The hag with no eyes stayed for the beer and left when she couldn't drink more. Ted felt used, somehow – like a butler of an old alcoholic, bringing what the master wanted and not what they needed. It was good to know that she could be persuaded. Ted replenished his wine cellar and waited.
He got bad news from Mad before he could arrange to meet with the eyeless drunkard demon again.
"It's still very much magic water. I can't find out more just yet, not with my machine in the state it is in now. I need more time," Mad said. "I'm sorry, but it is what it is."
"I do understand. You're only human," Ted said, but he had to pinch the bridge of his nose.
He hated that he was malleable in any real, tangible way, but there was a point in the bridge of the human nose that was good for applying pressure to while under immense pressure.
Something had to be done about the machine. Ted had no other way of supporting the scientific cause, he had to funnel money into it.
He chose when and how to give money to people, though. This time, he told Mad something the scientist would surely consider excessive – that they had to go east, again, in order to engage in one more act of industrial spying.
This time Ted would not be satisfied with mere scraps. He wanted to be where the action happened, where the new airships were built.
Mad could complain all he wanted, but it was Ted who would eventually have his way. He always got what he desired.
A satisfying arrangement was made. Ted and Eknie would leave Mad to his own devices and take a trip east, pretending to be ordinary tourists.
No one was aware of just how completely Ted could change his appearance when needed.
With pain and effort, he lightened his hair with three different dangerous chemicals, he puffed up his features with a certain extract made of some animal venom, he practiced a gait of a severely injured man and advised Eknie as she tried similar tricks.
Soon, with the help of a really nice wig, Eknie, too, was much blonder than before.
They embarked on an airship and took off.
It was a lovely thing to be able to fly. The different hisses and clacks of machinery around them sounded as sweet as a lullaby, but the wind provided a contrast, as it was rather harsh on the unsheltered regular passenger deck.
They took many strolls there, with Eknie wearing a tight hat-like device on her head that prevented the wig from flying away. Luckily, this wasn't too unusual nowadays. Something peculiar was happening in women's fashion. Some hats looked like they had actual birds nailed onto their tops, and Eknie swore up and down that this was the case with a woman she called, not lovingly, Mrs. Social Climber.
The Climber of the airship was a bothersome, waifish woman with a penchant for unnecessary questions. As Ted did not trust his good luck any further, he did not deal with her in the traditional way, rather, he crafted many boring tales of absolute mediocrity that he made Eknie memorize, forwards and backwards until they were almost certain that they were Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Ted knew Eknie did not like this facade due to her painful memories of the fake wedding.
He liked the fact that it made her uncomfortable. She deserved everything for being such a leech.
Mrs. Social Climber, though, she was the kind of woman who made Ted question his low opinion on ladies i general. Surely, this nosey, self-righteous specimen was an example of how not to commit to womanhood. Actually, the common woman was a bright star, an absolute genius compared to this thing with her bulbous nose and ugly lips pressing pale traces of powder on every available window.
"Oh, but his pocket watch," she sighed for the seventh time during that otherwise beautiful foggy morning. "It was that ragged, dastardly kind, I did not trust him."
Eknie had to physically restrain Ted, if it had not been for her patience, he would have made his presence known.
He just knew the woman was secretly dreaming about the ragged, dastardly kind, she didn't like not being given money on the basis of wearing dresses and that contradiction was the reason for her unhappiness.
Ted had never considered that his heart could fail, but Mrs. Social Climber made him question his blood pressure. It sure did not feel good to not be able to choke someone with a wire in a situation where worse things were warranted.
It was the ultimate tightly packed place anxiety. Or, rather, it was just regular cabin fever.
There was always the option of jumping overboard into a certain death.
"I have some of that nausea powder you gave me, you remember?" Eknie whispered to Ted when they were having a rare moment without the constant blabbering. "How about just a mild case of just a very mild poisoning?"
"You are trying to get into my good books again, aren't you?" Ted sighed. "Don't risk anything, don't be foolish. You can poison plenty of morons when we visit the capital."
They rarely, if ever, visited the capital of Sennas. Ted knew that Eknie knew that.
He had a thin slice of comfort with his ham from the thought of making her disappointed.
"Well, it's not like this can last as long as it feels like it lasts," Eknie muttered and took a dainty bite of ham.
"Look…"
Ted gestured towards the scene that was quickly developing near the dining area.
The Climber was having a conflict with a woman who was clearly of lowly birth.
"She is the thief! The THIEF! It was mine!"
It appeared like Mrs. Social Climber had lost her status as the top untouchable materialist of the airship.
The commotion was about a bag that Ted had seen the poorer woman brandish earlier.
He narrowed his eyes.
A nasty person and a thief.
He only allowed those vices to one human – himself.