The Timeseer's Gambit (The Faraday Files Book 2) (46 page)

A light flickered into existence in the centre of the room. The spiritbinder who had controlled the salamander hefted the lantern he held above his head, his features gaunt and strange in the white alplight.

Chris’s gaze went to the automobile. A smoking hulk of twisted metal reflected the light dully. There was no sign of Miss Banks or Maris.

Another cry went up and Chris looked back to see a masked man hauling the portly announcer into the circle of light. He pressed a glowing, sparking firepistol against the announcer’s temple and murmured something to him. The announcer squeezed his eyes shut and bobbed his head up and down furiously. His captor patted him on the back.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” The words were a twisted echo of Miss Banks’s address, and the man’s cultured voice echoed to all corners with the poor hymnshaper’s help. “I am so very sorry to interrupt this lovely party, but I’m afraid tomorrow at noon, a man who killed thousands might go free. We can’t have that. Until the authorities execute the butcher Francis Livingstone
tonight
, well. Once every hour…”

He pulled the trigger.

The room erupted into shrieks. Chris screamed, stepped back, moaned. The announcer fell to the polished marble floor, right on one of the marked off black lines the automobile had followed. His head was caved in, smoking like kindling. Chris’s stomach roiled and his legs gave out.

He hit the floor.

“Oh dear,” Olivia Faraday said.

he ceiling was vaulted. It was painted with beautiful frescoes, all worldcaught. Careless, fluffy clouds floated by and drakes and pegasi and gryphons flitted between them, playful and carefree. At first, Chris hadn’t been able to make out the details, but slowly, they’d solidified as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. The pistols and the greenery and the cooling fiarans and, of course, the ominous alp-lantern in the centre of the ballroom, had become as good as daylight. Chris could almost pick out the individual feathers on the gryphon right above him as it batted clouds between its catlike paws.

He liked the ceiling considerably more than he liked reality.

“We need to get a message to the police,” Emilia Banks whispered.

“Which is bloody ironic, considering they’re sitting here in full dress uniform,” Maris snapped. “Maybe if you weren’t such a sensitive damned idealist, the police would have their damn guns
.
”

“You
know
how I feel about firearms, Maris.”

“I know that you’d be blasted grateful if I had mine here right now instead of in our bedside table, thank you very much.”

“Now, now,” Olivia murmured, forestalling whatever reply Miss Banks’ quick intake of breath was meant to precede. “I feel like a domestic won’t be any good to anyone right now, thank you.”

Chris shivered. He pressed his hand to his forehead and tried to breathe. The first hour had just passed. An elderly man, barely standing, had been hauled into the middle of the room and shot in the head. Chris hadn’t looked. He had
sworn
to himself that he wouldn’t look, but the body had steamed in the centre of the room beside that of the announcer, and he hadn’t been able to avoid looking at
that
.

Rachel’s hands touched his hair. Her face appeared above him, blocking out the idyllic ceiling. “Mister Buckley. Are you all right?”

“Of course he’s not all right,” Olivia snapped, and Rachel quickly drew back out of view. “Christopher is a sensitive soul. He’s used to death. He’s not used to
dying.”

“My
apologies,
” Rachel snapped. “I wish we could
all
find this the easiest thing in the world! I suppose this is just another sodding Godsday evening for someone like you!”

Olivia snorted. “Aren’t
we
charming?”

Chris squeezed his eyes shut and pressed the palms of his hands against his eye sockets. “Olivia,” he pleaded. “Gods, can you just…”

“Oh, you can’t be serious,” Olivia snapped. “You’re siding with
her
?”

“
Please
,” Miss Banks interrupted. “The last thing we need is to draw attention.” Her quiet authority silenced the argument and Chris sensed them all turn back to her. “We need to stay mission-focused. Now. It seems reasonable to conclude that the authorities are aware that we’re being held here.”

“Because what good is an ultimatum with no one who can carry it out?” Olivia mused.

Miss Banks
hmm
ed. “Precisely. However, I think it’s equally fair to say that no one out there knows the situation within, and are withholding action until they have some information, or they would have done something before the second hostage was executed. Which means that our priority
must
be reaching out to the authorities.”

Everyone seemed to take a deep breath at once. Chris still couldn’t raise his head.
Sensitive. Delicate
. The old man had shouted and cried for help, and his wife had tried to follow after him, but they’d forced her down. He’d been sobbing at the end. Helpless. Knowing what was to come and unable to do anything at all. Fernand had slit his wrists in the tub, blood pouring out all over him and turning the water red.

How was everyone else
not
insensible?

“There’s a mirror in the coatroom,” Maris finally said, voice low. “I doubt anyone else here knows. Who would wear an overcoat in this weather? But I can’t go out in dress uni without one, so I saw it.”

“Always so aware of your surroundings,” Emilia said, a faint smile in her voice. “And you still say you’re not heroic.”

Olivia clucked her tongue. “It’s a start,” she said, “but there’s a goodly distance between here and the entrance. You two may have been able to make your way over here in the chaos after the lights first went out, but now that everyone has settled, any movement is going to be noticed.”

“Oh, well, then. We’ll just give up,” Maris huffed.

“I didn’t say that,” Olivia replied mildly. “We’re a fairly skilled group. I think that between the six of us, we may be able to come up with something.”

“I’d call this five,” Kolston drawled. “Pretty boy there doesn’t seem like he’s going to be doing us much good. Shame, too. Guess we’ll have to remember our plan instead of weaving it onto the floor.”

Chris really, truly hated the man. He clenched his jaw.

“Piss off.” Olivia’s voice was flat.

Kolston lapsed into surprised silence. Chris managed something that was almost a smile. “Olivia,” he started, voice pregnant with emotion, and she blew out an angry stream of air.

“Oh, you piss off, too. Focus, people. Maris is right. The mirror is our best shot, and she knows exactly what’s needed. Police codes and whatnot. It’ll only take her a moment to give the Queen’s finest the skinny so long as we can―”

“One of them is coming this way,” Rachel murmured.

Chris’s heart surged in his chest. Darkness closed in around his vision. Gods, they were coming for him, next. Or Rachel. Or Olivia. One of them, skull caved in, laying on the marble floor. His stomach twisted into knots and he knew he was going to vomit. He struggled to move to a sitting position so he wouldn’t drown himself, and as he did, he accidentally met the eyes of the approaching woman in the black mask.

Their gazes locked. She was close enough to the group that she’d reach them in just seconds, but she paused in mid-stride. Chris tried to swallow his fear, but he couldn’t. It roared up his throat and it swallowed
him
, instead, and all he could do was stare into those dark eyes and pray to every God that…

…the woman turned on her heel and walked away.

Chris’s breath rushed out of him. Somehow, his relief overcame his terror and his stomach stayed in his gut where it belonged. Rachel touched his shoulder. He closed his eyes. Olivia made a small sound of interest.

“Interesting,” she murmured. “What was that, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” Rachel breathed. She stared after the retreating assailant. “She experienced a… burst of emotion, all at once. It was entirely unlike…” She shot Chris a quick glance and then stared down at her hands clasped in her lap. Chris reached out and brushed back the ostrich feathers dangling from her hat.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I brought you here, and―”

She laid a finger on his lips. “Please, Mister Buckley. We have much more important things to worry about. I believe that Miss Faraday and Miss Banks are correct. The lot of us actually may be able to contact the authorities. I doubt these―people expected a group like ours.”

“Which does raise an interesting question,” Olivia mused. Chris turned to look at her. Her shoulders were hunched over as she tapped her forearm with her index finger, and her décolletage threatened to spill right out of her dress, which appeared like a sky full of stars in the darkness. “Why has no one tried to summon an elemental?”

“Ah,” Miss Banks said, and she averted her eyes. “That would be my fault. I didn’t want any spiritbinders here. I had entrance barred to any with that categorization.” She turned to gaze sadly at the slag metal that was her automobile.

“Hmm,” Olivia hummed. “Then our uninvited guests had to be staff. They couldn’t have infiltrated the room so thoroughly otherwise, and they wouldn’t have checked staff for binders.” She paused, lapsing into thoughtful quiet before continuing. “Though have you heard their accents? Posh. Upper-class. And they’re young. How the
hell
did a legion of young dandies and ingénues manage to infiltrate the
service
employees of an event like this? We should consider―”

She went silent and Chris followed her gaze. His heart and stomach collided in his ribcage and he thought he might be sick again. Another of those identical figures was walking toward them, male this time. Chris tried to make eye contact, but the man avoided him. His pistol glowed russet-brown in his hand, bobbing as he approached them. Chris tried to make himself smaller, pulling up his legs, hunching his shoulders, ducking his head.
Please go away
…

The man didn’t alter his course. Thankfully, it would seem that course was a patrol, not an approach. He walked past them, pointing his gun menacingly in their direction and growling, but continuing on.

It was a miracle Chris hadn’t outright pissed himself, yet. He remembered how to breathe.

“No one on the hiring staff would have questioned upper-class applications,” Maris muttered with something between admiration and annoyance. “Emilia offered superior wages. Five hundred royals a head. Enough to make even an Old Blood noble slum it for a night.”

Kolston whistled appreciatively. “Generous lady. Money like that only gets offered when you’re trying to hide something off the books.”

Miss Banks shot him a glare. “Wealthy lady,” she corrected. “Who thought she could help the local economy by disseminating some of that wealth.”

Something tickled at the back of Chris’s brain, but he couldn’t place it. He shook his head. He took a deep breath. “If they’re idle rich,” he murmured, “spoiled Lowry children making a radical statement… they probably aren’t very experienced with this. How would they have gotten any practice?”

A moment of thoughtful silence followed this words. Miss Banks said, finally, “You’re right. Of course. They couldn’t have practiced, not in any sort of live setting. They’d have rehearsed it a thousand times, but that may actually work against them. If something… unexpected were to happen, they wouldn’t know how to improvise.”