The Timeseer's Gambit (The Faraday Files Book 2) (42 page)

“It’s just… strange,” Chris said. He and Miss Albany strolled along behind Rosemary at a much more dignified pace. His sister skipped from spirit to spirit, her beautiful voice raising in song as she unbound and then called and bound elementals time and time again. Her work was beautiful and mesmerizing, but he couldn’t help but spoil it with conversation. His nature demanded even the most pleasing silence be filled. “She and I were friends, of a sort. No. No, we were actually friends. Real friends. And one moment, I feel so connected to that. And then, the next…”

“She’s just someone that you knew a hundred years ago?” Miss Albany finished for him. Rosemary tapped at a wall sconce and studied the salamander that woke within carefully, standing on her tip-toes.

Chris sighed. “At least that long,” he admitted. “Everything that happened before the Floating Castle may as well be in another era entirely. We both lived entire lives since the last time we saw one another.”

“That happens,” Miss Albany agreed. She chuckled very, very quietly. “Three and Three know, it certainly happened to me. My childhood friends…” She shook her head. “It’s been years and more since I’ve seen them.”

The flame Rosemary evoked as she sang to the salamander echoed the burning curiosity Chris felt at Miss Albany’s tone. But Miss Albany―
Rachel
―gave no other information, and it would have been very impolite to request it.

Chris sighed and traced his steps back to what they had been talking about. “Olivia says that she’s nearly certain this whole affair originates from inside the church,” he said.

“The church?” Rachel seemed shocked. Chris was pleased. She was interested in his stories. It seemed harmless enough to tell them to her, when she’d be back on a train for Summergrove tomorrow morning at dawn, and Olivia had already put the story in the papers with her questions. “But that hardly makes any sense.”

“She’s right in one thing,” Chris thought, thinking about the young priests he’d seen last night. “The whole group is utterly incestuous. They’re not supposed to come together at all, and yet they’re roped in as tight as a necktie thanks to that Crone, Eugenia.”

“But you said it yourself,” Rachel stressed. “Only a spiritbinder can unbind an elemental without breaking the associated item. And it’s impossible that any of the priests are spiritbinders.”

As if punctuating her statement, a tiny rift seemed to open in the world before them. Rosemary’s song curled around the rift, into the sparkling, strange rainbow hues that danced behind it, slipping inside. Through the hole came a brightly coloured salamander, as long as Chris’s arm. Far too big for the wall sconce.

Rosemary giggled, but did it through her song, never skipping a note. She reached out to the salamander, and its blunted face prodded at her index finger as if sniffing her hand. It recoiled in surprise, but came close again. Rosemary stoked its strange little face, her fingers coming away unburned. She shooed it and it vanished back through the hole in a rush of heat and a sound like a fire igniting.

“She says,” Miss Albany murmured, “that it’s more and more difficult to summon smaller spirits. The larger, more powerful ones seem to answer her call, even if she tries to pitch her song in a way that’s…” She made a vague gesture. “I don’t understand what she says half the time,” she admitted. A second salamander slid from the hole, this one barely bigger than one of Rosemary’s fingers, and she nodded in satisfaction, guiding it into the wall sconce and sealing the hole in the world.

Chris remembered what his father used to say about his own ability to only summon the smaller, weakest spirits. Spiritbinding was about power or control, and he just had more control than power. He’d always considered that his father’s personal rationalization, making himself feel better for his own inadequacies. But maybe he’d been right.

“We’ve thought that perhaps a priest hired a spiritbinder,” he suggested as Rosemary skipped on to the next sconce. “My father’s people were always notoriously for sale.”

“For sale in the matter of murder?” Rachel asked. She shook her head, starting after Rosie, and Chris wished he had the courage to extend his arm to her. Instead they walked along, hands not quite touching. He was hyper-aware of her. His attraction had never felt so pronounced. He barely noticed her poorly fitted, grey lace-up shoes, her store bought dress, or her unflattering bun. Her voice, her eyes, and her smile all made his heart flutter. Was it because he was just so―desperate, he could admit that, to forget about what had happened with Will in the ballroom? Or was it real?

“Times are hard,” Chris said, trying to focus on the conversation. “Even a weak ‘binder who can’t reach the elemental plane can usually unbind. There are desperate people in the world.” He thought of the signs he’d seen in those dark corners, categorized spiritbinders begging on the side of the road for work. Any one of them would be willing to kill for royals, he felt sure of it.

But could they stay quiet about it? That didn’t seem as likely.

Rosemary turned on her heel. “Chris,” she said sweetly. Chris took a step away from Rachel and Rosemary followed the motion eagerly, a smile spreading across her face. “Did you invite Miss Albany to a ball because you’re romantically interested in her?”

“Rosie!” Miss Albany sputtered. “A young lady does not ask impertinent questions!”

“A governess does not call her charge by her given name!” Rosemary shot back, twisting one of her curls around her finger.

“I needed someone to attend me,” Chris said quickly. Heat flooded his cheeks and he hoped that would end the discussion.

Rosemary clasped her hands in front of her. “Oh, good,” she said. “I was hoping you’d say that. Since it’s only just that, could
I
attend the ball with you this evening, Chris, instead of staying here at home with Miss Albany’s friend from her agency? We could spend more time together that way.”

“Absolutely not!” Chris protested.

Rosemary cackled. She threw her head back and shot him a knowing look. “Rachel bought a dress,” she said. “It’s very nice.”

“Miss Buckley!” Rachel said, her voice shrill.

As Chris struggled for a response, the front bell rang, chimes echoing all around them. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “That must be her, now! That’s―good, excellent, I―we can start getting ready instead of―”

“Instead of answering perfectly good questions!” Rosemary snorted, rolling her eyes, and Chris hurried away to answer the front door, face burning.

Rosemary helped Chris put the final touches on his toilette. She stepped back, and she smiled. “You look wonderful,” she said. Her voice was low and very, very sincere.

Chris regarded his reflection in the mirror. He hadn’t done so the last time he’d worn these clothes. He’d danced with William. He’d kissed him. And he supposed, looking at himself, he saw why William had been interested. He was almost interested, himself. He’d always been handsome, and he’d always known it, but he looked… devastating. The double-breasted waistcoat was the exact colour of his eyes, just as Will had said. The tight cut made his waist narrow, which turned his shoulders broader than usual, so he cut a pleasing triangular shape. He’d gotten out his gold-rimmed specs, round and delicate, which made him look quite professorial, and the care he’d put into styling his hair had rewarded him with soft, lazy waves that fell onto his forehead and touched the nape of his neck while staying slicked back at the ears. When he turned, his coattails fluttered. He looked, in every way, like a gentleman.

He couldn’t stop thinking of Will.

Putting on these clothes brought him painfully back. He
had
to apologize. Not just because Will had the pen and the Livingstone trial was tomorrow. Will was his friend. His best friend. And going by his surge of memory at the strange mansion he’d visited, they may have been friends for a very, very long time. William was owed more than what he’d been given. But as always, the thought of apologizing left Chris cold. Paralyzed. Because he couldn’t say just “I’m sorry.” And what would, what
had to
come after that was terrifying.

He sighed.

Rosemary echoed him mockingly and rolled her eyes. “Stop that!” she rebuked. “I’ve never seen anyone look so… so…
sad
when everything is going fine!”

Chris looked at his reflection. “Is it though?” he asked. “So much has changed.”

“Change isn’t always bad, Chris,” Rosemary said, maddeningly adult yet again.

“Did you hear?” he asked. “They closed White Clover down. Not even the fuss you caused at the observation wheel last spring could help it survive.”

Rosemary’s face fell. She reached up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Sadly, she nodded. “Missus Faraday said that most of the animals went to good new homes. The unicorns were all put with the police! That’s good, right…?”

“You came all the way here from the country, and we can’t go to White Clover. We can’t even go into the city.”

“I don’t mind about that,” Rosemary said. “Really.” She stood on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him close. “I got to see you. I got to spend all day with you! I don’t care if we spent it here. When you get home from the ball, we’ll play some cribbage, all right? All three of us.”

“Fifteen two, fifteen four,” Chris murmured.

Rosemary nodded, pulling away. “The only thing I wish is that Fernand was here.” She looked up at him hopefully. “Did you ever convince Olivia to investigate who killed him, Chris?” Her eyes were so wide, so full of hope, and suddenly Chris understood with crystal clarity why Maris, Olivia, and Will had done what they’d done.

“Not yet,” he murmured. “Olivia’s stubborn.”

He thought Rosemary would erupt into anger over it, which he would have borne gladly to let her keep thinking that Fernand hadn’t
left
them, but instead she reached up and tucked a wisp of hair back behind her ear. “Chris?” she asked, and she actually glanced away. If he were a heartreader, Chris was sure he’d feel a burst of shyness from her.

“What is it, Rosie?”

“
Do
you like Rachel?”

Chris flushed. He glanced away, himself. “Of course I do,” he said.

She gave him a flat look. “Oh, stop, don’t!” she snapped. “You know what I meant!”

“Rosie…” He sighed. But the offer to talk about his confusion, even a little, was too tempting to resist. “I… Maybe? I think so, sometimes. And then, I think… something else, instead, and I don’t know what I feel,” he admitted quietly. It was the truest answer he could give her, without admitting that his reason for inviting her had been because he wanted to forget he’d kissed his best friend. He closed his eyes, breathed out. What a mess.

Rosemary seemed to accept that answer, at least for now. She led him out of his bedroom, pulling him along by one hand, a little girl again for the moment.

They stopped on the top step of the grand staircase.

There were two young ladies in the foyer, talking quietly. One was dressed professionally, in a simple dove-grey skirt and white blouse with no hat or gloves or cameo or clutch bag. Chris’s eyes slid off of her like they would anything functionally inoffensive. The other…

The other lady was tall and slender. Her face was hidden by an extravagant black hat, piled with black and white ostrich feathers, and she clutched a small purse with hands encased in black lace gloves. Her gown was long and cut in straight lines, dropping from her hips right to the floor, but when she shifted, it became clear that there was a great deal of material in back that would swirl about her as she moved. The dress was white with rich black embroidery, but she wore a midnight black bodice that had a long skirt attached at the sides and in the back, as well as sleeves that went all the way to her wrists. The white peeked becomingly from beneath the black, stark and beautiful. When she moved, a ripple of colour flowed along the fabric.

“The gentleman is ready, ladies,” Rosemary pronounced.

The young lady in the dress and hat turned her gaze up. She wore enamel, kohl, rouge, lip stain, and colour at her eyes. Loose locks of hair tumbled around her face, curled and falling into thick, beautiful ringlets. Her eyes were dark, soft, and familiar. His heart clutched.

“Good evening,” she pronounced, ducking a curtsey.

“Miss Albany,” he breathed.

“Do you like her now?” Rosemary murmured.

Yes. Oh, yes
.