The Timeseer's Gambit (The Faraday Files Book 2) (36 page)

His eyes flickered open and he blinked, confused. Birds were chirping. Hooves clattered on cobbles. Voices called out. The loud, rhythmic swooping sound of a winged carriage in flight seemed to pass right by his window.

He blinked, rolling over. Was he dreaming? No, because he had to relieve himself badly. Had he fallen asleep on a park bench? No, because the comforting warmth of his bed swaddled him. He slowly sat up, running a hand through his hair. The sun was shining brightly through the window. It had to be at least 10 o’clock in the morning. He’d slept late. Why was the street in his bedroom? Shouldn’t the soundshield―

Oh, gods.

Suddenly wide awake, Chris threw the covers back and scrambled out of bed, snatching his specs off the bedside table and pushing them up his nose as he moved. He nearly tripped over his trousers and shirt from last night, which had found themselves crumpled on the floor in a pile, entirely unlike him. He’d thrown open his window last night, freezing but too tired to put the fiaran back to sleep, and now he thrust his head out of it, right into downtown Darrington.

Two stories down, the neighborhood was bustling with activity. A police carriage pulled by unicorns trotted by. Pedestrians made their way down the walks, including one lady in a fine russet gown with lace neck and a jaunty little miniature top hat perched sideways on her towering hair. The day was swelteringly hot once again, and Chris’s hair didn’t so much as ruffle as he angled his head to look straight down below.

His sylph had gotten loose while he slept.

The faint shimmer of the soundshield was gone. Across front yard, the freed sylph had cut through his garden and hedge, scattering foliage about like the aftermath of a brawl in a garden shop. Worse, the little coquette had blasted one area of his wrought iron fence, polishing and turning it from black to gleaming silver-grey. Across the road, the bench where his babysitter usually sat had been overturned and torn apart, and a tree had been ripped from its roots.

Chris threw on a dressing robe as he flew down the stairs. Going outside undressed without a soundshield seemed almost lewd, but he couldn’t wait long enough to put himself together. He felt as if every eye on the street was directed his way as he pulled the notice off his front door.

Dear CHRISTOPHER AND ROSEMARY BUCKLEY. A SYLPH bound to your private property recently escaped. We have ruled the cause as NEGLIGENT DELAY IN REBINDING. We attempted to contact you but were unable to reach you. The number of deaths connected to this incident is 0. The number of injuries connected to this incident is 0. The value of public property damaged by this incident is 200RO. The full fine incurred for this incident is:

1000RO for allowing a privately bound elemental to escape due to negligence.

0RO for death compensation.

0RO for injury compensation.

200RO for property damage.

Please pay these charges before the end of AUTUMN.

You DO NOT need to appear in court for these charges. You DO NOT risk detainment for these charges. Contact your local arm of the Queen’s Policing Force to dispute these charges.

Well.

It could be worse.

Some eyes
had
begun to focus on him, and it wasn’t his imagination. Chris ducked his head, flushing, and hurried inside the house. He slammed the front door behind him. Twelve hundred royals was more than he could comfortably pay, but he had four months to put it off. And he probably
had
been negligent. The truth was, he didn’t know anything about how often to rebind household elementals, other than when their auras started flickering. Rosemary had always taken care of it, and Michael before her.

At least no one had been hurt. Zero deaths. Zero injuries. Most binding bursts couldn’t boast either. He didn’t know if he could live with himself if his own ignorance had gotten someone hurt.

And despite that, he was glad he’d slept through it all, somehow. Sylphs… sylphs still made him nervous. Their giggling laughter, the way they sang like blasting winds. It all reminded him too much of the night he’d stood on the roof and watched the Floating Castle plummet while a host of celery green spirits swirled around it, the most devastating and, horribly, beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

Still in his robe, Chris went to the loo. He left the door open behind him like a savage, heart pounding. He relieved himself, and then stood under the stream of hot water in the shower until the fear that the undine would burst free and drown him like Lachlan Huxley finally overcame his good sense that it would be quite impossible with the door wide open.

He dressed slowly, feeling a strange sense of futility as he did so. What was the point? Olivia was busy doing her paperwork, today. He couldn’t think of anything out there worth braving the heat for. It seemed especially unthinkable to go and hire a ‘binder for a new sylph when he’d seen the cream of the crop who performed such bindings at Missus Edison’s just days ago.

He didn’t want to go into the city anyway. The Livingstone riots would be happening at every corner of every street. His nightmare still haunted him, and he was acutely aware of the pen sitting on his bedside table.

His stomach growled as he fastened his cufflinks. He had eggs. Bread. He could make eggies. And eat them all alone at the long, long, empty table. Perhaps he’d mirror William. They needed to talk, in any case. Would William eat eggies with him? But ever since he’d met Missus Cartwright and learned of her difficulties, it had been harder to just mirror Will and beg him to come keep company every time he felt lonely. Will had his own life. Will had more of a life than Chris did.

He was slipping on his shoes before he really thought of it, and had armed the salamander alarm and was off down the front walk moments later. His feet just carried him. He didn’t bother to flag a hackney. With the weekend underway and Darrington off from work, the roads were heavily congested. He’d get where he was going five times faster if he walked, and he could stand the heat. He smiled and nodded at everyone who walked by, perfectly polite, but he didn’t really see them. Not even their shoes.

He stopped in front of the office.

He went inside.

Olivia wasn’t in the waiting area. It had managed a miraculous recovery from its adventure the day before and was now once again the tasteful, velvet-covered room filled with flickering candles that he remembered. He couldn’t help but notice that the candles were fresh. Olivia had gotten a late start today, too.

He pushed open the door and walked through the back hall. He gave a jaunty salute to the glass globe holding its constantly sour-looking salamander with sullen orange scales that was the only light in the hall. As far as he knew, it had never been rebound. Was everyone flirting with disaster? Was all the world walking on the edge?

He opened the door to Olivia’s office.

The bright sunlight streaming in through the windows was a stark contrast to the dim waiting area and hallway. Chris threw up a hand to block the light, wincing. When his eyes adjusted, Olivia was staring at him, a pen in her hand and a furrow between her brows.

“…Christopher,” she said. They looked at one another. He was very aware that he’d walked here in a trance and didn’t know what, exactly, he’d come for. “Did you forget what day it is?” she hazarded, bemused.

Chris straightened. “I know you said otherwise,” he said. “But I thought perhaps you might need help.”

“I don’t.” Olivia’s eyebrows climbed. “I told you I didn’t. I want to sort through all of this myself, and you know Maris personally licks each and every word on these reports to make sure that they’re written by my own bloody hand.” She sighed, turning a page. “That woman is
dauntless
.”

Chris nodded. Although she hadn’t offered, he slid into the nearest chair. He remembered his interview here like it was yesterday, sitting in this chair and feeling as if he was over his head and drowning fast. Well. He’d learned to swim, in the end, even though everything in the world had changed since that day. “You may need help talking something through. I’ll just wait here, Olivia. If you need me, I’m available.” He pulled a tight smile onto his face.

She stared at him, eyebrows pulled back down into a tight cluster right above her pointed nose. She stared for long enough that on a normal day, he’d have flushed and looked away. “All right,” she said slowly. “What is this?”

“I’m your assistant,” Chris pointed out.

“Yes. I know,” Olivia said, clearly humouring him. “I sign the cheques. Which I am most certainly
not
signing for this, right now, whatever this actually in fact is.”

“That’s fine,” Chris agreed quickly. And then, because conversation soothed all things, “My soundshield sylph got loose today. I woke up with a notice on my door. It seems that without Rosemary, I’m not certain how to maintain things.”

Olivia’s eyebrows drew down even farther. “All right. I’m bloody serious, now. You are making me nervous. I’ll ask again: what
is
this?”

I’m lonely
. Chris met her eyes and something a bit like sanity finally returned to him. He ducked his head, flushing. “Can’t…” He shook his head. “Can’t I just stay, Olivia? I’ll be quiet, and you can ask me any questions if you need reference.”

Olivia folded her lips. She set the pen carefully down atop her reports, taking time to arrange it so it aligned perfectly with a straight line on the page. She folded her hands in her lap. “Christopher,” she said. And Chris saw something in her eyes. Guilt? Regret? She didn’t say anything again for a long moment. “I am a very private person,” she said finally.

“I know.”

“Do you? I said you weren’t needed today. I said I wanted to work through some things on my own. And yet, you’re here. In my private space. And no matter how
graciously
I try and urge you out the door, you seem to have grown roots?”

Heat climbed up Chris’s neck and into his cheeks. He glanced away. He opened his mouth to speak. He closed his mouth. He couldn’t think of anything to say, except perhaps to apologize. Which would prelude his leaving. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted her to understand. He wanted her to help him.

“Won’t you… mirror Will?” Olivia suggested, clearly at a loss. “Go to a pub? Meet people? Or―a tea shop, I suppose you’d be terrible out of place in a pub, or―a―I don’t know, you have such strange interests, and there’s the ball tomorrow, I invited you to that, and bollocks, Christopher”―he jumped at her language―“I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell you! I understand that you are―going through a difficult time, and I just can’t―I’m trying, do you see that? I’m trying.”

Slowly, Chris nodded. “I do see that,” he said quietly. They were very different people. Olivia was doing her best. He was so godsdamned lonely. “And I’m so very grateful that you want me to attend you at the ball, Olivia, more than I can―”

Olivia dropped her eyes. Chris stopped talking. His heart sank. “Oh, Christopher,” she said, and for the first time that he could recall, Olivia Faraday blushed. “I probably should have made it much more clear.”

“… we’re not going together,” Chris said.

“Well, no. Absolutely not. It would be completely inappropriate!” Olivia’s colour rose further and she thrust her chin and nose up into the air, defiant of her own embarrassment. “You’re my employee! Certainly, you and I have, have, have a, a
connection
, but it would be―”

“You’re inviting Kolston.”

“I thought it would be a lark,” Olivia said, defensive, ashamed. “Maris will be horrified. He agreed.” She blew out a stream of air and slumped, giving up on her attempt to be superior. “I suppose you don’t have any accompaniment.”

Chris almost got angry. Almost. But if he did, then what? His brief time being furious about Fernand had been isolation enough. Sometimes it felt as if Olivia Faraday was the only person in the world. Would he run her off, too? He sighed. “No, Olivia,” he said. “As we have established, I am quite… alone.” He wouldn’t say the word lonely. Not to her. Not to anyone. His father’s letter seemed to taunt him.
Delicate
.

Olivia sighed. She took the pen back into her hands and passed it between her fingers. “Well,” she said. “I suppose Maris technically lacks accompaniment as well. I can talk to her, and perhaps the two of you can―”

“Gods, Olivia, no,” Chris said firmly.

“Is it so bad to attend alone?” she asked weakly.

“I suppose not,” Chris said, because the only other answer was to say that it was, and then not attend. And then he’d spend Godsday alone, as well.

He got up from his chair.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and at least half meant it. “I just―”

“No, I understand,” Olivia said, though she couldn’t possibly. “I don’t mean to―Christopher, truly, I am doing my level best in this situation!”

“No,” Chris echoed, sighing. “I understand.” Though he couldn’t possibly. He dipped a courteous bow to his employer, and he showed himself out.

When he reached the Buckley estate, sweating and fanning himself with his hat, there was a delivery carriage parked in the wheelhouse. A man holding a paper-wrapped package tried to smile as he approached, but was clearly distracted by the destruction wrought by the sylph. “Had an accident?” he asked as Chris approached. “Shame, that. Are you Mister Buckley?”

Chris nodded, and the fellow held out a clipboard. “I need you to sign here, thank you, yes. And if I may say, you have splendid taste.”

Chris took the package into his hands. He turned it over, and he recognized the label weaved onto the paper. A smile spread across his face as the messenger jumped back up into the carriage.

He couldn’t be expected to try on finery himself, could he?