“When I am once again Birder of the Year,” Hippolyta intoned, “I shall have your name stricken from the ranks of the Ornithological Society, Oberhufter!”
The door withdrew slightly, then banged into her again.
“When I am Birder of the Year,” Oberhufter shouted, “I shall have you banned from ever picking up a birdcage again, Quirm!”
Devon blinked. A ripple went through Beth’s expression in response.
“Heinously gormless faradiddling cockalorum!” Hippolyta roared with a tour de force of English eloquence, while the door tried in vain to force her out of its path.
“Gehirnverweigerer!” Oberhufter’s voice made the servants cower.
“Ahem.”
Devon turned his head, as did everyone else, to see a dark-suited man in a bowler hat standing in the hotel lobby, holding a briefcase and folded newspaper, politely blank-faced behind his mustache as he awaited his turn to use the elevator.
Mrs. Quirm harrumphed, and whirling, she stormed off.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Beth said politely, and followed.
Devon flinched at the sudden loss. He reached out unthinkingly to stop her, or even just to touch her one more time—
But she was gone.
“Bäh,” Oberhufter said as the ladies’ footmen hastened to exit with their luggage trolley. “The sooner I am Birder of the Year and get to gloat over that woman’s tears of defeat, the better.” He clapped his hands. “Another sandwich! Now! More cheese this time!”
“Aaargh!” cried Elvira Fotheringham as her sister pounded her head against the floor.
Devon sighed. Another lapwing feather drifted past, scenting the air with vanilla, blood, and wicked magic. Watching it, he had a sudden premonition that this was going to be a long summer indeed.
Chapter Five
Integrity is the hallmark of the master ornithologist, trust me on this.
Birds Through a Sherry Glass, H.A. Quirm
The train arrived at Calais after midnight. Gas lamps lit the station, but the sea beyond was dark and still, and dampness made the air feel tired. A ferry waited to carry the train passengers on to Dover in England, and a veritable scrum had formed as everyone made the transfer. Beth clutched her satchel for comfort as she trudged along the dock, the noise and jostling of the crowd making her feel twitchier than a white-eyed hurricane sparrow. The day had been far too long, with far too many people in it (not to mention a deadly lapwing), and she wished she could hang back until everyone else had boarded the ferry. But it was going to be a matter of first on, best seated, and no one cared more about seating arrangements than birders. Should Hippolyta find herself farther from the exit than Mrs. Huang of the Chinese Avian Tracking Society, someone was liable to end up overboard.
Excitement for the competition ran high. Señor Perez had glued yellow silk feathers to his wheelchair, Mrs. Nnadi’s hat bore a mechanical bird—at least until Miss Eliza Wolfe “accidentally” knocked it off with her next birder of the year flag—and Monsieur Chevrolet was for some reason outfitted in a Scottish kilt that only just covered his excellent thighs. (Beth noted several people staring at it intently, as if trying to manifest a sudden breeze.) Hippolyta, however, focused all her energy on Herr Oberhufter, some ten feet ahead. His luggage trolley was preventing her from overtaking him, and such was her frustration that she vibrated even more than an African sacred ibis in mating season.
Suddenly, the trolley met a crack in the dock’s surface and lurched to an abrupt halt. “D—!” said the footman, his curse reduced to polite punctuation by the clatter of toppling suitcases. The crowd swarmed past him. Oberhufter vanished from sight.
“Great galloping Jove!” Hippolyta exclaimed. Shoving aside two ladies wearing large so i 
ios badges, she pursued Oberhufter into the night, leaving Beth suspended in stunned astonishment.
“What a disaster!” cried the footman pushing their luggage trolley. Beth turned to give him a reassuring smile.
“Don’t worry, Samuel, we’ll just catch up with her on the ferry.”
“I mean, I can’t find Mrs. Quirm’s cosmetics purse!” The poor man was as frantic as a student who hasn’t studied for exams. “I think I must have left it on the train!”
“Oh dear,” she said. Hippolyta felt the same way about her cosmetic purse as Beth did about her satchel: like it was an extension of herself, containing the necessities of life. And while it might seem that Beth’s field journal, binoculars, and emergency supply of birdseed were more ornithologically valuable than mere toiletries, Hippolyta had once caught a poisonous goldfinch using a hairnet and rose-scented lip rouge, so Beth was not about to scoff.
“I can’t go back for it,” Samuel said. “I need to guard the luggage.” He gave Beth a wide-eyed, imploring look.
No, said her brain instantly as it contemplated the veritable forest of people, suitcases, birdcages, outdoor furniture, and at least one personal commode that she’d have to navigate in order to reach the train. But “Yes, all right,” said her mouth, of course. “I’ll fetch it.”
Samuel grinned. “Thanks, miss!” He waved to someone—at least, that was how it appeared, confusingly, to Beth, until he pointed at the locomotive, and she understood he was giving her directions. “If you go down the other side of the train, it’ll be quicker.”
“Hm,” Beth replied wearily. A drop of rain splashed against her hand; squinting at the sky, she winced as another fell onto her face. Samuel handed her an umbrella from the luggage trolley.
“Good luck,” he said. “I believe in you!”
A little taken aback by this enthusiastic declaration of faith in her purse-fetching ability, Beth murmured thanks, then hurried away. Moving around the head of the locomotive, she balked at how eerily quiet it was on the other side, between the train and the imposing terminal building. Darkness stretched before her, speared here and there by dim lamplight from a few carriage windows whose blinds had not been fully closed. She questioned the wisdom of proceeding, but there was no time to dither. The ferry would be leaving soon.
“Blast and botheration,” she muttered as she hurried alongside the train. Rain began to drizzle more steadily, requiring her to open the umbrella. Beneath its black oilcloth, the night seemed even more ominous. Beth paused, thinking that she really ought to turn back.
Suddenly, a low, sinister whistle slid through the darkness. Beth stopped, every hair on her arms rising. She knew that sound. A strix owl was calling out in distress.
Nonsense, she told herself. I’m imagining things. The strix owl was a vanishingly rare bird located solely in the Scottish Highlands. It would not be crying in the dark of a French ferry terminal.
And yet there went the sound again, coiling around her heart, making her shiver with a disconcerting chill.
She crept forward, listening intently. Perhaps a storm had blown the bird across the Channel. Perhaps it had escaped from an aviary. Whatever the case may be, she was constitutionally incapable of ignoring a bird in trouble.
Just then, the darkness ahead rippled. Beth instinctively edged closer to the train, angling her umbrella like a shield. A man was creeping along the side of the building, a small pipe between his lips. As he passed through a shaft of light, Beth recognized Herr Oberhufter’s secretary, Mr. Schreib (or possibly Schreib’s identical twin, her brain offered with a pedantry she really did not appreciate right now). He blew on the pipe, and once again the whistle of a strix owl echoed uncannily through the night.
I knew the bird couldn’t be here! Beth thought with rather smug gratification.
