The Timeseer's Gambit (The Faraday Files Book 2) (4 page)

He sighed.

His parents may have been dead for six years, but the manor they’d left behind had never felt
empty
before. Rosemary’s presence had been so large it had filled all the quiet, dusty corners. Fernand had been present often enough that he had been like a permanent resident. And Miss Albany… she’d only been at the Buckley estate for two weeks before she’d taken Rosemary to the country. He never could have expected the hole her absence would leave.

The lack of them filled the halls with silence louder than Rosemary’s laughter had ever been. Miss Albany had taken Rosemary to the country and it would be years before they would be back. And Fernand…

Chris ran a hand through his hair. The unruly waves bounced back, only a little tousled for the attention. He kicked off his shoes, stepped out of his socks, and started toward the kitchen, pushing open the door to a dining room far too grand to be empty―

It wasn’t.

A young man looked up from the careful tower he’d built with a deck of playing cards. A smile creased his face. “Christopher,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind. I let myself in.”

And Chris sagged with relief. “You have no idea,” he said, “just how glad I am to see you here.”

ith a flick of his slender wrist, William Cartwright demolished his impressive edifice of cards. They collapsed into a pile. “Then I’m not intruding?” he asked, tucking a lock of his long, chestnut brown hair behind his ear.

Chris spread his arms, indicating his state of dress. “Only if you’re especially offended by this bit of impropriety,” he said ruefully. The socks may have been a little much.

Will waved him off, making a face. “It’s bloody
sweltering
,” he said, picking at his coat with a disgusted look. “
I’d
have taken all my clothes off if I weren’t sitting in your dining room.”

Will’s features were so delicate and youthful that he looked sixteen and not a year Chris’s senior. His manner, on the other hand, was considerably less mild than his pretty face.

“I can only admire your restraint.” Chris laughed.

“I notice you have a guest again,” William said, nodding in the direction of the street. “The man who doesn’t even make an effort to pretend he’s not here to spy on you.”

“I appreciate his tacit honesty.” Chris slid into the chair beside Will, reaching out to gather up the collapsed house of cards. He took his time forming them into a stack. “Rummy, or Switch?”

“Rummy,” William said immediately and reached for the cards. “Switch requires
no
skill. I can’t imagine why you like it so much.”

“Because I can occasionally win,” Chris said ruefully, handing the cards, now neatly stacked, over to his friend.

“Friend” was a strange state of being for Christopher Buckley, who hadn’t had one since he was thirteen. But William Cartwright had become one in every way that mattered.
I would like to see you again
, Will had said, months and months ago, and Christopher had agreed. He hadn’t known what to expect. The timeseer was arrogant, vain, and in an almost constant state of irritation. He interrupted, rolled his eyes, and was a poor listener to say the least. Indeed, there was very little to recommend Will’s personality, but Chris had, nevertheless, become very fond of him.

Maybe it was just lack of options for company. Olivia allowed no access to her personal life, so with Rosemary gone, Miss Albany with her, and Fernand… well. Will had not only offered friendship, he’d been desperate for it. He’d first shown up at the Buckley manor with a deck of cards and a cribbage board the day after Rosemary had left for Summergrove, looking almost bashful. Will’s unpleasantness wasn’t such a factor when he was the only human being alive interested in Christopher Buckley’s company.

Or perhaps it was something else that had drawn them together so quickly. Not a connection, but a
reconnection
. William Cartwright believed with all his heart that he and Chris had once known one another, that Chris had sworn he’d never forget him. Chris had no such memory. Neither of them spoke of it, not since that first time Will had asked if Chris remembered him.

You’ve forgotten about it, and so should I
, William had told him. Easier said.

Chris watched, fascinated, as Will shuffled. He was full of hidden surprises, like his knife tricks and his ability to move in complete silence. Or this, shuffling like he was a famous cardsharp from the gambling houses in Penbury. His long fingers and his slender hands made the cards fly into implausible positions and disobey the laws of gravity. Chris never stopped being amazed at how Will didn’t even have to watch what he was doing, just struck up conversation as though he was cutting his steak at dinner.

“You’re home earlier than I thought you’d be,” Will said, fingers flying.

“So are you,” Chris pointed out, mesmerized by the cards dancing through the air. “You gave me quite a start, sitting here.”

Will
psh
ed. “One of those few and rare slow days at the precinct. No need for a glorified file clerk when the real ones aren’t swamped. And nothing they needed me to do a seeing on.”

Will wore the uniform of a police officer during his work days, but his actual status was something vaguer. He wasn’t exactly an officer―but wasn’t exactly
not
. The niche he occupied in the Queen’s service was rather unique.

Of course, one benefit to his complicated employment status was that he was authorized to hear details on Olivia’s cases. “We made an arrest,” Chris said, glad for the option to talk about it.

“
Olivia
made an arrest,” Will corrected, rolling his eyes. He drew one hand up and away from the other, and a fan of cards spread between them. Bloody amazing. “
You
took notes.”

“Well,” Chris said ruefully. For some reason, when it was Will giving him a hard time about his unglamorous job, he didn’t mind so much. “There was a gun pointed at the both of us, so I feel I deserve at least a bit of credit.”

The cards stopped moving. Will’s gaze shot to Chris’s face. “A
gun
?” he demanded. He set the deck down, his dark green eyes flying over Chris. “Were you hurt? What happened? Are you all right?”

Uncomfortable, Chris cleared his throat and looked at a spot just beyond Will’s shoulder. “He didn’t get a shot off.” Though it was close. He didn’t say that. “You know Olivia. She somehow just talked until suddenly it made more sense to him not to shoot us. No one was hurt and all is well.” He offered Will an encouraging smile which was met with an unconvinced glower.

“That woman,” Will groused, but reached for the cards again. “How many guns have you had pointed at you now since you joined up with her?”

“That was only the third.”

“In three months.” Will snorted. “You deserve a far better employer than that madwoman.”

“Well, no one is hiring,” Chris supplied. “And Olivia pays me a… well, a frankly exorbitant sum of money, considering my position.” And, most importantly, he both couldn’t and didn’t want to leave Olivia. So long as he worked for her, Olivia sheltered Rosemary at her family’s country estate in the small town of Summergrove, far from the human wolves that skulked just outside their windows. And… he’d miss her. Badly. Those were words he wouldn’t say to Will, because he didn’t know how to express them without it sounding like madness. Will didn’t know Olivia like he did. Some days, he thought that
no one
knew Olivia like he did.

Will dealt them each a hand of ten cards and Chris picked his up without really seeing. There were other things he didn’t talk to Will about. Things he didn’t talk to
anyone
about.

He’d tried it again. Tried to harness that power he’d used against the salamander at the Grapevine Street Fire, and then against Ethan Grey. A power that had made both a spirit and a man bend to his will. But in the three months since, not once had he been able to make the same thing happen again, no matter how often or hard he tried. Today, with Willie Clifford, it had been the same.

Sometimes, he wondered if he’d imagined it. It was impossible, this thing. It was
unthinkable
. He had been categorized. His card read
wordweaver,
an indelible, unchangeable status. Who had ever heard of a wordweaver commanding minds?

“Are you going to draw?” Will’s voice penetrated his thoughts, and Chris shook off the strange thoughts of his unexplained and unexplainable ability. He stared at the discard, a queen, and then back at his own hand. She was useless to him. He drew from the deck, instead, and then realized as he slid a three into his hand that he could have used Her Majesty after all. Unlike most games of Rummy, which changed the value of the King and Queen in regards to who sat the throne in Vernella, Will insisted on the classic values. “It’s a ludicrous and impractical conceit, anyway,” he’d sniffed, and since he clearly cared so much, Chris had agreed. He usually remembered. When his mind was on the game.

The Queen could have given him a ten, Knave, Queen run, but since he’d tossed her up for the three, his hand was a mess. He sighed and threw the three he’d picked up back on the discard, and Will laughed.

“Nothing at all?”

“Nothing at all,” Chris agreed. Will’s sincere laughter was rare. Despite himself, Chris found a smile creeping onto his lips.

“My poor fellow,” Will said, a jovial little lilt in his voice as he studied the three and then reached out to lay his fingers on the top of the draw pile. They lingered.

Furrowing his brow, Chris looked up at Will’s face. His friend’s features were slack, his eyes unfocused.

Chris’s eyes narrowed. “These cards
are
new, aren’t they?”

Will jerked his hand away from the deck like it had combusted. Another man might have looked either incensed or ashamed at being accused of cheating, but Will just stuck his nose up into the air and sniffed. “Well. No.”

“Gods, you are ridiculous!” Chris exclaimed, throwing down his own cards, face-up. He certainly had no intention to play now!

He should be angry. He’d certainly been angry the first time. Cheating was not polite or proper behaviour! But despite himself, a little laugh bubbled up, one that he swallowed. “How can anyone care this much about winning a friendly hand of cards?”

“A man should
always
care about winning!” Will insisted, his nose thrusting even higher, and Chris couldn’t help it. He laughed.

“Using timeseeing to trace the history of―a card!”

A tiny little smile played at the corners of Will’s lips. He raised his eyebrows and tapped his finger against the still down-facing card atop the deck. “It’s the knave of cups,” he said, and then turned it over. The knave in question stared up at them.

Melancholy hit Chris like a train and hurt almost as much.

“How is it,” he asked, very quietly, “that you can somehow manage to do that, and still… still, you haven’t been able to find who killed Fernand. The knife was right there. Right there, covered in his blood, and you still…” He trailed off.

Will went very quiet. He swept his narrow hands across the table, gathering the cards into a pile, and began to stack them mechanically. He didn’t say anything. Chris might have taken that as an opportunity to let it go, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.