This can't look half as bad as you think it does. You're going to walk out with your head held high. None of these ruffians can laugh at you.

I take a quick breath, then push the shed door open and face the firing squad. Cinda, Val, Madison, and Sarah are all waiting in front of the door. As soon as they see me, Cinda covers her mouth with her hand. Val's cheeks flush pink, deep beneath his bronze skin. Sarah demurely looks down, but Madison begins to snicker outright.

I know how ridiculous I look. The giant white shirt has been tucked into my waistband, but it's still puffing up like a mushroom. The coat reaches near to my ankles, and its leather smells of tobacco and something closer to rotting flowers. The scarf tied around my hair, which is copper-colored and probably moonlighting as a cravat, gives me rabbit ears. On top of it all, I'm wearing men's grey slacks, cuffed four times around my ankles, where my lace and creamy leather boots peep out.

"I look ridiculous," I complain, folding my arms over my chest. I'm still wearing my corset underneath my shirt, of course- I have yet to stoop that low.

"That much is for sure!" Cinda shrieks with laughter, doubling over.

"She needs goggles," Val protests. He pulls his off and slaps them onto me, and then laughs as well. "There. Perfect."

I roll my eyes. "I don't need this."

"Yes, you do," Madison points out fairly. "You don't know how to pilot an airship, you can't do a Seek on your enchanted eyeball, and if I'm right, which I usually am, you've only got nineteen hours left to find your key."

He's right, and it annoys me. I don't want to have to sit here and listen to them making fun of my oversized clothing. I feel like an ill-fitting coat will balloon out and catch the wind more than a dress will. However, it is a little cold in the dirigible yard, and I assume I'll be thankful for the amount of clothing I'm wearing when we're twenty feet up. "Come on, let's just get this over with."

Vallagher walks us over to a small airship, which is tied to the ground with heavy-duty iron chain. "Your chariot, lords and ladies?"

Madison leaps over the railing onto the deck of the airship. He begins throwing levers and playing with dials before I've even had a chance to set a boot on the rough wooden deck. The ship itself is fairly underwhelming- if airships are the transportation of the future, the future will need some work.

"This is the strangest day I've ever had," I muse, trying in vain to adjust my clothing somewhat. "What is this Seek that you speak of, Madison?"

Madison cranks a wheel, and the propellers on the ship whir to life in a burst of noise and wind. He has to shout to be heard over the roar. "I can kind of ask my eye to find a certain thing for me, and it will send me a picture. It's very strange. Val, you ready?"

Vallagher flashes a thumbs-up from the ground, then undoes the chain anchoring the airship. There's a jolt that shakes the whole ship, and I fall over onto my backside. Val climbs the chain, hand over hand, and uses one arm to pull himself up onto the ship. He extends a hand to help me up, and I take it gratefully.

"We're off!" Madison cheers. He looks older now, with his coat billowing out behind him and his goggles pulled down. His hair is still spiky, like the feathers of a baby bird, but it suits him. He looks like a mad genius, grinning as the controls of the ship send up sparks.

Below us, someone calls out, "You stole my airship!" We're gaining speed, though, and soon the bereaved airship owner is but a pinprick on the ground.

Cinda whoops, raising her hammer into the air. It's bitterly cold up here, the wind cutting through the thick coat I wear. As much as I hate to admit it, if I'd worn my gown, I would have frozen to my death. As it is, my teeth are chattering and I feel more than a little ill. No one else seems at all affected by the change in elevation and temperature. On the contrary, everyone is behaving as though this is their home.

Vallagher is looking over the railing, shouting into the wind and laughing when the breeze steals his voice from him. Sarah is reading peacefully, and she hasn't pumped her bellows since we left the ground. Cinda is singing to herself as she tinkers with a few bits of metal that she found in her tool belt. Madison keeps tapping his eyeball and muttering to it, and I can only imagine what he's attempting to look at.

The air up here is thinner and colder, and I can breathe a little better. It's actually kind of nice, once you get used to everything. I've found my center of balance, and now I can more or less teeter around on the deck. My heart is beating faster, and I've never felt as invigorated and fully alive as I do now.

"Alright, Miss Sophie?" Vallagher smiles at me, calling out over the song of the engines.

I nod. My body is too full of adrenaline at the moment to utter a word, so I rely on the expression of my face to convey how weightless I feel. He seems to understand, laughing.

"The adrenaline got to you? You'll get used to it after a while. Matter of fact, that's why many people have airships. They like the feeling of being in the free air. We call it the fugam sentiens- flight feeling."

I step back, impressed. "I didn't know you spoke Latin." My voice is swept away, and Val laughs at my expression of shock. It's as though Boreas himself has reached out and snatched the words from my very tongue, tossing them into the aether.

"Latin, French, Spanish, although my English is not very good." He cracks a grin and tips his hat to me. How he avoids losing it to the winds I'll never know.

I laugh out loud, surprised by the fact that my laugh is not delicate anymore. I used to giggle softly, because my mother says that anything more is unbecoming to a lady. However, my mother isn't here, and these people don't seem to care whether I am a lady or not. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be myself without all of the social expectations. Up in the air, there's nothing but us- and the church steeple that we're about to slam into.

"Madison!" I cry, but he's already jerking the captain's wheel to the left and edging masterfully along the buildings of London.

Val whoops, reaching out to spin the weathervane of the Naval Authority offices. "Excellent flying, my talented little friend." He ruffles Madison's hair.

Madison pushes up his goggles and smirks. "Nobody in all London can fly an airship like I can."

"Nobody in London that can brag like you, either," Cinda mutters. We all laugh again.

The ship evens out, and we fly through a fog bank, but other than that the skies are clear. Madison calls me over, sitting down on a wooden crate stained with either wine or blood. I don't think I care to know which one it is. "Alright, Miss Sophie, time to find your key."

"Are you that eager to be rid of me?" I feign sadness, laughing when he looks flustered.

"Describe it to me again?" He takes my hand, and it's my turn to blush now. Despite his tender age, his hands are strong, larger than I would have expected, and peppered with callouses.

I take a deep breath. "It's four-pronged, and it's got these fancy filigree dragonfly wings at the top. It's silver, but I think that's paint, because it's chipping off to show gold. Strange- usually you disguise things as finer metals, not diguising fine metal as a key anyone would use."

Madison closes his eyes for a moment, whispers something under his breath, and thinks for a moment. Under the lid, I can see his metal eye whizzing about in its socket, and it's a little odd to watch. When he opens them, both his false eye and the real one are wide with fear. "Sophie, I have some bad news."

I set my shoulders back. "Go ahead. I can take it."

He takes a deep breath. "Your key is in the Inventor's study."