The
VENGEANCE
of
the
W EDNESDAY , S EPTEMBER THE F IRST
I am home at last! Ah, the wonderful sooty
air! Th e skyline seems much changed since I
left home all those long months ago! Yet the
adventure has hardly ended, for now I must
prepare for my own wedding! Can you even
believe it! Only think: a Duke and a Duchess!
Yet there is still one thing that humors
me poorly, for wouldn’t you know it, but that
silly Perdina Meeks has gone and gotten
married while I have been away! Friends since
childhood and I wasn’t even favored with
an invitation to be a bridesmaid! Dear Aunt
claims my invitation was addressed to the fi rst
airship and therefore most likely delivered to
the bottom of the sea, but that does not soothe
my indignity. And not only married, but to a
Baron! If she thinks that she can out-marry
me, then she has quite another thing coming!
For it isn’t often, is it, that you’re favored by a
visit from a Duchess and a Duke!
Uncle is afraid that he cannot quite aff ord
the kind of wedding most commonly aff orded
to a Duke, but I have no such reservations,
for Percy is quite generous, and bound to help
out. He is no miser. I wonder what it will be
like to have to pack up all my belongings and
vampire
leave my family home to live in a palace? We
will have landholdings in both England and
France, heaven forbid, which is where we will
also be taking our honeymoon.
I immediately wrote to Perdina to invite
her to my wedding... to a Duke, which I
emphasized in the boldest ink lines. She must
have taken it as an immediate invitation, for
she has arrived too soon and is even now
waiting in the drawing room. I am trying to
come up with more things to write here in my
journal in order to keep her waiting. I fear it
is most pressing that I set out to the shops to
choose a trousseau, and I’d rather not go for
fear of having her as a companion.
But I have just had the most interesting
item delivered to my door. It seems that the
fi rst wedding gift has arrived already, and
even before the invitations have been sent.
It is a gift from Lu Yan, who, I am overjoyed
to hear, is alive and well! It is his “Guide to
Hunting Monsters.”
“Best wishes to the bride,” it reads. “May
your love be ever true.”
It is the most wonderful gift I have ever
received, for contained within its pages are
photographs, diary entries, specimens, and all
the information one could ever want to know