The Timeseer's Gambit (The Faraday Files Book 2) (32 page)

He couldn’t go there.

He scribbled notes, keeping his mind focused. Some of the Maidens and Youths were around Olivia’s age, but most seemed only a few years older than Chris. Every pair except one from the Burroughs was present, and only on account of illness. Grandmother Eugenia had done well.

As if alerted by his thinking of her, the old woman standing in the further corner of the room swung her gaze to him, her focus falling on him as steadily as that of an alarm salamander. He hunched his shoulders automatically, and a ghost of a smile played at the old woman’s mouth.

Chris looked down. He focused his attention down on the notebook.
Is it strange that she is here?
He wove purposely. Olivia was regarding the room, considering her next move. He nudged her―most impolite―and showed her the page.

When he looked down at her face, she twitched her head to one side and then back, a gesture that was uniquely Olivia for “I don’t know, but probably yes.”

Well. He was glad he wasn’t the only one who found it odd.

“All right,” Olivia said. She straightened her necktie. The gesture was well-calculated. All thirty-five heads followed the motion, each and every one of the attached priests clearly uncomfortable with a lady in gentleman’s garb. “When someone has something to say, they are going to raise their hands and wait until they are called upon. Else we will stampede over one another most irritatingly.” After a pause: “Nod along, children.”

A few sour faces appeared on the older Maidens and Youths, one of whom looked older than Olivia, herself. Chris made sure to record this. But they all did as they were told, nodding dutifully like a flock of pigeons pecking crumbs. Olivia clapped her hands once. “Good! We’re off and running. Now. It has come to my attention very recently that you all know one another. Is this true?”

A few heads nodded. One of them was Sister Patricia’s handsome Youth, who was sitting just in front of the Grandmother’s position. Timothy Lane’s replacement was, according to Chris’s notes, a boy named Alexander Cole. Brother Alexander abruptly stopped nodding when Sister Patricia elbowed him with more force than seemed correct for a pretty slip like her.

“Mnn, no. It’s quite all right, Patricia,” Grandmother Eugenia soothed. She laid one hand on her Maiden’s shoulder and the other on her Youth’s. She fixed her eyes on Olivia. “Miss Faraday, you’ll have to forgive the children. They’ve all been told a thousand times, you see. They aren’t to talk about our little… get-togethers. They don’t exactly follow the letter of the law for us.”

“Or the spirit of the law, as I understand it,” Olivia said mildly, her eyebrows climbing.

“Ah,” the Crone said, “but that would very much depend on how you interpreted the law, wouldn’t it?”

Olivia laughed in pure delight. “Oh? Goodness, it’s a shame Officer Dawson isn’t here. She would just adore
that
bit of anarchistic wisdom.”

Grandmother Eugenia smiled. There was no friendliness in the gesture. “In this case, ‘law’ is just a turn of phrase, Deathsniffer.” She shot the word like an insult. She couldn’t know that Olivia wrapped insults around herself like stylish capes. “The church has no real leader. What’s a law without anyone enforcing it?”

Olivia tilted her head. She regarded the Crone with something akin to respect. She did enjoy someone who didn’t cower from her. “Every man’s master is the one who pays him,” she said. “Who pays you, Eugenia?”

“We receive a small amount of money from the Crown, of course―”

“―and a
large
amount of money from the
faithful
.” Olivia reached up to straighten her boat hat. Again, several of the young priests watched her. “I’m not among them myself, but I’ve met so many. There’s one thing they all have in common. They are painfully
traditional
. And it’s
traditional
that the holy families don’t mingle. So there
is
a law that you answer to, and it’s the whim of the people who still think the Three and Three are relevant.”

The Crone blinked slowly. She didn’t say anything else, but Chris saw her stiffen. Grandmother Eugenia was clearly not used to being contradicted. And
certainly
not used to losing when she was. He remembered how Mother Greta and Grandmother Harriet had both spoken of her, with something akin to reverence. Eugenia had said that the church had no leader, but he suspected it did.

“All right,” Olivia said, sounding very pleased indeed. “Now that we’ve settled that, let’s try this again. I understand that you all know one another.”

This time, slowly, the room began to nod until everyone but the frowning Crone were bobbing their heads.

Olivia grinned. “Good,” she said. “Now. It’s been three months since Timothy Lane died. What did you all think of that when it happened?”

Sister Patricia looked down at her hands. Brother Alexander wrapped his arm around her. Near the back of the room, Brother Tibault raised his hand. Chris recognized him by his handsome face and lanky build as much as by his huge, unfortunate mole. He checked his notes. Brother Tibault. He had been the Youth of the hopeless Virginia Landon. Olivia nodded to him and he pulled his hand down. “Unfortunate accident, Miss,” he said. His voice was very pleasant. It really was a shame about that mole. “Everyone was good and shaken up about the whole thing, but nobody thought too hard about it. Fiaran got loose and people died. It… it happens, yeah?” He shrugged uncomfortably.

“It most certainly does,” Olivia murmured. She pointed at Sister Patricia, who started a little in Brother Alexander’s grasp. “What did
you
think when it happened, Sister?”

Sister Patricia shrunk. “I thought…”

“Oh, come now, leave the girl be,” Grandmother Eugenia growled. Chris remembered her saying much the same thing when Olivia had tried to question Sister Patricia that first day, too, but her tone had been much more easy-going, then.

Olivia fixed the Crone with a look. “How old are you, Eugenia?” she asked.

“A lot older than you, dear,” Eugenia said, cracking her lips into more a barring of teeth than a smile.

Olivia turned to Chris. “Mister Buckley. Do you think you would have any trouble forcibly removing this poor, confused old woman from this room?”

He nearly dropped his notebook. “I―I, ah―” Was she serious? She wasn’t serious. There was absolutely no way that he could manhandle
any
old woman, even if she weren’t a Holy Crone, an earthly reflection of Grandmother Eadwyr.

“I find that old women are either extremely fat or made of bones and wax paper,” Olivia continued. “Jeanie here is definitely the latter. You may not exactly be a porter, Christopher, but I think you could relocate her with one hand and maybe an elbow.”

“I…” Chris tried again.

Olivia gave him a very pointed look, lips folding into a thin little line. Her eyes flashed. “Isn’t that right?” she asked, sweetly.

Chris’s heart dropped into his feet. “It does seem likely,” he admitted dourly.

Olivia’s smile turned as sweet as her voice had been, and she unleashed both on the glowering Grandmother. “If you have something to say, raise your hand and wait to be called upon,” she said, voice positively dripping honey. “Is that perfectly understood, Eugenia?”

Please, Chris begged the old woman, please agree.

She didn’t. But she didn’t disagree, either. She said absolutely nothing, just watched Olivia with pinched lips.

It seemed as if Olivia would stare her down until she forced a response, but finally, she shrugged. “Fine,” she said airily. “I’ll take that as a yes and we’ll continue accordingly. Be ready, Mister Buckley! You may need to cart a screaming hag out of here!”

Chris tried to give the old lady a convincing evil smile to deter misbehaviour. It felt very sickly and apologetic. Grandmother Eugenia didn’t make any response.

“Now,” Olivia said, turning her attention back to the beautiful Maiden. “You were saying? And I want the full and honest truth.”

Patricia glanced over at her new Youth. Brother Alexander nodded encouragingly at her, tightening his grip around her shoulders. She sighed. “I suppose I was…”

“Yes?” Olivia prodded.

“Well, I suppose I thought that i-it wasn’t the worst thing,” Patricia admitted softly. Grandmother Eugenia looked as if she meant to say something, but Olivia shot her a quick glance, and apparently the Crone believed the threats well enough to keep her silence. “I was horrified when he died. I woke up, my room was frigid, and I knew something was terribly wrong. Ten minutes later, we found him frozen to his own bed. It was terrible.” She hung her head. “But I couldn’t help thinking about the future. I would have a new Youth. And perhaps he would be… better.” She turned her eyes to Brother Alexander. They almost glowed. “He was.”

Alexander smiled softly at her.

Another girl threw up her hand before Olivia could ask more questions. She was a round-faced, plain little thing with rosy cheeks and long brown braids and spectacles far thicker than Chris’s. Olivia nodded to her and she sat up straight.

“Tell it true, Lady Deathsniffer,” she piped, her accent surprisingly northern for her dun-coloured hair, “that’s what each and every one of us thought! We’d all had our own run-ins with Timmy on the days of rest. He wasn’t much in the way of a gent, and that’s the long and short of it. In fact, he was a bloody tosser, top to bottom. He stole and lied and cheated and didn’t want to be friends with a one of us here. Him freezing his unmentionables off was terrible, sure as anything, but at the time we all just thought that it was a sad thing with a silver lining. Patty gets a new Youth and she’d be a lot happier and that was what mattered in the end. It seems heartless, I know, but―”

“Gods, Margaret, nobody wants to hear you rattle on for an hour,” the sour-faced boy sitting hunched in his chair beside her grumbled, and Sister Margaret cringed, quieting with even more colour spreading onto her face.

Margaret. That was one of the names Sister Elisa had mentioned. Were they friends, then? Chris transcribed the interaction. It seemed important, somehow.

“I think I see. They can’t all be winners. Isn’t that right, Sister Margaret?” Olivia asked. Margaret glanced up, then over, and then back down. Answer enough.

“We all thought that was the end of it,” Patricia murmured. “One sad incident. That is, until a sylph tore Sister Virginia’s roof right off.”

A small, triumphant smile spread over Olivia’s sharp little face. “So,” she said. “You young people made the connection. You knew there was something suspicious about the deaths, after all. Is that right?”

Everyone exchanged looks. Entire conversations were had in the silence, and Chris could see Olivia’s satisfaction melt into frustration at how well the young priests had perfected wordless communication. What signals were passing between them? Olivia snapped her fingers and all heads turned back to her. Grandmother Eugenia still glowered in the corner. “What about you?” Olivia demanded, meeting the old woman’s eye in challenge. “It seems to me you know
everything
. Dowager Queen of the whole religion, hmm?”

The Crone made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. “
If
I had any idea about this,” she said. “Wouldn’t I have contacted the police?”

“
Would
you have? It seems to me you prefer to keep things… insular.”

The Crone scoffed deep in her throat. “If my Maidens and Youths were at risk and I thought there was a pattern to it, I would have done something, Miss Faraday, and that’s the truth.”

Olivia stared at her for a long moment, and then huffed and glanced away. “So either Granny Jeanie is lying,” she mused, “or you kept it from her.” She scanned the room, and her eyes fell on the tiny, fire-haired little Youth, Brother Calum Rowe. “You,” she said.

His Maiden, Sister Penelope, looked up. Her face scrunched into an angry, wrinkly prune. “Leave Calum alone, you hear me? I’ll answer your questions!”

“Christopher,” Olivia said sweetly, “consider this young lady whose name I forget warned. The next time she speaks out of turn, I want her out in the hall. And Calum most certainly stays in
here
.”

Chris was not pleased with how he’d been characterized as a brute who threw women over his shoulder and carried them kicking and screaming out of polite company, but threatening to separate them worked. Sister Penny’s jaw tightened, and she moved even closer to Brother Calum, but she didn’t speak again despite how badly she clearly wanted to.

“You,” Olivia repeated, pointing at Brother Calum again. “You tell me. Did you fine blessed youngsters think that there was foul play?”

Calum looked up, his big eyes blinking and guileless. “No,” he said in his quiet little voice, and even Chris, no truthsniffer in him, knew beyond doubt that he was telling the truth.

A furrow appeared between Olivia’s brows. “Oh?” she asked. “Then what
did
you think?”

Calum swallowed. “The Father’s Wrath,” he breathed.

Sister Margaret’s hand shot up again, and it stayed up despite the glare her Youth gave her. When Olivia nodded to her, Margaret stood up, hands clutched at her sides. “There’s
no
Father’s Wrath!” she cried. “Haven’t you all heard? Do none of you blighters save your pennies to score newspapers? Lachlan is gone, now!
Lachlan
! How could Father Calhoun be punishing us if Lachlan was taken and not―” She gulped. “S-someone else,” she finished weakly.

Olivia hummed thoughtfully. She was silent for too long, and in the quiet, Sister Margaret slowly sank back down into her chair, pulling off her specs and polishing them furiously. Chris recognized the nervous habit. His mother had drilled it out of him before he was twelve years old. “You thought it was a curse,” Olivia said finally.

Most of the room nodded.

“It
is
a curse,” one of the Maidens said.

A Youth nodded his agreement.

“But then why did Lachlan get taken?” someone called.

“If
Lachlan
deserves punishment, we’re all going to get it!”

“We all agreed that if we were good―”