. Deryn has to content herself with a window-side table in the passengers' lounge.

It's not as brilliant as having the whole of the blue sky laid out around her, but – small consolation – there are stewards and a decent menu.

Alek laughs at her. "How many breakfasts do you need, Dylan?"

"Sod off," she says, flicking a bit of potato at him. He brushes it off his jacket and, beneath the table, gives her foot a kick that's more of a nudge.

Bovril, working industriously at its bowl of fruit, says, "Manners at the table, children," in exactly the same tones as wee Joan and Thomas Barlow's nanny.

"Aye, miss. Sorry, miss," Deryn says to the loris. She nudges Alek's foot back.

Bovril harrumphs and returns to its meal.

Deryn drinks her tea and looks around. The Kelpie is a decent size, for a civilian airbeast, though of course much smaller and slower than the Leviathan. It runs a regular service from Glasgow to Manchester to London and back again. The gondola has cabins for passengers on night flights and should they require special accommodations during the day. Otherwise, it's not more than a floating train car, albeit a sodding expensive one.

Dr. Barlow had paid for their tickets with a curt, "Nonsense," when Deryn and Alek had objected to the cost, adding, "If you dislike receiving it as a gift, consider it compensation for your services during the war." Mr. Barlow had added something about Christian charity and the importance of family, and that had been that.

"The 'family dinner' tonight," Alek says, sipping his coffee. "Who's to be there, precisely?"

Deryn takes Ma's letters from her jacket pocket and unfolds them, smoothing the paper flat on the table linen. Ma's kept up correspondence ever since Deryn established a fixed address in London (the Barlow house; she only lived there a week or two, but still gets on well with the housekeeper). She picks out the one about dinner and passes it to Alek, then resumes eating. "Just the aunties and most of the cousins, I reckon."

His eyes flick over the lines, back and forth. A small crease finds the center of his brow.

"What?" Deryn asks around a mouthful of potato.

He hands the letter back. "It won't be a problem for your mother, I hope, that Volger has stayed behind."

Deryn snorts.

Alek gives her an unamused look. "In regards to the seating arrangements."

She snorts again. Alek shed his titles with the simple pitch of a scroll into the sea, but princely manners are harder to lose, it seems. "We don't fuss about with place cards and the like, Dummkopf. If the chair's empty, it's yours."

"Ah," he says. He smirks. "A mad scramble of barbarians."

"Uncivilized scoundrels!" Bovril contributes – a bit too gleefully, if you ask Deryn.

This time, the nudge to Alek's foot is more of a kick. His smirk only widens. "Aye, we're all filthy heathens," she says, making a face at him. "But a week in our house, and you'll be just as bad."

His smirk disappears, replaced by a frown and a slightly panicked, "I can't impose on your mother. The hotel will be fine."

A hotel had been the plan when Volger was coming along. Now, though…

"Don't be daft," she says. "Ma won't have you in a hotel. Jaspert's room is empty – that's fine enough."

He hesitates. Smoothes his tie unnecessarily. "I wouldn't want to –"

She nudges his foot again. "You won't. And don't be nervous, either."

"Hmph," he says. A smile quirks his mouth, but anxiety and an old pain flicker in his eyes. "I'm meeting your family. I have every reason to be terrified."

He does; that's no lie. Ma and the aunties will keep a weather eye on him the entire time he's in Glasgow. And Deryn will never find herself in the same position, because Alek has no family left.

(He'd told her once: "I wish that you could have met my parents."

"I don't reckon they'dve been pleased, you bringing home a common girl who spends her days in trousers," she had replied, stroking her thumb over his knuckles.

"Perhaps," he'd said. "Almost certainly, to be honest. But you would have charmed them."

"Aye, I'm pure dead charming," she'd said, and kissed him so she wouldn't have to say And I wish you could have met Da.)

Deryn grins now and leans forward, lowering her voice. "Ninny. You're a boy and you think I'm brilliant. How often d'you suppose that's happened?"

"Never, I should hope," he says, arrogant as an emperor – but the press of his boot against hers tells an entirely different story.

She's certain her grin has gone daft and mooning. Not the best idea when she's Dylan, so she ducks her head until she can school her expression.

She looks up again to see Bovril sit back on its haunches, a half-eaten piece of melon in its paws. It turns its large, wise eyes from Alek to Deryn. "Family dinner tonight. Strawberries and cream?"

"God's wounds," Alek says. He gestures at Deryn with his coffee cup. "This is your influence."

She flicks another piece of potato at him; he chuckles. "Aye, beastie," she tells Bovril. "As much as you like."

Bovril makes a pleased sort of rumbling noise.

Alek finishes his coffee while Deryn and Bovril do the same to their breakfasts. Bovril curls up on Alek's shoulder for a nap while Deryn and Alek talk about Zoo goings-on and things that don't matter, and it would be dull except that they never have a chance to simply sit and chat.

She loves her life – the mad swirl of it – but it's nice to have a quiet, still moment, just the two of them, clouds drifting below their feet.

Eventually, Deryn wheedles a pen and paper from a steward and does some sketching (of the other passengers, mainly, as the view out the windows is all countryside), while Alek produces a cheap paperback novel and begins to read.

Bovril curls on his shoulders and naps.

After a few hours, the Kelpie lands in Manchester, to drop off passengers and take on new ones. Deryn leans against the fabricated balsa framing the window, arms crossed over her chest, and watches the some of the airmen talking and laughing with the ground crew.

She sighs. Blisters, she misses that.

Alek, standing beside her, lays a sympathetic hand on her shoulder before returning to their table.

Then again, right here is rather brilliant, too.

She gives the airmen a last glance, then pushes off the window and takes her seat again, stretching her legs out beneath the table and crossing them at the ankle.

"They'll be serving lunch soon," Alek says, picking up his novel.

She knocks her crossed feet into his leg, hard enough to hurt.

He grins into the pages of his book.

Deryn fetches her paper and pen, the better to sketch him. He looks like a prince: crisp white shirt, tidy jacket and tie, hair combed neatly back – excepting that one wayward curl – and trousers pressed into sharp creases. She spends a while on his hands; she likes them. All knuckles and square, blunt fingertips. Boy's hands, and no mistake.

Her own hands are miles away from being ladylike, but there are some things binding and clever tailoring can never mimic.

New passengers flock into the lounge. Some of them crowd the windows, waving to people on the ground or just pointing out sights as the Kelpie takes off again.

"Halfway there," Deryn says, mainly to herself. Her nerves begin twisting, thinking of what's waiting for them at the other end.

Alek makes a hmm noise.

Which reminds her. "D'you remember everyone? My family, I mean."

It's been weeks since she went over her family tree for Alek, and he'd been translating papers for Dr. Barlow at the time. She doesn't want him caught flat-footed at dinner tonight – there are a lot of sodding cousins to keep straight.

Alek says "Mmm," without looking up from his book. Shades of sodding Volger and his newspaper this morning.

She lifts an eyebrow and nudges his leg. "All right, then, let's have it."

He closes the book and lays it aside, then settles back in his chair, fingers laced across his stomach as if he's a boffin preparing to lecture. "On your father's side, you have one aunt, Jocasta, and two cousins – Calliope and Ulysses, who is away at school. Calliope is all right, but a bit bookish. Jocasta's husband is Edward, a civil servant. Your mother has two sisters, Mary and Margaret, and a brother, Robert. Robert is a widower, and a barrister. Mary's husband James is a barrister as well, while Margaret's husband, William, is in shipping. Your maternal cousins are Alice, Elizabeth, Jacob, Ian, and Barnabas. Alice is engaged; Elizabeth is married. Barnabas is just old enough to walk, Ian wears spectacles, and Jacob is 'a sodding liar' and not to be trusted."

Barking spiders.

"Aye," she says, sitting up straighter, clearing her throat, "but what's Elsie's husband's name?"

"You couldn't recall," he says, smirking again.

"He's pure dead boring." It's true; the man has all the personality of a porridge. About as handsome as one, too, come to think of it. That's fine for Elsie, since she's a bit of a porridge herself. Deryn squints at Alek. "How did you remember all that?"

He shrugs. "A prince ought to remember details of important families. Or so my tutors insisted. I confess I paid rather more attention to yours than to any put forward by them."

She glances about; no one listening. "My family's important?"

His green eyes hold hers. Something warm and bright unfolds in her chest and shivers through her gut. "Indisputably," he says, soft and very, very serious.

Sod it all. She pushes back her chair and stands. "Come on, then, Mr. Hohenberg."

Surprised, he follows her lead. "And where are we going, Mr. Sharp?"

"To find a door that locks, ninny," she says, tugging her jacket straight.

"Ah," he says. His ears redden, and he coughs into his fist. "In that case, perhaps Bovril should stay here."

The loris doesn't seem to mind being left on the table with Alek's book and Deryn's sketches.

"Personal affairs," it says to their backs, cackling. "Meteoric!"