“When the steamer docked in Calais, I went to wake him up. He was no longer in his bunk, and his suitcase too was gone. I thought we had missed each other, that he was now on the deck looking for me. But no, he was not on the deck either. And he was not on the pier, waiting. I enlisted the help of both the steamer’s staff and the harbormaster’s staff, but nobody could find him.
“I wrote frantically in my two-way notebook, but he did not answer. At last I went to the railway station, and there someone remembered a young man of his description, buying a ticket to Grenoble. I immediately started for Grenoble, asking at all the stations along the way. And when I reached Grenoble, I inquired at all the likely and unlikely lodging places, to no avail.
“Not knowing what else to do, I went back home. Only to receive a telegram, of all things, from Lee, from Grenoble, asking where I was. So I rushed back, and there he was, safe and sound. He said that when he couldn’t find me on the steamer, he thought I must have been in a rush to catch the train, and so he’d dashed off to the railway station. But in Paris, where he was to change trains, he realized his mistake and went back to Calais, only to learn that I had indeed taken a train to Grenoble. So he started again for Grenoble, and probably reached the city just after I had left for home.
“I was terribly relieved to see him. The subsequent events you already know. We ended up on a ship in the North Sea, pursued by Atlantis. He didn’t have his carpet with him—just as he didn’t have his two-way notebook with him. So I had to put him on a lifeboat. I meant to go in the lifeboat with him, but we were under attack and I couldn’t get away immediately. When I did, on my carpet, I was pursued all the way back to France. And I would have been caught, were it not for a tremendous fog that rolled in from the Channel.
“It took me several days to get back to England. If he had made it, he would have gone either home or to Eton. I didn’t dare go home, so I tried Eton. And found Mrs. Dawlish’s house guarded around the clock.”
“It’s the Atlanteans watching the prince,” said Iolanthe.
“I thought so too. But then I remembered that Lee had been away from me for seventy-two hours on that trip.”
Lady Wintervale looked at Iolanthe, as if Iolanthe should come to some meaningful deduction from what she had just said.
Iolanthe drew a blank. “I am not sure I grasp the significance of your words, ma’am.”
“I am not sure I understand what I am saying either. I am not sure I want to.” Lady Wintervale crossed the room to stand before the roaring fireplace, as if the drafts from the windows had chilled her. “But you are right. I should go and see Lee. It might be my last chance.”
Iolanthe waited for her to say more, but Lady Wintervale only waved her hand. “Please leave me.”
Iolanthe rushed into the laboratory. The conversation with Lady Wintervale had unsettled her deeply, and she needed to speak to Titus.
He was not there, but his typing ball was clacking away. When it stopped, she pulled out the message.
Your Most Serene Highness,
With regard to your query concerning the Atlantean naval ship the Ferocious—ΛΑΒΡΟΣ in the original Greek—a vessel belonging to the Atlantean Coastal Defense once bore the name. From what records I can unearth, it was decommissioned three years ago and recently scrapped.
Your faithful servant,
Dalbert
Iolanthe scanned the message again, and a third time, her confusion growing with each additional read. She had not heard anything about Atlantis being short on seaworthy crafts. Why was a decommissioned ship sent out when there were plenty of vessels in active service?
She sent back a message to Dalbert. Can you confirm again that there is no Atlantean ship named Sea Wolf?
Dalbert’s response came promptly.
Your Most Serene Highness,
I can confirm that there is no Atlantean vessel, naval or civilian, by the name of Sea Wolf (or ΛΑΒΡΑΞ, to use the original Greek).
Your faithful servant,
Dalbert
Something rattled in her memory. What had she read in that travelogue the first time?
She entered the reading room and ran to the help desk. The travelogue was in her hand in seconds. She flipped through the pages with suddenly clumsy fingers.
The tourists from nearly two centuries ago had sailed to Atlantis to see the demolition of a floating hotel that had been condemned. The method of condemnation had been none other than the dropping of the floating hotel into the maelstrom of Atlantis.
As spectacular as the destruction itself was, leaving Atlantis, we would come upon the not-so-pretty sight of the hotel’s wreckage across our path, a current of rubbish. But at least, unlike a true maritime disaster, there would be no dead bodies carried alongside pieces of hull and deck.
The Perilous Sea (The Elemental Trilogy #2)
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