The Timeseer's Gambit (The Faraday Files Book 2) (27 page)

There was a pen in her mouth and a page that looked more like a report than a newspaper in her hand. “Cwistopha!” she exclaimed excitedly, and reached up to pluck the pen out of her mouth. She waved the report. “I have the autopsy report! Maris delivered!”

Chris looked around pointedly. “I take it that it revealed something?” he asked.

“What?” Olivia glanced around herself, as if she hadn’t noticed that her office had become a news archive. “Oh! All this! Unrelated. Well. Somewhat unrelated. Barely related. Look at this!” She turned the paper around and he squinted to see the line she’d circled numerous times with the pen she now twirled in her fingers.

“… they
were
defensive wounds,” he read.

“The tissue was ruined from the water damage, but luckily, whoever was stabbing a knife into Brother Lachlan Huxley had one hell of a grip! The cuts went down to the bone, and
that
can’t be ruined by a little bloating!” Olivia turned the report around, and then she deflated like a released balloon. “The rest is mostly useless.”

Chris opened his notebook. “Tell me what it says,” he said encouragingly. “I’ll get it written down.”

“His lungs were full of water. Cause of death
was
drowning,” Olivia said, parroting off the report. “His throat was scraped up bad, so he was probably screaming for help. Why did no one hear him? A good question for the residents of Heart Church, hmm? The cuts were done pre-mortem, but were probably still bleeding when he drowned. His fingernails were scraped up and cracked, like we saw.” She sighed, stabbing a finger at the page. “The
most
useless thing on here is most definitely the residual emotional read from the heartreader. I never realized just how useless that would be in the case of a drowning. By the time he got around to dying, his reaction to being
murdered
had been completely, if you’ll allow the wordplay,
drowned
out by his reaction to
drowning
. Panic and regret, mostly. A little anger. At his killer? Or at dying? It’s hard to say, right? He died at least five minutes after he was killed, in a way.
Not
typical.” Olivia looked up. “Did you get all that?”

“Every word,” Chris said, weaving the finishing touches and looking back up.

Olivia bobbed a nod and handed him the report. “File this!” she commanded.

He glanced over at the bureau, barely visible beneath the burden of newspapers. “How?” he asked.

Olivia giggled. “Oh, you’re resourceful!” She turned and fluttered her eyelashes over her shoulder. Her skirts billowed around her legs. What had made her think to wear such voluminous skirts with upperwear designed for a gentleman? The ensemble was daring, striking, and she was a mad genius. “You’ll make it happen!”

He shook his head. “Sometimes, Olivia, I think―”

There was a knock on the door behind them. Before either of them could give an indication to the intruder, the door opened and a human beetle scuttled in. “Maiden Maerwald’s sweet tits!” Kolston cursed. “It is blighted
miserable
out there, let me tell you! Good on you, Liv, for keeping your fiaran running all night!” He pulled off his derby, presumably to salute her, but then caught sight of the towering stacks of newspapers and raised an eyebrow. “Oh,” he said. “Hello, Liv. You built a nest. Well! That’s good. It’s lovely!”

“Thank you, Rayner! I spent all night working on it. All it needed was a skittering criminal with ludicrous facial hair, so I’m glad you’re here!”

Kolston raised a hand to stroke his oiled goatee as if protecting it. “Nice hat,” he nodded to her pork pie, and she tilted her head graciously in acknowledgement. He held up the file. Printed across in shockingly neat handwriting was the name
Alfred Pritchard
. “Got your intel, love.”

Olivia pushed past Chris to greedily seize the folder, but Kolston held it out of her reach and shook a finger in her face. “Ah, ah, ah,” he chastised, and Olivia planted her fists on her hips. “I had to plumb some bloody deep holes to get this info. I’m not feeling so hot about handing it out for free, now.”

Olivia pursed her lips and fluttered her eyelashes. “Who said it would be for free?” she cooed. Chris shuddered.

Kolston grinned. He handed over the folder, and Olivia flicked it open. Her eyes sparkled as she scanned it. “Oh, yes,” she murmured. “Oh, yes, indeed! Oh, Rayner, this is
splendid!
”

He snatched the folder back from her, tucking it under his arm. “Proof of value,” he said. “I’m going to need a down payment if I’m giving up custody of this treasure trove.”

Chris expected Olivia to do what she usually did. Coyly smile, get her pocketbook, and hand him a fiver while she mocked him and he watched her with his customary predatory glee. Instead, Olivia half-smiled and crooked a finger before turning and sashaying over to the door that led deeper into the building. “Come on, then,” she murmured. “I keep my most valuable assets stored away in the back. But I must warn you, your days of plumbing deep holes are far from over.”

“Wh―Olivia,
please
!” Chris cried, blushing all the way to his toes.

Without acknowledging him, Kolston chuckled and started after Olivia, who scampered off down the hall, giggling, with the slimy creditor hot on her heels.

He badly needed a distraction.

Somewhere in the towers of old papers, Chris managed to find one published that morning. Somehow, it was once again The Arrow, which had fast become his least favourite paper. The Society section said nothing about any names he recognized, but did go on at length about how a young lady named Shandis Shufflebottom, a categorized wordweaver, had been seen in the company of Garrett Albany. The article included a photograph of the young lady in question, who was softly beautiful, but not Mister Albany himself.

It made Chris realize that he’d never seen a photo of the man. He shuffled through some earlier editions of the Arrow. While almost every publication since the Livingstone arrest included some sort of article about Garrett Albany, none had a photograph included. In stark contrast, the faces of Sir Hector and Mister Avery Combs were plastered on every article they were even tangentially related to. Chris furrowed his brow as he dug through the papers.

He couldn’t help his curiosity about Mister Albany. He was, after all, Miss Albany’s brother. And Miss Albany was a friend―at the least. He flushed, thinking about the words she’d said last night. Handsome. Charming. His breath came a little quicker and his his gaze went fuzzy as he ran through the conversation again. It was true enough that Miss Albany was plain, poorly dressed, and stern. But he found her strangely enthralling, and all those little hidden beauties made her a womanly treasure trove of discovery, and―

Chris heard something from deeper in the building. It sounded very much like a high, feminine cry of pleasure. He went red all the way to his ears and buried himself in the papers.

Garrett Albany, on the surface, seemed like a younger and more hardline version of Doctor Livingstone. But the more Chris read about him, he’d come to realize that Albany didn’t spend his time advocating for alternative technologies in the way that the good doctor had. Instead, his rhetoric was focused on the opposition. On how the traditionalists had undermined the foundations of Tarland and would let it continue while the ocean washed out their base and toppled their great nation. The traditionalists had to be dealt with. The Combs family had to make amends for all it had done.

Chris finally found one photograph, taken at a long distance. Mister Albany was giving an audience in a park, and the photographer had stood a long way away and snapped a photo of the speaker in action. Chris couldn’t make out any details, but he could see that Mister Albany was long-faced, dark-haired, and tall, just like his sister. Was he also plain? It would explain why he shied away from the camera.

He turned a page in the paper, and he found an article about Georgie.

Georgiana Edison, daughter of famed spiritbinder Edward Edison, died yesterday,
the article read. Chris’s stomach curled into knots as he read.

Regardless of Livingstone’s crimes, Edison was the true butcher of the Floating Castle. He knew all the risks, and yet he insisted that the Castle fly. It is a special irony that his daughter failed categorization and was made a priestess, and even more ironic, still, that she died to the lurking spectre that haunts us all: a rogue elemental. One wonders what would happen if Edison were here to see his own daughter slain by this reckless use of
―

Chris slammed the paper down on top of the tower and closed his eyes tight. “Bloody politics,” he gritted out. Wasn’t that what it all came down to? Politics had floated the Castle in the first place. Politics had made Rosemary’s entire life a minefield of threats from all sides. Politics had put Livingstone behind bars. And wasn’t politics, in a way, what had killed Fernand? He’d died holding that infernal letter and list that Michael Buckley had left for him to pass on to his daughter, someday. Who was to say that burden hadn’t been what pushed him over the inexplicable edge?

A door opened behind him.

Kolston stumbled out into the main office area. His shirt was untucked in back, one suspender was hanging loose, and his well-oiled hair was sticking up in all directions. The file he’d brought with him was nowhere in sight. He tipped his hat to Chris with a wide grin. He said nothing on his way out. He didn’t have to.

Ten minutes later, Olivia finally emerged. Her hair was well arranged, her hat at the right angle and her waistcoat smoothed down, but one corner of her arrow collar pointed up and her tie was tied just a little bit more loosely than it had been before.

Her cheeks were flushed red.

Chris curled his lip and Olivia threw back her head to give a delighted laugh. “You’re like a dog,” she said, and her voice was much throatier than usual. She held up the folder.
Alfred Pritchard
. “Information acquired.”

He gritted his teeth. “You don’t have a problem with that?” he demanded. “You just―he paid you, and you let him―”

The merriment left his employer’s face, and her eyes flashed. “It’s a game, Christopher,” she said flatly. “A game I greatly enjoy playing. He didn’t
pay
me for
shit,
and not for one moment has
anyone
but me been in charge of my association with Rayner Kolston. I’d caution you to remember that. I do
not
need protection in my own personal private business.” She held the folder as if she wanted to slam it down, scanned around her for a suitable surface, and then sighed, grip loosening. “Well,” she bemoaned. “That’s a sad end for a very good speech.”

Chris swallowed all of his complaints. They stuck in his throat and didn’t go down easy, but Olivia would eat him alive if he let them out. “What’s in the file?”

“Dirt,” Olivia grinned, happy to switch back to her usual self. “Delicious, satisfying, wonderful dirt. Enough dirt to
bury
this fellow if he doesn’t tell us everything he knows about the dead Maidens and Youths.”

“Something to do with Livingstone?” Chris asked, unable to keep some eagerness from his voice.

“Mnn,” Olivia agreed, spinning on her heel. “Indirectly. Don’t get your hopes up, Christopher, but as far as
this
case goes, it’s good news. Come along. I don’t have a mirror to call up a cooled hackney, so it’s going to be a double helping of misery!”

There were four active categorization facilities in Darrington. But the one Pritchard worked at was the one Chris had gone to when it was his time, the one connected to the Lowry Academy of Proficiency Categorization. It was the largest, had the most modern accoutrements, and was generally considered “the best.” Chris had still been arrogant enough to get himself “the best” when he’d just turned eighteen. He felt a surge of embarrassment, thinking about that now. So the table they’d laid him on had been padded. The contraption they’d strapped to his skull had had little cotton pillows where the hard machinery pressed against his skin. Had any of that really mattered, when they’d sent an electrical current all through him and made notes while he screamed?