No new content or chapters here. This is just the copy-pasted “previously in” summaries for anyone who wants them.
Summary
(1-3)
Isabelle and her mysterious new chaperone board the Aerial Express and have dinner with the airship’s unpleasant owner, Julius Beechcraft, and other passengers. During the night, she overhears Captain Miro fighting with Beechcraft, who fires her old friend.
The next morning, a maid discovers Beechcraft’s murder. Charging into the scene, Isabelle realizes that (1) someone tortured Beechcraft before his death and (2) her chaperone, Mrs. Darling, knows the owner’s secretary, Mr. Notti.
(4)
Isabelle worries that Captain Miro will be blamed for murdering Beechcraft. She visits her friend Tess, the navigator, who has her own worries — a bad storm approaches, and the ship will need to set down a few days early in Venice. Her alchemy experiment goes poorly, and Reimund invites her to join a game of cards.
(5)
Isabelle loses the game, and gossip increases her worry over Captain Miro’s fate. She breaks into Beechcraft’s suite and searches. She finds:
A scrap of gray fabric that she recognizes from somewhere
Blood stains near a closet safe
A business ledger with odd-looking entries
The article about Beechcraft’s negative effect on Edgemonton (In the secretary’s room)
A painting that resembles a young Mrs. Darling (In the secretary’s room)
Sleeping draughts (In the secretary’s room)
She also overhears two maids while hiding. One mentions Beechcraft’s abuse of female employees and the chance that his adopted daughter is his illegitimate offspring. As Isabelle exits the suite, Reimund sees her.
(6)
Reimund caught Isabelle sneaking out of the owner’s suite and confronted her in the late Beechcraft’s cabin. He seems interested in the contents of the man’s safe and swears that — despite their admittedly contentious relationship — his cousin could never have killed the man. However, he refuses to tell Isabelle the secret to which Heinrich alluded in the overheard conversation. After Isabelle calls him an idiot, he tricks her into believing they’re about to be discovered.
She storms off, runs into Mrs. Darling, and promises to meet her in the dining room. In the meantime, she breaks into her chaperone’s room, where she discovers that the fabric found near Beechcraft’s bed definitely came from Mrs. Darling’s dress.
(7)
Isabelle and Mrs. Darling dine with new companions, the Macons, and discover that a noted journalist is on board: Ulysses Aitkin, the author of the article found in Beechcraft’s suite.
Isabelle meets with Tess who realizes that the scrap of fabric (found by the victim’s bed) was deliberately cut, not torn. Isabelle confronts Mrs. Darling about her relationship with Beechcraft’s secretary, and the woman breaks down.
(8)
Mrs. Darling tells her story. After a youthful romance with Paul Notti (Beechcraft’s secretary) and a medical event, she married the local squire, Mr. Armstrong. The estate dried up, and Beechcraft acquired it, forcing Armstrong to sell by ruining the man’s finances and reputation and then blackmailing his wife over a youthful indiscretion. After her husband’s death, Mrs. Darling adopted her mother’s maiden name.
Isabelle tells her chaperone that someone may be framing her, displaying the fabric cut from her dress. When she leaves the room, she takes with her a pamphlet Mrs. Darling accepted from the protesters that demands Beechcraft be held accountable for the Rosefield disaster. Bad working conditions and dangerous shortcuts resulted in a factory explosion that killed 25 people and wounded more.
(9)
Reimund tells Isabelle to call on him if she needs a friend. She goes to sleep but wakes up to the sound of people searching the cabin next door (Beechcraft’s suite) in the middle of the night. She creeps out on the window walk to spy and overhears a group of individuals searching, but they leave unsatisfied: “it’s empty.”
The next morning, Captain Miro asks to speak privately to Mrs. Darling. When the chaperone returns, she is shaken. Someone informed Miro of her history, and he warned her that the authorities would wish to speak with her in Venice. The ladies head to breakfast.
(10)
People eat breakfast, plan to play shuffleboard, and discuss colorblind acquaintances. Isabelle makes a huge alchemical breakthrough, realizing that she needs to add salt to the equation. Reimund collects her from her room (to head to the shuffleboard tournament) and realizes that her project is (among other things) an attempt to redeem her parents’ legacy as scholars. It was a disparaged expedition to find an ancient aetheric battery that led to their deaths.
(11)
Isabelle watches Reimund play shuffleboard with the journalist Ulysses Aitkin. Their opponents are a pair of older women. Afterward, Isabelle interrogates Aitkin and discovers several important things:
Aitkin received an anonymous invitation and paid ticket for the journey, offering him a chance to interview Julius Beechcraft.
Aitkin suspects Beechcraft’s culpability in the Rosefield disaster, partly due to the fact that Rosefield was the site of emerging unionization.
Aitkin spotted Alastair Dunlap — the Rosefield engineer blamed for the tragedy — aboard. He was wearing the ship’s livery, suggesting he is now employed by the Aerial Express.
(12)
Isabelle and Reimund go for a walk, running into Mrs. Jones and the ship’s doctor who are coming out of a second-class cabin with an ill passenger. When out on the deck, they exchange confidences. Reimund asserts that Heinrich is a good man who saved him as a boy (intervening with a harsh father). In return, Isabelle tells him about Mrs. Darling’s past, the planted evidence, and the late night visitors to Beechcraft’s room the night before.
Suddenly, she recognizes a passenger on the lower deck. His hair glints with the same distinct charms she spied through Beechcraft’s window in the moonlight. Reimund is stunned. He knows the man’s identity. The stranger is Hugo Black, and (per Reimund), the Black family has a very good motive for wanting Beechcraft dead.
(13)
Reimund tells Isabelle about the Black family circus, led by Hugo and his wife Marie. After Beechcraft became their patron, they suffered from neglected safety measures and lower pay than expected. The arrangement came to an end when Marie shattered her leg and another troupe member nearly died. They parted on bad terms.
Isabelle takes Reimund to meet Tess (briefly) and demands Tess introduce them to Alastair Dunlap, the Rosefield scapegoat and current head engineer of the Aerial Express.
When speaking to Dunlap, Isabelle asks if he sent Aitken’s (the journalist) cryptic invitation. He denies it and mentions that Mr. Notti, Beechcraft’s secretary, might be responsible. After all (per Dunlap), he maneuvered to get his sweetheart (Mrs. Darling) on the voyage. He also claims that he was in the engine room at the time of the murder.
Isabelle and Reimund part, and she heads to her quarters, determined to confront Mrs. Darling about her relationship with Notti. She barges through the unlocked connecting door and finds Mr. Notti attacking Mrs. Darling.
(14)
Isabelle interrupts a private moment between Mrs. Darling and Mr. Notti. Her chaperone admits to the relationship and to knowing that Beechcraft and Notti would be aboard, but swears everything else she told Isabelle was true.
After a short nap, Isabelle confronts Reimund in his room. She again asks about the baron’s secret. His evasions lead her to conclude that his cousin’s stolen correspondence were part of a male-male love affair. Reimund is upset that she refused to leave the matter alone and asks her to leave.
(15)
Isabelle visits Tess who is preoccupied by the storm. She then dines with Mrs. Jones, Baron Hoffman, Reimund, and Mrs. Darling. Reimund is cold to her, and she enters into a scientific conversation with the baron.
She and Mrs. Darling return from dinner to find the captain waiting for them. He’s been tipped off that the missing murder weapon is in the chaperone’s room. Isabelle knows it wasn’t there when she went through Mrs. Darling’s belongings earlier but watches as the captain discovers a stiletto in one drawer. He escorts a shaken Mrs. Darling to the brig as she protests her innocence.
Isabelle knocks on Mr. Notti’s door to inform him of his lover’s predicament, but he doesn’t answer. She worries that she has the wrong door and tries the main entrance to the owner’s suite, which is ajar. She pushes it open to find Mrs. Jones kneeling over a dead Mr. Notti.