Changeless: The Parasol Protectorate: Book the Second by Gail Carriger

laboratory, Lady Maccon.”
    “Oh,” replied Alexia. “Why should you have?”
    The Frenchwoman dimpled at her and bent to retrieve a fallen vial of some silvery liquid, which had managed to escape Quesnel’s
     explosion unbroken. “Your husband informed me that you were clever. And prone to interfering overmuch.”
    “That sounds like something he would say.” Alexia made her way through the shambles, lifting her skirts delicately to keep
     them from getting caught on fragments of glass. Now that she could see them closer up, the gadgets lying about Madame Lefoux’s
     contrivance chamber were amazing. There seemed to be an entire assembly line of glassicals in midconstruction and a massive
     apparatus that looked to be composed of the innards of several steam engines welded to a galvanometer, a carriage wheel, and
     a wicker chicken.
    Alexia, tripping only once over a large valve, completed her trek across the room and nodded politely to the child and the
     ghost.
    “How do you do? Lady Maccon, at your service.”
    The scrap of a boy grinned at her, made an elaborate bow, and said, “Quesnel Lefoux.”
    Alexia gave him an expressionless look. “So,
did
you get the boiler started?”
    Quesnel blushed. “Not exactly. But I did get a fire started. That should count for something, don’t you feel?” His English
     was superb.
    Madame Lefoux cast her hands heavenward.
    “Indubitably,” agreed Lady Maccon, endearing herself to the child for all time.
    The ghost introduced herself as Formerly Beatrice Lefoux.
    Alexia nodded to her politely, which surprised the ghost. The undead were often subjected to rudeness from the fully alive.
     But Lady Maccon always stood on formality.
    “My impossible son and my noncorporeal aunt,” explained Madame Lefoux, looking at Alexia as though she expected something.
    Lady Maccon filed away the fact that they all had the same last name. Had Madame Lefoux not married the child’s father? How
     very salacious. But Quesnel did not look at all like his mother. She need not have claimed him. He was a towheaded, pointy-chinned
     little creature with the most enormous violet eyes and not a dimple in sight.
    The lady inventor said to her family, “This is Alexia Maccon, Lady Woolsey. She is also muhjah to the queen.”
    “Ah, my husband saw fit to tell you that little fact, did he?” Alexia was surprised. Not many knew about her political position,
     and, as with her preternatural state, both she and her husband preferred to keep it that way: Conall, because it kept his
     wife out of danger; Alexia, because it caused most individuals, supernatural or otherwise, to come over all funny about soullessness.
    The ghost of Beatrice Lefoux interrupted them. “You are ze muhjah? Niece, you allow an exorcist into ze vicinity of my body?
     Uncaring, thoughtless child! You are ze worse than your son.” Her accent was far more pronounced than her niece’s. She moved
     violently away from Alexia, floating back and upward off the barrel upon which she had pretended to sit. As though Alexia
     could
do
anything damaging to her spirit. Silly creature.
    Lady Maccon frowned, realizing that the aunt’s presence eliminated Madame Lefoux as a suspect in the case of the mass exorcism.
     She could not have invented a weapon that acted like a preternatural, not here, not if her aunt’s spirit resided in the contrivance
     chamber.
    “Aunt, do not get so emotional. Lady Maccon can only kill you if she touches your body, and only I know where that is kept.”
    Alexia wrinkled her nose. “Please do not agitate yourself so, Formerly Lefoux. I prefer not to perform exorcisms in any event:
     decomposing flesh is very squishy.” She shuddered delicately.
    “Oh, well, thank you for that,” sneered the ghost.
    “Ew!” said Quesnel, fascinated. “Have you conducted simply masses of them?”
    Alexia narrowed her eyes at him in a way she hoped was mysterious and cunning, and then turned back to his mother.