The Timeseer's Gambit (The Faraday Files Book 2) (51 page)

“… we’ll be there,” Olivia said quietly. Without waiting for a response, she trailed her long fingers along the chimes. She turned around slowly, facing the three of them. She looked as stunned as Chris had ever seen her.

“I thought they only died the week after a Hallowed Godsday,” Maris muttered.

“They do,” Olivia replied, and it was all she could say.

he House of Holy Family’s Peaceful Rest was a burned out husk.

Chris tried to cover his nose with his handkerchief while Olivia stepped cautiously around the ruins of what had been Jason Billingsly’s room. The charred remains of his corpse had been removed by a flat-faced Maris and her team. One wall was completely gone, and the room above had fallen down into it. The smell was unreal, and Chris kept flashing back to the day he and Olivia had been caught in the chaos of a loose salamander cluster. The bodies. The heat. The smoke.

The moment when he’d dismissed a salamander.

“There’s not much to see, is there?” Olivia mused. Her beautiful ball gown trailed blackened debris behind her as she picked her way to the wall. Her gaze slipped around the room and landed on the skeletal remains of the iron bed frame. “There’s that, I suppose,” she mused. “Once again, the poor sod was asleep in bed. Like all the others.”

“Except Brother Lachlan,” Chris murmured.

“He’s the key to this, somehow…” Olivia murmured. “The anomaly. He was different.
Why
was he different? Figure that out and…” She turned in a circle, taking in the room, and then she spread her arms helplessly. “What scene is there to set? Boy asleep, salamander awake, bad combination.” She dropped her arms and sighed.

Chris weaved it, feeling that he needed to contribute. “There is one thing,” he said. “Assuming Miss Banks is right―”

“She is,” Olivia said automatically, and then her eyes lit up. “Oh! Oh, yes, I see! The di―” She visibly checked herself and stuck out her tongue sourly. “The
item
,” she tried again, most delicately, “needs to be used at close proximity. So whoever did this…” She frowned. “Whoever did
all
of these… they needed to actually be the room. Hmm. They needed to move damn fast, too. Emilia said there are about five seconds after the disruptor goes off before there’s an angry avatar of chaos staring you in the face.”

“Every single one of the deaths happened at night.
Even
Lachlan Huxley.” Chris offered. “Whoever did it must be sneaking out of their church after hours, in civilian’s clothes.” That sounded familiar for some reason.

“Jason Billingsly…” Olivia murmured. “It’s familiar. Who was he, again? Look him up in your little book there, won’t you? If he’s a Youth in Darrington, and he is, we met him at our little get-together at the end of last week.”

Chris nodded, and, still covering his nose, opened his notebook gratefully. He tried to flip through one-handed. He couldn’t handle the painful reality of the burned out room. Apparently, the rest of the priests of the church had been taken to the hospital for smoke in their lungs. The Maiden was in critical condition. He could remember the way that felt, burning his mouth and throat all the way down. It didn’t surprise him that it was the smoke that killed.

“Jason Billingsly…” he said, reading off the page. “Son of Reginald and Francine Billingsly, a hymnshaper and a wildwhisperer. His Maiden was―”

“Don’t move!”

They both turned in one motion. The door frame still stood, even though the door itself and half the walls around it were gone. A short, round young woman with thick spectacles and long dun-coloured braids stood there.

She was holding a firepistol.

“His Maiden was Sister Margaret,” Chris murmured.

“Not wearing your habit,” Olivia said, stepping forward. There was suspicion in her voice. She carefully looked Sister Margaret up and down. “Or in the hospital being treated for smoke inhalation. Critical condition, is what I heard.”

Sister Margaret started. She gripped the pistol with both hands, pointing it at Olivia. The barrel didn’t waver. Sister Margaret was from the dark corners of Darrington. She knew how to kill.

Put the gun down,
Chris tried, but he didn’t know why he bothered.

“I don’t like that look!” Margaret snapped. “Wipe it off your face, Deathsniffer! I didn’t have anything to do with this!”

“Oh, yes,” Olivia shot back. “That would be why you’re holding us at gunpoint in the burned remains of your church while you’re
supposed
to be in the hospital!”

Sister Margaret chewed at her lower lip. She looked nothing like a Maiden without her habit. Chris would never look twice at her. “I don’t know
who
is supposedly dying. Some poor bystander? Or a girl Jason was sticking it to. He was notorious for that.” She shifted her grip. The barrel still didn’t waver. “You said no one would die for a month.”

“I was wrong, apparently,” Olivia said mildly. “Why are you pointing that thing at me?”

“I…” Margaret gave Olivia a long look. She shifted her stance slightly. “I,” she said again. And then, reluctance obvious in her posture, she clicked the safety and dropped the pistol to her side.

Chris breathed.

Margaret slumped. “I heard someone mucking about in Jason’s room. I thought―I thought it might be whoever is doing this. Come back to… I don’t know. I heard he’s dead. Maerwald’s sweet perky tits, Deathsniffer, is he
dead
?”

Olivia raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t
know?”

“I wasn’t here last night! Or the night before. I sneaked right on out of here Healfday after I saw your assistant at the Floating Castle Memorial and unlike the others, I didn’t intend to ever come back, no how.”

“My assis―” Olivia stopped with her mouth still open, tongue hanging in mid-syllable. She turned to look at Chris, and then back to Sister Margaret. “I suppose this is my own fault for never having time to ask about you meeting runaway priests. You met?”

They both nodded.

“The way I see it,” Sister Margaret said, holstering her pistol in a carefully concealed slot in her skirts, “is that if whoever is doing this is going after the worst of us, Father’s Wrath or whatever else it is, I’d better make tracks, because I’m as bad as they come. I give it a shot because it’s better than picking meals out of rubbish bins, but ain’t nobody going to call me a model Maiden. And if Lachlan getting picked off is how it’s going to be and it’s all just random…” She shrugged one shoulder and tucked her hands into her armpits. “At least I know how to survive out on my own. I don’t know how to beat the lottery.”

“I remember you,” Olivia said, tapping a finger against her chin. “I remember him, too. Jason Billingsly. He was a right tosser, wasn’t he?”

Sister Margaret cracked a smile. “A bleeding knobhead, miss, that’s right. Pardon my disrespect for the dead.”

“Pardon accepted. I am notoriously disrespectful to the dead! Yet, you say
you
were the one you expected to see afflicted by this… curse.”

Margaret sighed. She shrugged. “He was a bleeding knobhead who could play the game. He turned on the charm in an instant and a petitioner never left here unhappy. He took to priestliness like a pig to mud. Jason was a turd and then some, but he was a good Youth.”

“Huh.” Olivia’s eyes unfocused, and she stood there, neither speaking nor moving, for a long moment. Chris could see the wheels turning in her head. “Who all was with you? At the Floating Castle Memorial on Healfday.” Asking both of them and neither. And then, as Sister Margaret opened her mouth, Olivia held up a hand. “No. I changed my mind. Was everyone with you someone who’d lost someone?”

“Nope,” Sister Margaret shook her head. “Amanda, Lawrence―”

“All right, no, how about this?” Olivia cut in, waving the hand she held. “Was anyone
not
there who
had
lost someone?”

“Sister Patricia and her Youth,” Chris said, and at the same time Sister Margaret said, “Oh! Yes, Patty!”

Olivia’s brow furrowed. Her hand was still held up in a silencing gesture, and it seemed a standing order. Sister Margaret rocked back and forth on her heels to toes, looking askance at Chris, and Chris just waited. He could practically see the gears turning in Olivia’s head. He almost expected her to start throwing up steam like Miss Banks’s automobile.

“Are you a group? Friends, I mean, the lot of you? You spent time together often? Talk about things? Problems?”

Sister Margaret nodded. Olivia lapsed back into silence.

“Sister Patricia,” Olivia said finally. “I remember her. Nice girl. Sweet. Her Youth died first. The one everyone agrees was a prat, undeniable. Timothy Lane.”

“That’s the one,” Sister Margaret agreed.

“And she wasn’t there…” Olivia fell silent again. Chris breathed into the perfume of his handkerchief. Olivia was close to something, he could tell. The last time he’d seen her like this was the night they’re spent at Deorwynn’s Heart Hospital, when she’d pinned Ethan Grey as a faceshifter. He was afraid to speak, move, even breathe loudly.

She straightened. She looked right at Sister Margaret. “If you don’t want to continue serving the Maiden,” she said. “Go wherever you want. It doesn’t matter to me. But if you actually do, you might as well stay. I don’t think you’re in any danger, Sister Margaret.” She smiled toothily. “Actually, I’m certain of it. After all. Why would the killer hurt you? She cares about you a great deal.”

“You know who killed them,” Chris said, what seemed like an hour into a silent carriage ride.

Olivia grinned. She reached up and tapped the side of her nose.

“Sister Patricia?” he asked. He couldn’t see how. So she hadn’t been with the others at the memorial. What did that mean? Nothing at all, as far as he could see. “Why would she do such a thing?”

“I can’t imagine.”

Chris ground his teeth. “Olivia,
please
. What is this? You’re
never
coy. I can’t help you crack this if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

“No need,” Olivia said. “I’ve already cracked it, I think. Well, almost. I’m bloody close. But we need evidence.
That
part, I need to think about.”

“Then tell me,” Chris said. He felt―hurt. Strangely hurt. He was a part of this process. He did his best for Olivia. He wanted to help her. How could he, if she was suddenly keeping things from him?