The orphanage director, Mr. Buckley, took out his handkerchief and wiped sweat from his bald head. “Madam, Charlie cannot live with you.”

Eleanor smiled slightly, trying to look helpful and charming inside her mourning veil, although she felt ready to faint from the heat and the stench of over-ripe oranges in the greenhouse. “But I'm his cousin. He knows me, and I've prepared a room in my apartment for him. He'll be very well cared for.”

“You were considered, madam.” He stepped aside as a small boy, younger than Charlie, pushed a robotic contraption made of gears and metal claws down the path between the orange trees.

The greasy device looked heavy and awkward, and Eleanor wished that there was a polite way to help the boy. But no, she had to appear to be a proper lady.

“Unfortunately, madam, your household is not suitable for a twelve year old child. Your, shall we say, close associate, she is particularly not suitable. Given her history. Et cetera.” He pulled out a pocket watch and looked at it. “Charlie must remain here.”

Eleanor stopped smiling helpfully. She wondered how Mr. Buckley knew so much about her unsuitable household. Her wife's former career as an airship pirate was a carefully kept secret. Her own brief career as an actress, and their recent marriage, weren't as scandalous as they might have seemed a century ago. But this Mr. Buckley had a slightly green tinge to his skin, and the Green Men ran the post office and the police station and the military recruiting agencies. They had secret societies, and who knew what information they shared?

“But sir, please, Charlie needs to remain with his family, and I'm the only family that he has left.” She widened her eyes, trying to look innocent and distressed. She felt a drop of sweat run down her neck and stop at the high collar of her black woolen dress.

“Madam, I simply don't feel that Charlie will learn correct behaviour and suitable morals in your household. Children must be taught respect for authority, and respect for their elders, and respect for the planet. Also, respect for-” He stopped and glared at someone behind Eleanor. “I'm busy. What is it?”

Eleanor turned and saw a white-aproned blonde nurse who was fanning herself with a folder of papers. “I'm sorry, sir, I meant no disrespect, but is young Master Charles here with you?”

“Of course not. I never allow minors at custody inquiries, as they tend to be emotional and disruptive. I expect that he's currently in class.”

“Sir, he isn't. Nor in the dorms. I can't find him, sir. And some of the other boys said that he was talking about jumping into the Pit.”

Eleanor shook her head automatically, and felt her bonnet slide against her ears. “He couldn't.”

Mr. Buckley said, “Jumping is strictly forbidden.”

“Yessir, I know sir, but Master Charles has been so gloomy since his parents died, and I'm worried about him.”

“Which is why,” Eleanor remarked softly, “he should be allowed to live with me.” She doubted that Charlie would actually jump into the mysterious Pit that had opened several blocks from the orphanage. Suicidal people might jump, and archeologists might lower themselves with ropes, and the armed services might send down a small airship occasionally. But no one ever returned.

Charlie had more sense than that.

“Madam,” said the nurse, “when you're done here, could you help me look for him? You might know the sorts of places he would go.”

Mr. Buckley scowled, but nodded. “Go and find your disrespectful cousin. Our meeting is a waste of my time. He shall remain in this orphanage until his seventeenth birthday, and that is final.” He turned away from her and began to lecture the small boy with the robot about the most respectful way to harvest fresh oranges.

Eleanor muttered to his back, “Thank you for your consideration.” Then she left the greenhouse with the nurse, and they spent the next hour searching the snow-covered orphanage grounds for Charlie.

*

Eleanor was shivering by the time she walked home to their apartment building near the shallow river. She still missed seeing ships on the water, but the War Effort had done something mysterious to the depth of the river. The fog had stopped forming, and the occasional cholera outbreaks had ended when the Green Men had arrived, about a decade ago.

They mean well, she thought as she walked up the stairs and down the hallway. Even Mr. Buckley probably means well.

Inside the apartment, Minnie was lounging on the couch with her booted feet on a stack of books beside the coffee table. Books covered most surfaces, since their library had been converted into Charlie's planned bedroom, and their bookcases now held boys' clothing and model airships.

Minnie asked, “Did he believe it?”

“The respectable act? No, he didn't.” Eleanor pulled off her veiled bonnet and placed it on an atlas. “He says Charlie has to stay in the orphanage, but Charlie clearly thinks otherwise. He's missing.”

“Oh, he'll turn up. Probably engaged in some mischief. I always was at that age.” Minnie waved a piece of sky-blue paper. “Gloria wrote to us. She says the War stopped all the air traffic in the south, but the north is still full of good plunder. She was chosen as quartermaster of her crew a month ago.”

“I'm glad. But are you sure you should be getting letters from pirates? Mr. Buckley at the orphanage said he had investigated us, and found us unsuitable. He seems to know something about your past.”

Minnie shrugged, rippling the heavy fabric of her men's shirt and wine-colored waistcoat. “He's probably bluffing. Or expecting a bribe.”

“I don't think so. He's Green. And he seems horribly moral.”

Minnie grinned. “Better horribly moral than horribly immoral, I suppose. But I'll bet a few honorable donations to his orphanage would help our case. And you are family.”

“He didn't care about that, or even care much that Charlie was missing. And worse, a couple of the boys there said that Charlie was talking about jumping into the Pit.”

Minnie rolled up Gloria's letter and threw it toward a heap of papers on a book-covered desk. It landed neatly. “The Pit! With a parachute? Or in an airship, I hope? I've always wondered what's down there.”

Eleanor sat and began to unbutton her boots. “Well, I thought they might mean suicide.”

“Oh, bosh. Charlie has more sense than that.”

“Well, yes. Of course.” Eleanor pulled off one boot and rubbed her cold toes through a hole in her stocking. “But he's been gloomy.”

“His parents just died in a horrific traffic accident. You've been gloomy yourself, and you didn't even like them.” Minnie leaned forward and put the knife that she had used to open the mail back into her boot sheath.

“We had disagreements.” Long arguments with her uncle, Eleanor remembered, about the marriageability of a fierce female pirate captain. “But I am worried about Charlie.”

“I could find an unattended airship.” Minnie grinned. “And we could go looking for him.”

Eleanor pulled off the stocking and threw it at Minnie. “That is a terrible idea, and you know it. But you could check the bars or the concert halls or wherever the kids go these days. Try to find him.”

Minnie dropped Eleanor's stocking into an overflowing basket of mending projects next to the couch. “We'll search together. He's your cousin.”

“But I'm in mourning. I shouldn't go out.”

Minnie swung her boots off the stack of books. “If I went into mourning every time somebody died, I'd wear black the rest of my life. Put on something nice, and I'll get my hat and gun.”

Eleanor rubbed her sore feet for another minute, but then went to their closet to look for a more colorful dress.

*

Eleanor and Minnie didn't find Charlie at a circus with steam-powered mechanical animals. Then they didn't find Charlie at an evening exhibition of photographs of airship disasters. Eleanor grew hungry, so they didn't find him at a good restaurant. Minnie grew thirsty, so they began to search through bars near the orphanage.

Minnie was swaying slightly, but no longer thirsty, when they entered a cold candle-lit bar near a public airship hangar.

“Minnie?” called a rough voice from a table in a back corner.

“Hullo, Zeek,” called Minnie. She and Eleanor pushed through a sullen crowd of airmen to where a heavy man with a scarred nose sat alone. “Scurvy Zeek, I never thought I'd see you again. Is your no-good captain here too?"

"Old Blodger? Nah, he came into Town three months ago and disappeared. You haven't seen him, have you?"

"No, but I barely see anybody. I'm retired now."

"Ha. Nobody stays retired." Zeek kicked one of the chairs, shoving it toward Eleanor. "Sit, sit, girl. Minnie, take your hand off your gun and I'll buy you and your dollymop here some drinks."

Minnie pulled out the other chair and sat, but Eleanor saw that she did have one hand on her gun. "She's a lady, Zeek. My new wife, Eleanor."

"Ha." Zeek winked at Eleanor, but then raised one bushy eyebrow under his knit cap. "You're serious? Nice catch."

Minnie grinned. "That she is."

Eleanor remained standing, not trusting Zeek and not liking this bar. She told Minnie, "Charlie clearly isn't here. I think we should keep looking for him."

Minnie waved at a barmaid. "Oh relax, he's probably back at the orphanage by now. Let's have a few more drinks and hear all the news."

"I think you've had enough drinks."

"Oh don't nag me. You can look for him without me if you must. I'll go straight home after this." Minnie turned to Zeek. "So, how's the free air?"

"Stranger than ever, Menace. I may need a new captain." Zeek leaned forward and whispered something to Minnie.

Eleanor said, "I'm going, Minnie."

Minnie said, "I'll be home in a bit, love." She leaned forward to whisper to Zeek.

Eleanor turned and left. She was irritated, and concerned, and she spent several more hours looking for Charlie alone. She didn't find him.

*

Eleanor woke the next morning to pounding on the apartment door. She was alone in bed, and wondered if Minnie had stayed out all night drinking, and had lost her key. Eleanor pulled a heavy dressing gown over her nightgown and went into the front room.

She was still deciding which tone of voice might best encourage Minnie to change her wicked ways, when she pulled open the door.

In the hallway, in a patch of morning sunlight, stood Charlie. He had spiderwebs in his uncombed black hair, and he clutched a rolled newspaper. He glared at Eleanor. "What have you done to Captain Minnie?"