The Timeseer's Gambit (The Faraday Files Book 2) (48 page)

She laughed.

And then she somersaulted backwards, erupting into a shower of leaves and petals that rained over him. He gasped, sitting up, head still spinning.

He felt hands at his shoulders. “We need to―” Olivia’s voice began, but then another sound rang out.

“Police!”

The doors were open. The cool air in the ruined ballroom surged back, pouring out into the hungry heat of the summer night, and then the sound of boots on marble filled the room.

Someone whistled. A series of notes. Like―like a frequency for an elemental.

“Gods, no,” Chris breathed. Not again, not another―

But it wasn’t.

Around the room, glowing lights like will-o-wisps raised.

“They’ve got their guns up!” an authoritative voice from the direction of the entrance called. “Be ready to return fir―”

The first shot rang out.

Bodies hit the floor all around the room as a dozen shots went off, and Chris realized with world-altering horror that the invaders weren’t shooting the police, or even the hostages―they were shooting
themselves,
destroying their own faces and any chance of finding out what they wanted
.

Rachel was dead silent beside him. Chris pulled her closer, arm about her shoulders, being far more familiar than was appropriate, and it was a special kind of ridiculous person, Olivia might say, who could think of that in this situation. But he couldn’t help it. This was what he did. Order, his father had always said, was what separated a man from an elemental, and all that could give one power over the other. And all the silly, complicated trappings of society were his own form of order.

An emergency spiritbinder had put an alp up in the chandelier, giving much-needed illumination to a room too big to be lit by standard issue police torches. The harsh, white, cold light threw the ravaged interior of Piffleman’s Gala House into unforgiving reality. Chris doubted there would be any more society events held here. The three trees had all died without their patron dryad, and the place reeked of rotten apples and dead leaves. The gnarled, lifeless roots of the twisted oak had torn the place to shreds, even knocking out the last few steps on one of the staircases up the side. The dead trees made eerie gravestones for the dead radicals. Not a single one seemed to have survived. If one had, he’d shed his mask, donned more clothing, and made himself invisible in the crowd.

Police made their way around the room, taking statements. No one could leave until they’d all reported everything they’d seen. Nearby, Olivia was talking in close tones to Miss Banks, and their dialogue was much too quiet for Chris to eavesdrop on. He desperately wanted to.

“I knew it, Em!” Olivia had cried when Miss Banks had found their group. “You’re a spiritbinder! You both owe me twenty royals and dinner―”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Miss Banks’ reply had been sharp and pointed. She heaved a sigh. The floating hair around her ears bobbed. “I think an inspection will show that the beam the dryad was supporting was cracked inside, flawed, and this entire place is now quite structurally unstable. The dryad coming free was an
exceptionally
well-timed coincidence.”

He watched them. Olivia hissed something, and Miss Banks jabbed a finger into her chest, most unladylike. He narrowed his eyes, trying to read their lips. Olivia kept saying “spiritbinder,” and Emilia folded her lips and shook her head furiously. He didn’t have half as much information as he needed to make sense of it, and he was too exhausted to try.

“Mister Buckley,” Miss Albany said, speaking for the first time since he’d found her in the aftermath. She didn’t sound traumatized or horrified, thank all the Gods. She sounded… tired. Sorrowful. And something else, something he couldn’t place. He wished so badly that he had her gift. He forced his attention away from Olivia and Miss Banks, focusing on his accompaniment. She was looking up at him, her dark eyes curiously lifeless in a face that no longer seemed quite so pretty. She’d lost her ostrich hat. She winced, reaching up a hand to touch his cheek. For a moment, he thought the gesture was tender, until she touched her goal and he winced, pulling back. Ah. Tender indeed. “Gods, she really gave it to you…” Rachel murmured.

Chris prodded at the wound from the inside again and bit down to swallow a cry of pain. “I think it’s stopped bleeding,” he said honestly.

She gently prodded at the wound, cringing in sympathy. “You need to go to a―”

“Gods, no,” Chris pre-empted her suggestion. “No hospitals, please. It’ll be fine. I’m sure. It’s just―”

“Good evening,” a familiar voice said. “I’m here to take your statement.”

Chris’s heart dropped into his feet.

He turned in unison with Miss Albany, who had her hand to his cheek and was pulled against his side. He had his arm wrapped tightly around her. They faced the smartly uniformed police officer before them as if they were a married couple.

“Oh,” Chris said, and in that moment neither his head, his cheek, or his back hurt nearly as badly as his heart.

“We should make this quick, if you don’t mind,” William Cartwright said, holding a fountain pen over a pad of paper. “It appears that one of you was injured in the incident. Perhaps you could start there?”

Chris needed to say something. He had to―explain this. What could he say? The last he’d seen Will, he’d somehow managed to bloody overpower his mind to drive him from his home and then hadn’t spoken to him since. That was more than twenty-four hours ago, and now here Chris stood. With Rachel.

Who had no idea. “One of the…” she began, and then lapsed into silence.

“We’re calling them militants,” Will offered helpfully. Chris looked at the pen he was holding. Was that it? Gods. The Livingstone trial was in the morning. He needed to say something. He couldn’t move his tongue.

“Yes,” Rachel said. “Thank you. One of the militants approached us after the second hostage had been killed. She grabbed me and put a gun to my head. She…” Rachel seemed to realize that the truth of what had happened made for a strange story full of inscrutable information. She turned to Chris, looking helpless.

He hated the way she looked at him, like he was a strong protector, like he had answers, like he should take care to her. He hated the way that must look to William. He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. “I tried to come to her defense,” he said. “The militant hit me with her pistol. One of the others called her away. She dropped Miss Albany and left us.”

Will’s mouth folded into a familiar line. Chris wasn’t surprised he could tell it was a lie. They’d only played bluffing games around his dinner table together for three months.

“It looks like it hurts,” Will said, finally.

“Not terribly. No more than I can handle,” Chris jumped to reply, hoping to give―comfort. Something.

Will looked from Chris to Rachel, and he snapped his notebook shut with a sharp sound. “That’s too bad,” he sneered, and he turned and left.

Rachel gasped at his side. “Excuse me!” she snapped, her voice sharp. She pulled out of his grasp, stepping forward with purpose to grab Will by the shoulder, twisting him around. Will’s arms were tense, like he was about to throw a punch, and Rachel planted her hands on her hips. “You have no
idea
what we’ve been through!” she shouted, and her voice was worryingly close to the line of hysteria. “What happened here tonight was―it was―what we saw, what
he
saw, what they
did
to him―you have no
right
!”

“Miss Albany,” Chris said faintly, but neither of them seemed to hear him, which was just as well. What would he say?

Will stared at Rachel flatly. He snapped his notebook back open. “I didn’t get your name for the report,” he said, voice monotone.

“Go to hell!” Rachel snapped and whirled. She grabbed Chris by the arm and pulled him after her. “Mister Buckley, please,
please
let’s just―go!”

“You can’t get out without a pass,” Will called after them, and the feeling of being pulled between them was making Chris’s head throb even more than it already had been.

Rachel dropped his arm. She turned back. “Then give us one!” she spat. “I don’t know
what
is wrong with you―resentment?
Jealousy?
And… hurt?” She swayed a little, and she blinked. “Who
are
you?” she asked slowly. “Do you―do you know me?”

From the corner of his eye, Chris saw Olivia watching him. He turned and she gave him a slow shake of her head. He could read her expression clearly.
I can’t help but think you’re the one who penned this little drama, Christopher
. She was correct. What was he doing? What was wrong with him? Was there any part of his relationship with either of these people he hadn’t completely mishandled?

Will reached into his coat and pulled out a small card. He tossed it at Miss Albany; she caught it. “That pass will get you out,” he said, his voice barely a murmur, and he turned to go.

“I―” Chris said. William paused.

He had to say something.
Anything
. William and that damned pen were the only things standing between the good doctor and the noose.

But he just―couldn’t. And William’s shoulders slumped. He pushed into the crowd and he disappeared.

Chris closed his eyes tight. He took Rachel’s arm. “Let’s just… go home,” he said. “And hope to all the Gods that Rosemary hasn’t heard of this. She’ll be completely sick with worry.”

Rachel nodded, staring down at the card. “He signed it,” she said, angling it so it caught the sterile alp light. “Officer William Cartwright. I don’t know him after all.”

Chris said nothing. What could he? He just turned Rachel about and started toward the door―

―and nearly tripped over Olivia Faraday.

She stared up at him, arms crossed, expression authoritative. He shook his head faintly. Of everyone he’d seen since the alplight had thrust the strange scene into ugly reality, Olivia was the only one who still looked like she was about to attend an audience with the Queen. She had no cosmetics to smear, so she was still fresh-faced. Her hair, loose from the start, could not come undone. She was uninjured, whole and hale. And somehow, her wine-coloured dress, still sparkling, looked as if she’d just donned it.

“How do you do it?” he heard himself asking her. “How do you just not let it affect you?”

Her face softened. She reached up and gently patted his cheek―the uninjured one. “Eight o’clock tomorrow, Christopher.”

He actually laughed, quietly. He was shocked, and he was unsurprised. It didn’t seem impossible to be both of those things at once. “You can’t be serious.”

“Deadly serious, Mister Buckley,” she said, smiling, and there was a bizarrely comforting familiarity in her ceaseless inhumanity. “You ought to be pleased that I’m not interviewing you thoroughly about your apparent encounter with the runaway Maidens and Youths
now
.”

“
Miss
Faraday,” Rachel said firmly, “my employer has undergone
extremely
upsetting occurrences this evening! Surely allowing him to sleep late is the least you can―”

Chris laid a hand on her shoulder. “No, Rachel, it’s fine.”

Olivia’s eyebrows raised. “Oh. Rachel?” she echoed.

“Good night, Olivia,” Chris said, because he just… couldn’t. Any of it. He steered Rachel away from his employer, and after flashing their pass at the doors, they found themselves out in the night.

Chris turned his face up toward the sky. Free of the hellscape, finally. He certainly would not think so fondly of balls from now on.

He laughed suddenly.

“What could
possibly
be funny?” Rachel hissed under her breath as a police officer indicated a waiting taxi. She nodded to him and they made their way toward it.

“We didn’t dance,” he said. And that
was
funny. He hadn’t needed to learn after all.

Rachel didn’t seem to know how to respond.

Up in the carriage, he looked at her across the way as she carefully closed the blinds and settled back into the chair. The car jerked as the conveyance started forward, and Miss Albany leaned her head back against the bench, gently moving from side to side.

Chris let himself look at her. Her eyes were closed, the carriage was dark, he was shellshocked, and it seemed a silly time to be a gentleman. His eyes slid from her chin down the pale column of her long neck, to the small tight valley where her breasts were nestled together. He felt himself stir. Yes, he wanted her. He let himself languish in that, in the complete certainty of wanting a woman. It had been a long night. A man had the right, once in a million years, to just look at a woman and―

Rachel straightened. She looked right at him. Her brows knitted together. “Stop,” she commanded.

He averted his gaze, but didn’t even have enough presence of mind to blush. “I apologize,” he murmured.

“You
know
I can feel that.”

“Yes.”

“So doing it anyway, overtly,
eagerly
―it makes you the worst kind of goon.”

He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said again, but he wasn’t really. She’d feel that, too. He didn’t have it in him to be sorry. He didn’t have it in him to be much of anything. Hungry, maybe. He’d sit up and eat toast with Rosie, and they’d talk…