The Timeseer's Gambit (The Faraday Files Book 2) (57 page)

Chris slid his gaze from hers. He actually smiled, thinking about it. Fernand shaking his cane as they sat in the parlour together.
You need something to believe in, Young Master
. If Chris had done as he asked, would he have petitioned Cwenraed the Youth with Brother Lachlan? What a strange thought. He nodded, not looking at Elisa. “Almost every day of the week. I never knew anyone who believed like he did.”

Sister Elisabeth managed to smile, too, blinking back tears. “When did he…?”

Chris’s hands squeezed into fists on the table. The salamander scuttled about to watch him, alerted by the movement. Little waves of heat poured off it. “Months, honestly,” he said. “But…” He glanced at Sister Elisa. He had her undivided attention. How was he supposed to finesse some sort of confession of wrongdoing out of her? He could barely… He closed his eyes tightly for a moment. The truth. Just give her the truth and see where it goes. “But until recently, I thought he’d been murdered.” His tongue felt like lead. “It was wishful thinking. A Deathsniffer and the police together ruled it an open and shut suicide. But I just couldn’t believe it.” Breathe. “And now it’s like it’s fresh again, like it just happened. At first I thought I was angry―how dare he leave me and my sister? We still needed him.” A tear escaped his eye and rolled down his cheek.
Sensitive
. “But the truth is, if he killed himself, if he was that desperate, how had I not been able to save him?”

He closed his eyes, just trying not to let his tears flow. He replayed that day and the days before, over and over. The truth was, he’d been occupied. Rosemary’s secret had just been found out. He’d just taken the job with Olivia. He’d been working on his first case. Doctor Livingstone had been arrested. He was thinking about leaving Darrington. Ethan Grey had attacked him in his home.

The simple fact of the matter was that he hadn’t had the time to worry about Fernand. His oldest friend could have been crying out for help. Chris had been deaf.

“I abandoned him,” Chris murmured. “And then… he abandoned me.”

He felt fingers at his cheeks. He jerked up, eyes throwing open.

Sister Elisa was close to him, her hands held out. One of his tears dripping from her index finger. “I…” She slunk back. “I just… I was just trying to…”

“We could get into some trouble,” Chris breathed, heart pounding. He tried not to seem repulsed at the thought of her hands on him, a killer’s hands.

“I don’t like getting up in the morning,” Sister Elisa said suddenly, all in one breath.

Chris blinked. “I… what?”

She turned her face away. “…Nothing,” she breathed. “It’s… it’s nothing. Ignore it. It’s nothing at all.”

But it was something. She’d thrown something his way, some hint. He’d admitted his responsibility. She wanted to do the same. His mind bent backwards trying to understand what she’d said. If only he were a truthsniffer! “I don’t like rising early, either,” he said. Keep her talking.

“I just don’t function before the sun,” Elisa murmured. “And Lachlan was so kind. He was always so, so kind.”

It hit him.

A Maiden has access at dawn…

The bathing schedules. The reason it wasn’t strange at all that Lachlan had been in the bathing chamber when he had been. A Maiden had access at dawn while the Youth had his late at night. It kept them chaste and separate. But Elisa hated rising in the morning. And Lachlan was so kind…

“A…” Gods, how to proceed from here? He desperately wished that Olivia was here, instead of waiting in another room, practically a world away, with Miss Banks. He chose his words very, very carefully. “I appreciate a long bath before bed, myself,” he said, so quiet he could barely hear his own words. “Much better than rising early.”

Elisa met his eyes for just a moment before she glanced away. They were dark whirlpools of pain. “Much better,” she agreed.

She
wanted
to confess. She couldn’t live with herself. She couldn’t hold it inside.

“It was very considerate of him to switch with you,” Chris heard himself say. His voice almost sounded soothing. Almost sounded like he wasn’t on the verge of losing his cool completely.

“And keep it from Grandmother Harriet and the others,” Elisa said, sounding exactly the same. “They’re all such sticklers for tradition. Even a silly little thing like bathing times.”

Chris fingers visibly shook as he raised them to brush back his hair again. Both Elisa and the salamander watched him move, two pairs of dark, unreadable eyes. “He must have had a good reason for coming to see you that night.”

Elisa’s shoulders shook. Just once. “He
didn’t
, though,” she wailed, her voice cutting through the quiet of the room, and a burst of light turned their surroundings white as lightning flashed outside. Thunder crashed a moment later, and Elisa looked at him again. There was no hiding the madness in her eyes now. “He was so kind. So kind. So kind. He was always so kind,
so kind.
Does that count for anything, if it’s all just meant to be traded in later? Does kindness still count as kindness when someone is kind so that they’ll get something in return?” Her shoulders shook again and she slammed two fists down on the table. The salamander lamp rattled and the salamander hissed, the spaces between its scales turning angry orange. “He wore his bathrobe and whispered sweetly to me and held me close and I wasn’t
ready
! I just wasn’t ready yet, couldn’t he―couldn’t he have just understood that, couldn’t―”

She met his eyes.

He understood.

“Oh,” he breathed. “Oh, Elisabeth, I’m so sorry.”

She turned away violently. “No,” she said. “No, no, don’t sympathize with me. I do
not
deserve that! What I did, what I did to him, I deserve… I deserve…” Her shoulders slumped. She refocused her gaze on him. A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “Thank you for listening to me, Mister Buckley.” She took a deep breath and then nodded, as if to herself. “Perhaps you’ll find yourself in the same heaven as your friend. I hope you do.”

She uncurled her clenched fist…

…revealing a small device in the shape of an egg sliced in half…

“No, d―” Chris shouted, scrambling to his feet so fast that his chair fell backwards―

Sister Elisabeth pressed the flat of the device against the lamp and flicked it with her thumb.

A flash of lightning and a crash of thunder accompanied the blast of heat that slammed into Chris’s back as he dove behind the settee. Heat rushed past him, blistering his skin, and he heard Sister Elisa’s voice―laughing, hysterical and desperate. “Mister Buckley!” she cried, and he heard crackling as the temperature rose. “Mister Buckley, please, we need to do this together! We―aahh!” she gasped out in pain.

Chris couldn’t stop himself. He crawled out from behind the settee. The table was in flames, as was the chair he’d hastily vacated. The salamander, tiny and playful, darted about the room. Sister Elisabeth beat the arm of her habit. The salamander darted to a wall hanging of Maerwald gazing up at Cwenraed with a loving expression, and it went up in flames. There was smoke everywhere. Chris coughed, waving in front of his eyes. “We need to get out of here!” he shouted.

The salamander whirled about, scales glowing amber. It flicked its tongue and then darted toward him, body undulating. The heat was intense. “Elisabeth!” he cried.

He moved at the last moment. The salamander streaked past him, its body gliding along his arm. He cried out. His sleeve burst into flame, and the skin beneath felt as if it had been pulled off. Desperately, he tried to throw off his greatcoat and move toward the door at the same time. He coughed and fumbled in that direction.

Through the smoke, Elisabeth gave him a sad little smile. He saw too late that she had the disruptor pressed up against the switch for the overhead light, which―

He dove for her, but not before she flicked her thumb. He hit her bodily as a burst of light blinded him, both of them going to the ground. The smoke was caustic and intense and the heat was mind-blowing. He couldn’t see anything. Purple and white snowflakes danced in front of his eyes, and a fat alp twirled on the burning remains of the table. Elisabeth kicked him off and he was so surprised that he fell back. She scrambled away from him, reaching the door, throwing it open. She disappeared into the hall. He cursed and crawled blindly after her.

Smoke billowed out of the room they’d left, and he could hear a beam
crack
as the fire began to reach the walls. He blinked hard, trying to see ahead of him. Sister Elisa held the disruptor to another switch, and Chris threw up his arm as the light exploded and another alp came free. Stay moving. He hurried after her. The alp chuckled. A series of bright lights began to flicker through the halls. Light and then darkness. Light and then darkness. He saw Elisabeth move down the hall as if through a series of snapped photos, one step and then the next. Looking behind her. Seeing him. Facing forward. Running.

“E―” He began coughing. “Elisa, you can’t―don’t do this. Don’t―people will die! Grandmother Harriet, Grandfather Thaddeus―”

She lifted the disruptor again. He couldn’t tell what she was going for. There was no way to know. He fell to the ground hard, prepared for anything.

The heavy scent of ozone filled his nostrils and a crackle of static went over him, making all the hair on his arms and legs stand on end.
Cloudling
. He forced himself against the ground, forced himself to remain still. The lights still flickered wildly, and he smelled burnt wood, heard another deafening crack.

He had to do
something
. Rosemary was
not
going to come riding in with her perfect clear voice and fix everything, not this time. Sister Elisa’s cracks had become rifts, chasms, and this only ended when one of her elementals killed her.

He looked up, slowly. The cloudling crackled and shivered, trailing yellow sparks, moving toward the wall.

Go away,
he projected at it, but it didn’t so much as twitch. How had he
done
it?

The cloudling touched the lattice of copper pipes in the wall, crackling with energy. They lit up like train tracks, motes of lightning dancing across them. The white-hot current raced down the wall, conducted by the copper. The entire plumbing system for Heart Church lit up like a tree at Solstice. The cloudling cackled, and then streaked off in the direction Elisabeth had ran. Chris climbed to his feet, and he hurried after her.

Until the cloudling stopped.

It twisted in midair and changed direction, turning back toward
him
. Chris’s heart pounded as it moved toward him, making the hair on his head stand up, turning the air thick and pungent with electricity. White Clover all over again. No Rosemary this time.

This time, it was do or die.

GO AWAY
, Chris howled at it, but it only dived for him, close enough he could see the approximation of a face in it, a face that was leering excitedly, eyes wide, teeth pointed.

He threw up his arms in front of him, as if that would do any good. The burn at his shoulder screamed in agony. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut.
PLEASE
, he lashed out, all of his terror behind it, and―

―and the cloudling vanished.

It clicked.

Gasping, he stumbled off after Elisabeth. He had a feeling what elemental she was still looking for. Images flashed before his mind as he moved.

“What do you feel, Christopher?”

He folded his lips and glared up at Doctor Cartwright.

“Christopher, please. I’m trying to help you. What is it that you feel right now?”

“I’m angry,” Chris said, and his mother gasped.

The doctor grinned. “Good,” he said. “Now. Make
me
angry.”

He remembered where the bathing chamber was. Clutching his burned shoulder, he threw himself in that direction, panting. His lungs burned. Electricity crackled along the copper pipes beside him.

“What you are,” Doctor Cartwright said gently, brushing hair from his face, “is special, Christopher. What you are is proof of something I’ve been trying to show the world for a decade. That the world is still far more complicated than Lowry has put into its boxes.”

“I need to tell Father,” Chris said, begging. He pitched his voice. He sharpened his need. He pushed it at the doctor. He watched Graham’s face twist into sympathy. “He’ll love me if he knows I’m a wizard like Rosemary!”

And then his mother’s hand was on his shoulder. He felt the edge he’d sharpened drain away as she… absorbed it. “None of that, Chris,” she murmured.

He threw open the door to the chamber, panting. Sister Elisabeth stood with the disruptor held to the bathtub, so much like the one filled with crimson bloodwater he’d seen this spring. The tub pulsed with an azure glow. Elisa’s eyes were holes of pain in the fabric of reality.

“When will you come back again?” William asked, tugging at his arm. “Mother’s teaching me to swing dance. You want to see that, don’t you?”

“When we can, William,” Mother said, gently touching his best friend’s shoulder. Will settled back and smiled.

Chris turned. Agnes Cartwright looked at him, tall and beautiful. She had a sad little smile on her face as she reached to cup his cheek. He made himself generous. Willing to share whatever he was asked. “Can’t I remember this time, Missus Cartwright?” he asked, and her eyes flicked, her brow furrowing.

His mother’s hand on his shoulder. “No,” she said firmly. “And this is exactly why.” The emotions he’d been making himself feel drained out of him through Mother’s touch, and Missus Cartwright’s brow smoothed.

“All right, Christopher,” she said, sweet as an angel. “It’s time to forget.”

He met Elisa’s eyes.

Her shoulders shook.

“Elisabeth,” he said. “You don’t want to do this.”

Elisa shook her head furiously. “No,” she said. “No, I―I have to. I’ve ruined everything Heart Church is, don’t you see? When I release the undine, she’ll… purify it all. Clean it. I… I killed him, and…”