My jaw drops. "The Inventor has been here, this whole time?" I'm dazed, and my hands are shaking. I went miles and miles out of my way today, wore ugly trousers, nearly fell off an airship, then subsequently parachuted off that airship while it went up in flames, all for nothing.

Marius nods again, as though he can't believe how thick-headed I'm being. "Yes. Now, are you coming or not?"

I look over at my friends. Sarah gives me a thin smile. Cinda reaches a blackened hand out and picks something up out of the wreckage of the airship. It's the parasol I brought with me this morning, now a bit charred. The fabric is all but ashes now, but the scrimshaw frame and illogically thick midpiece are still intact.

"It ain't much," she says softly, voice a little broken, "but it's enough." I hug her, then heft the parasol over my shoulder. A snowfall of white ashes covers my coat, but I don't care. I turn to Marius.

"I'm ready, Marius." About as ready as I will ever be.

He leads me up the back stairs and through the dining room. I feel a strange pang of remembrance- every day after my riding lesson, I would walk in through this back door covered in straw and smelling like a barn. Now I'm covered in flakes of burnt wood and smell sweaty and disreputable- not too much has changed.

Marius unlocks a door and gestures to a flight of stairs. "I'm not allowed to go down there, Lady. You're on your own from here."

"Thank you, Marius." Deep breath, squared shoulders, and down the stairs. It's dark down here, and I have to use my umbrella to even find the next stair. There's one last door in front of me, and the knob seems to glow when my fingers brush it.

Through the door is a warmly lit study. There's a desk and two chairs, and shelves all over the walls. On those shelves are jars, of gears and bolts and things that look peculiarly like wings. A few of those wings, made of metal so filigreed and thin that it's barely there, are fluttering in their jars.

Sitting behind the desk, sipping tea from a bone china cup, dressed as finely as if for an evening out, is my mother.