Belowdecks, away from the noise of the crew, out of the night air, there was a sound like pressure subterranean pushing in on the hull. A slow, sharpening creak of the hull, as that of a branch flexed to breaking lent urgency to the moments of navigating narrow switchback stairs and finding the markings of the cabins by lantern light. In between, the bright chirp of the hull relaxing came as a pixie's mischief, a promise that the sea would try again.<br/><br/>Long shadows of weary servants attending to the needs of unseen mistresses haunted the corridors, reached around corners with the slow sway of lanterns. A maid pressed by Corinne with shielded chamber pot, a muttered apology.<br/><br/>Cat Grosbelhomme was there in the corridor, wearing the summer brocaded lace she'd been wearing that evening, when she proposed to read poetry with fellow Voix Emma La Berche. There had been no reading from Cat, and only in hindsight was it clear Cat had never returned from fetching her slim leatherbound volume. It tucked to her breast, and she stood without shoes, contemplating her toes or some unremarkable place between wall and floor of the cramped hall.<br/>"I heard a sound," said Cat, a justification for her behavior, but utterly incurious as to whom she explained it to. She would not be pulled away. "What lies below us, in the ship?"<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Eloise arrived arm in arm with Aloisa beneath the moonlight and remained close to her, attached to her for protection against the vast night all cloaked in fog. It brought her the comfort of an old habit, even if Aloisa's heart did not steady.<br/>It was as a result that her hands found the fleur de lis shape of brass pommel against Aloisa's belly. Curious came the pull which exposed it, their little secret, a danger which thrilled her.<br/>"Did you come to guard Mlle. Goulet?" Her voice dropped to the softest of whisper. "I have heard things of Blackwell Coffee Club I shan't repeat, but you must nod if they be true, these depraved rumors."<br/><br/>Enough time passed that Zoe became anxious. "Mlle. Corinne," she called down the ladder. "Mlle. Corinne, are you not there?"<br/>"Gone below I'm afraid," Giselle answered her.<br/>"All that way for a bottle, but surely you have one at hand to lend."<br/>A moment's consideration, and then, "What is your intention for it?"<br/>"We will capture the mists," said Zoe.<br/>"And then?" But Giselle provided, and a bottle for libations still with its label crisp handed up the ladder. "A touch of wine remains."<br/>"This is the stuff of science." Zoe wagged the bottle at Camille. "Not fearful shibboleth. The lady is right, you will tarnish your reputation to speak of such things."<br/><br/>"Doubtless we must be free to speak of such things here," said Camille. "Who is there to sow such scandal? The specimen who flings herself beneath Mlle. Corinne's examination lens?"<br/>"The implication," Zoe protest.<br/>"Or Mlle. Vine-Lott, an<em>officer </em>no less?"<br/><br/>Hannah Rodes-Taving's hands tugged insistent in the hook of Danae's elbow. "She means it not, the spirit speaks through her. The nights are restless for her as well. But we have seen the moon, and I would sooner this night pass behind me one way or another."<br/><br/>With the factions so split, Camille's attention pirouette on Jacqueline and that acidic question. "Were the paradise at the journey's end less sublime, I would not go at all. It will be the first time, with the white sand so fine between the toes it passes like sheets of satin. Mlle. Goulet has gone before, when Perle Cove was repopulated. The wild jungle has an invigorating effect on the human libido. What is thorny is not always distasteful. Sometimes, it pricks the skin just right."