The Transference Engine by Julia Verne St. John

nuns I knew on the continent lived lazy and pampered lives in comparison. Her efforts and her attempts to get Victoria to sign a regency agreement until she turned twenty-five had cost her; she was now
persona non grata
at court.
    On this night, the queen smiled graciously at the audience, waved politely to the performers, and sat regally, surrounded by her Prime Minister and other political dignitaries. Obediently and respectfully, we remained standing until she settled in her chair and nodded to the director to begin.
    â€œI’d heard she might come,” Drew whispered under the sounds of people shifting and fluttering printed programs. “Always a nice surprise for our monarch to venture out among her people.”
    â€œI wonder if she needs a translator,” I mused, trying to figure a polite way to offer my services and thus join her in her box. Then I noticed a tall woman of proud carriage and Mediterranean coloring perched on the edge of a seat directly behind the thronelike chair. Victoria had brought her own linguist.
    My gaze continued to rove from box to box, high and low. I couldn’t retain any respectability if I leaned out to observe the adjacent seating, but those across the theater offered many opportunities to collect information. I noted various royal and semi-royal (i.e. multiple illegitimate children of Victoria’s uncles) cousins with wives or mistresses. Politicians preened and the nobility looked bored. A few had set their chairs back from the openings where shadows masked their faces, but they could still see out.
    Then, as the gaslights came up and the conductor raised his baton to begin the overture, a darkly swathed figure directly across from me leaned forward. My attention riveted on the black veil and loose black clothing. Hard to determine build, size, or gender at this distance or in this lighting.
    â€œDrew?” I whispered leaning close to him as if to exchange an intimate comment about the performance.
    â€œHmm?” His gaze shifted to the same direction as mine. He stilled. “Should I send a message to Inspector Witherspoon?”
    â€œNot yet. I need to watch more closely.”
    But so did Lord Ruthven. He did not bow to propriety and leaned over the balcony, calmly assessing the dark figure. He licked his lips in anticipation of . . . something.

    But watch the crowd I could not. Mozart’s masterpiece of opera entranced me. The staging and music flowed in a seamless event. Advances in mechanical sets and backdrop changes looked more real than any theatrical performance I’d seen. I hardly noticed the steam and clanking noise of their movements. That had become so much a part of everyday life, it faded into the background, unless it was timed to punctuate the music. That wonderful glorious music! Madame Penderée as Elvira, and Antonio Valdez as Leporello, her tenor, drew me into the action and emotion as if I participated in the complicated lives, deceptions, and revenge plots of the characters.
    â€œMakes you wonder if Mozart knew in advance that his life would be short,” Lord Ruthven said on a long, awestruck exhale at the end of the first act. “I saw a similar production in Rome last year. His depictions of Hell are inspired. The moment of death and descent near prescient.”
    Despite the heat from the constantly working steam and the early June evening, I grew cold at his avid licking of lips and narrow-eyed focus upon the closed curtain and the turn of his thoughts. He had much the same expression as Drew had when he described his fascination with necromancy.
    Drew touched my hand to capture my attention. Gratefully, I turned to him, away from the pinched-face baron. A single thrust of Drew’s chin to the box directly across from us and below one tier, above and to the side of the Royal Box. The figure heavily swathed in black had moved and looked to be working closer to the queen. If it leaned over the rail,