Part of Prunella’s mind observed that Sophia gave a guilty startwhen their eyes met. The rest of her was too sunk in horror to wonder at Sophia’s starts. Sophia might dismiss the sibyl’s speech as nonsense, but neither she nor Mrs. Gray needed to know anything of thaumaturgy to understand that there must be something decidedly magical about Prunella for her to be soaring above Hyde Park on a cloud.
There was no hope of escaping undetected. Mr. Hsiang was pursuing her, shouting:
“Do not look down, Miss Gentleman! To look down would be fatal. But do not fear, we never lose more than ten students a year to cloud-riding.”
Prunella put away the past, and the sibyl’s words, and her mother’s voice, and the guilty surprise in the faces of the women below. There would be time enough to puzzle over these things later.
There was only one thing to do to remedy the situation. Prunella did it.
•••
THEfirst Zacharias knew of the disturbance was Prunella’s reticule falling over. The familiars landed on the grass in a wriggling heap, squeaking: “Prunella, Prunella!”
Then the storm descended out of the blue sky.
It was as though a wrathful god had snuffed out the sun. A precipitous darkness fell, and the world was blotted out by rain. The roar of the tempest was inconceivable.
Zacharias groped his way towards the familiars, hustled them back into the reticule, and shut it on their protests. In the illumination of a brilliant flash of lightning, he saw Prunella swoop down out of the turbid sky.
“You have my familiars safe? Good. Come up on this cloud, Zacharias. We must be away at once.”
Prunella’s urgency lent her an irresistible authority. Zacharias wasswept upon her cloud before he could think to protest. As they lifted off into the air, she said, in a half-shout necessitated by the howling wind and crashing thunder:
“I have summoned a monster.”
“What?”
“Not a real monster,” said Prunella hastily. “I did not forget what you said about its being a terrible evil to summon creatures from other realms. I used the first formula you taught me—the one for atmospheric magic—to draw upon the thunder hiding within the clouds. Didyouknow spirits populate all things, Zacharias?”
“That old canard! I told Hsiang not to fill your head with outdated hypotheses,” said Zacharias.
He did not like heights, and though the cloud, turned a stormy grey, had expanded to accommodate him, it was a tight fit for two people. The cold and wet and noise of the tempest combined with the embarrassment of his unavoidable proximity to Prunella to make Zacharias ill-tempered.
“That idea was debunked in 1660 by the unnatural philosopher Gregor Fähndrich, as Hsiang would know if he read the essays I sent him,” he said. “But what has happened? Where is Hsiang?”
“Oh, my cloud went too fast for me, that is all,” said Prunella, with a wholly unconvincing nonchalance. “It is a willful creature, but we understand each other now. Mr. Hsiang is quite right about spirits, you know. It came to me in a flash when I saw those wretched females. I cannot conceive what possessed them to go driving in Hyde Park at such an outlandish hour of the morning! Especially Mrs. Gray, who never does a thing unless it has been done by a duchess first. And when did Sophia become a confidante of Mrs. Gray’s? It is all a great mystery!”
The storm followed them, concealing them from view, as they flew above the rooftops and chimney-pots of London. The air was so thick with rain that Zacharias could not see farther than an arm’s length away.
“I wish you would explain about the monster, instead of indulging in this ill-natured gossip,” said Zacharias plaintively.
“Oh, it was the easiest thing in the world! The thunder came ever so meekly to hand when I called it. At first I thought of casting it at Mrs. Gray—like Jove, you know—but I thought better of that, for it might have hurt them, and I only wished to cause a distraction. So I turned the thunder into a monster instead. I told it in the strongest terms that it must leave off once it had its fun, however, and Mr. Hsiang promised he would restrain its worst excesses.”
Zacharias opened his mouth, but there did not seem to be language strong enough to condemn Prunella’s conduct. He had not managed to hit upon the right phrase when they began to descend.
They landed in a narrow alley not far from Lady Wythe’s house, which was emptied by the rain. Prunella tapped the cloud affectionately as she alighted.
“Off you go to the Jade Emperor, good cloud,” she said. “What a dear creature it is, though it has led me into such trouble. It would be unjust to blame it, I am sure. I don’t suppose clouds have anymoralsense, do you?”
“Prunella,” said Zacharias, with deep feeling, “I should be obliged if you would tell me what, exactly, you intended to achieve by loosing a thunder-monster upon Hyde Park?”
“I would not have dreamt of inventing a thunder-monster under ordinary circumstances, of course, but there was nothing for it,” said Prunella. “Mrs. Gray is the most notorious gossip in town, and she and Sophia knew me at once. I could not afford to let them go away, having seen me flying around on a cloud, particularly after what that infuriating sibyl said.”
“What sibyl?”
“Of course, I did not tell you,” said Prunella guiltily. “I meant to, indeed, only there has been such a great deal to think of! There is no time for it now, however. When we arrive at Lady Wythe’s I shall goup to my room and swoon upon my sofa, and you must discover me and call for salts. When I am awakened, I shall explain that I was kidnapped by a foreign sorcerer while I was taking my morning exercise in the Park.”
“Kidnapped by a foreign sorcerer?” said Zacharias blankly.
