Wondering Sight (The Extraordinaries Book 2)

by Melissa McShane

  It is not as if we will see one another again, she thought, and said, “I feel you have me at a disadvantage, Mr. Rutledge, since I know almost nothing of you.”

  He smiled, his eyes again twinkling with good humor, and he said, “Very well. My name is Alexander Rutledge, I am seven-and-thirty years old, I have no talent, I own property here in London and in Derbyshire, and I am extremely wealthy.”

  “I believe that last item is not something you should declare,” Sophia said, suppressing a laugh. He had looked so very somber, saying it, and but for the twinkle in his eye she might have thought him hopelessly arrogant.

  “Well, it’s something people seem to find important, and I dislike the idea of prodding poor Montclair into taking you aside and whispering, ‘That Mr. Rutledge is rich as Croesus, upon my word.’”

  “I see,” Sophia said with a smile that surprised her. “Well, now I can converse with you on at least a slightly more equal footing. Did you know my family resides in Derbyshire, Mr. Rutledge?”

  “I did not know that. Would you like to play the game of discovering our mutual acquaintances, or is that a subject for the drawing room rather than the dinner table?”

  “I know almost no one there. My family took up residence while I was abroad.”

  “Then we will avoid that topic. Besides, I am only there on business, or for the hunting.”

  “Should you not be there now?”

  Mr. Rutledge’s amusement faded. “I have other concerns keeping me in London,” he said.

  “Oh,” said Sophia. “More things we dare not speak of.” The idea made her unexpectedly downcast.

  “Not entirely,” Mr. Rutledge said. “I have business interests to manage here as well, and I enjoy the varied company of London.” His face went comically somber again. “And what brings you to London, Mrs. Westlake, if your family is in Derbyshire?”

  The twinkle in his eye dispelled her low spirits, challenging her to respond in kind. “That is an impertinent question, Mr. Rutledge,” she said, pretending to be offended. “Suppose my relations with my family are not cordial, and my reasons for avoiding them a great secret?”

  “Then I would be embarrassed, and we would have to fall back on conversation about the weather and the flavor of the duck I am about to serve you,” Mr. Rutledge said. “And since I have no reason to imagine the duck anything but ordinary, I hope that is not the case.”

  “It is not. I am here because Cecy—Mrs. Barham needs a companion, and she is my dearest and oldest friend.”

  “That is a much happier response than I had hoped for. She is often ill, is she not?”

  “Yes, and I enjoy spending time with her no matter her condition.”

  “I would call that laudable, but I imagine you take so much pleasure in your friend’s company that it is no hardship.”

  Sophia blinked at him. “You are correct,” she said, “but I must admit you are the first to understand that truth.”

  “I understand friendship, I hope,” Mr. Rutledge said. His eyes were once again fixed on her with that intensity that made her wonder what he truly wanted from her. She wished, now, that she could remember any Dreams or Visions from her time with the War Office that might have been in his employer’s service. It was uncomfortable, him knowing so much about her when she knew practically nothing about him. True, they seemed to have some things in common, and true, he had a sense of humor she found appealing, but was that really enough to base a friendship on, when there were so many other things that stood between them? It surprised her to discover she wished their circumstances were otherwise.

  “Mrs. Westlake,” Lady Montclair said, “would you care to join us in the drawing room?”

  Sophia rose, still looking at Mr. Rutledge. “It was a pleasure, Mr. Rutledge,” she said, and meant it.

  “Likewise,” Mr. Rutledge said, standing politely. She brushed past him—he really was very large, as if he were built to a scale bigger than that of other men—and went to take Cecy’s arm. He did not believe me, she told herself, but it was a weak, petty voice, and she chose to ignore it. If he wished to be friends, well, why should she be ungracious? What matters, she thought more firmly, is that I finally have the clue I need to tell me what Lord Endicott is doing, and I will prove his crimes. I will be vindicated, and everyone, including Mr. Rutledge, will know it.

  In which Sophia has a measure of success

  ophia placed her palm flat against the door of Dream, absorbing it into her skin as it dissolved with a quaver. Her sleeping mind told her it tingled, though she could not actually feel any sensations while in Dream; if she did, it would mean she was too close to the surface of sleep to make any sense of the Dreams she entered. As the door dissolved, she was drawn into the Dream as if pulled forward—or possibly it was the Dream that came to meet her. The result was the same.

  The room’s walls were nebulous, telling her she lacked the information to know where this place was located in the waking world. That was unimportant; none of her Dreams about Lord Endicott’s counterfeiting plan in the last four days had been specific as to where he was committing his crimes, but much as she would have liked a street address or, failing that, an image of the outside of one of these places, that was not essential to her current plan. Time enough to track him down physically. All she needed at the moment was a face.

  The indeterminate room was small, perhaps fifteen feet on a side, and contained only a square wooden table that looked as if it had been put together by someone who had never actually seen a table before. Its top was splintery and gray; it looked like driftwood, but not planed and polished the way Sophia had seen such wood sculpted in Lisbon. Rather, it seemed as if the unknown craftsman had simply walked along the shore and gathered what planks he could find, then hammered them together.

  Because it was such a clear, detailed image, Sophia concluded its irregular form could not mean lack of knowledge on her part. More likely it meant something slapdash, something for which rapidity of assembly was more important than long-term stability. She had seen images like this one frequently enough that she concluded Lord Endicott’s operation relied on an ability to move quickly between locations, leaving no traces behind. Not that this would be enough to thwart her, once she had enough information.

  The ramshackle table had a single drawer, which, in contrast to the table, was of shining, polished mahogany with brass fittings. Sophia imagined it sliding open, pretended she could hear the scrape of wood on wood, and looked inside. A single banknote lay within. It was a two-pound note, beautifully printed and inscribed with the name HAMMOND BANK, which Sophia had never heard of. There was a chance it was a fictitious bank, dreamed up by Lord Endicott for the purpose of passing false notes, but thus far every banknote she had seen in Dream was drawn on a real institution. She had no idea why this was so, and reminded her sleeping self that this was one more item of knowledge to pursue.

  The banknote was dated and signed; the date was two days from now. Sophia’s Dreaming self breathed out in relief. She had directed her meditations at predicting the near-future, but until tonight she had only seen Dreams of events that were too late to be useful to her. Banknote, bank, and now she needed a face.

  A part of the unfocused wall moved as if it were a door swinging open, and a man entered the Dream. He wore trousers, like a working man, a rough linen shirt open at the neck with no cravat, and his coat looked like a sailor’s—but he had no face. The Dream shook with Sophia’s annoyance and disappointment. Seventeen Dreams, and not a single face to put to Lord Endicott’s men. She calmed herself, focused on the man’s image, and carefully pulled at it as if she were trying to remove a shroud from his skin. This time, it would work; she had to believe it was so.

  Slowly his features began to coalesce, trembling into focus the way the Dream door had dissolved into her skin. It was a thin-featured face, freckled across his cheekbones, his chin pointed so sharply it looked as if it had been carved that way, and his light brown hair fell fo
rward over his forehead and into his eyes until he pushed it away. She memorized the face for reproduction when she woke. Drawing was a skill all Seers were expected to master, and while Sophia’s skills were not as refined as those of some of her peers, she was still more than capable of producing a recognizable sketch.

  The man approached the table and removed the banknote from the drawer. It came away in a series of jerks, and when Sophia looked, there was another, identical banknote in the drawer. So this did not represent an isolated forgery; that was yet more evidence of a criminal organization rather than one man acting alone. Instead of folding the first note and putting it away in his coat, the man held it out at arm’s length and turned, making it seem as if the note were pulling him, or guiding him, like a compass.

  Sophia held her breath. This part, discovering what he would do with the note, was even more difficult than revealing his face had been. She turned her attention to his hands where they gripped the banknote; that was the key, maintaining the connection between both images. The man began to walk forward, away from the table and away from Sophia, and she carefully followed him. Her Dream self could not move too quickly, for fear of waking her physical body, but go too slowly and she would lose the man entirely. She told herself that they were both walking in place, that it was the undefined room that was sliding past them, then with an effort of will swept the walls away to reveal—

  —a street scene, with light coming from everywhere instead of the sun in the sky, so the Dream location had an unreal appearance, like the set of a ballet. It was in a poorer part of London, with plaster-walled shops crammed close together. They, too, looked like set decorations rather than real buildings, with their windows painted on and their doors empty holes. Even so, if she looked at the setting as if it were a painting, looked at more distant landmarks and the way the streets fit together, she was confident it was located in Whitechapel. The banknote in the man’s hand now swung back and forth like a magnet seeking iron, until it dragged him along to a door above which hung three exaggeratedly large blue balls, each more than a foot in diameter. The banknote pulled the man through the doorway, and the Dream shivered and vanished.

  Sophia sat up and lit the lamp, then took up her diary and pencil. With swift strokes she sketched the face of Lord Endicott’s man, tore the page from the book and crumpled it in dissatisfaction, then drew again until she was confident anyone could identify the criminal from her portrait. She again tore the page out, but carefully this time, then wrote rapidly:

  Pawnbroker in Whitechapel. There is an abandoned building on one side and a used clothing shop on the other.

  Hammond Bank. Find it. Warn them.

  This is only the first step.

  She laid the portrait on her page of notes and closed the book on it, then extinguished the light and lay back on her pillow, blinking away the afterimages of the glow. This was a slender thread indeed. Everything relied on this man being able to reveal the identity of the person who had given him the forged note, and even then that second person might not provide a link to Lord Endicott. But the point of meditation before Dreaming was to prompt a Dream that would give you what you wanted, and Sophia had no reason to believe her Dream would fail her. It had shown her this man because he was the link she needed to Lord Endicott’s operation.

  She considered Dreaming again, with the intent of Seeing the result of the man’s apprehension, but that was too far in the future, and anyway she had promised Cecy. Even though her friend was not there to witness, Sophia felt again the rebuke Cecy had given her the night of the Earl of Montclair’s dinner party and resolved not to overwork herself.

  She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to stave off the headache gathering behind her eyes despite her caution. So Lord Endicott had gone from embezzlement to counterfeiting. If he were desperate for money, she had heard nothing of it, but that was the only reason she could think of that he might be engaged secretly in business, let alone two such criminal operations. I wonder why he does not marry, she thought, since so many women would love to be Lady Endicott, and he might have his pick of heiresses. How unfortunate for him that her fortune was not at his disposal. She closed her eyes, made her muscles relax, and eventually, despite her excitement at finally having made a breakthrough, fell into a natural sleep.

  She woke early the next morning and rushed through her morning chocolate and toasted bread and her toilette. She gathered the newspapers and set them aside without reading them, then sat down to her writing desk as if preparing for battle. She trimmed her pen nib, opened her inkwell, and wrote in her most elegant script:

  Sir,

  The somewhat unattractive man whose portrait is enclosed will enter your store on the fifth of December. He will attempt to pay you with a £2 note drawn on Hammond Bank. The banknote is a forgery, and I am sure you will agree with me that it is a poor one. Give this letter to the Bow Street officer you summon to take the man into custody. Officer: your captive is a member of a criminal organization engaged in forging banknotes. If your superiors are sensible enough to offer him transportation rather than death, he will reveal the identities of the man or men responsible for giving him the fraudulent note. This is the extent of my Sight.

  Sincerely,

  Sophia Westlake, Extr. Seer

  She waited a moment for the ink to dry. It had been tempting not to act until she found a link that would directly prove Lord Endicott’s involvement and guilt, but nearly a week’s worth of Dreaming had shown she would not have enough information about the counterfeiting operation unless she struck it a blow. Lord Endicott’s response to this action of hers would cause ripples that would make themselves felt in her information sources, inspiring more accurate and useful Dreams.

  Unfortunately, her involvement in the man’s apprehension would be made public, and Lord Endicott’s reaction to that was something she could not yet predict; would he believe her discovery was anything but chance? It was possible he would break his agreement with the War Office, whatever it was, and reveal her “false” accusations against him to neutralize her, but she was certain he would not risk exposure by doing so just as she accurately predicted a crime. The War Office, at least, might find that too much of a coincidence. She hoped. The entire thing was risky, but it was a risk worth taking.

  She folded the paper into an envelope, wrote the direction after a moment’s walk through Whitechapel in memory—refreshing her familiarity with the city had been her first action upon returning to London, and one she did not tell Cecy about, since it took her through places decidedly not fit for a well-bred woman to roam—and sealed it with her personal emblem, surmounted by the stylized curlicues of an Extraordinary Seer. Then she rang for a footman and handed it over for delivery. Simon looked at the direction, gave her a dubious glance, opened his mouth as if to say something, but then simply left the room. He had no right to look dubious; her instructions for finding the pawnshop were perfectly clear, and she was a little insulted that he had apparently been about to challenge her.

  Sophia leaned back in her chair, feeling as spent as if she had briskly walked from Cecy’s front door all the way to the pawnshop and back. Now there was nothing for it but to wait. The two days she had been so glad to see now seemed interminable. She pushed back her chair and went to gather her newspapers. It was unlikely she would learn anything new until Lord Endicott’s man was apprehended, but there was no point in not staying informed, and it was something to do. In two days, she would strike her first blow against Lord Endicott. In three days, she reflected, holding her scissors in the air and working the blades idly, I will be cutting out stories bearing my name.

  Three days later, Sophia took her seat at the table and folded her napkin neatly in her lap. “The story is not very prominent,” she said, “but I am not so vain as to believe my every action is worthy of front page notice.”

  “This is quite unexpected, Sophia,” Lewis said. “Did you know your Dream would have such a dramatic effect?” He fo
lded the newspaper and set it beside his plate, then picked up his fork and knife to attack his sausage as if it were likely to turn on him at any moment.

  “I did not,” Sophia said. It was mostly true. She had only known that the man in her Dream would lead the Bow Street magistrates to his confederates. “But it is extremely satisfying to know that two other men were also apprehended, and at least a hundred forged banknotes discovered. I wish only that I knew whether those men revealed the location of the printing press that produced those notes.”

  “You received more than usual notice at church this morning,” Cecy said, “which tells me some of these people saw the newspaper early this morning. I wonder if that is entirely in keeping with the spirit of Sunday worship.”

  “I am accustomed to being stared at,” Sophia said, but “accustomed” was the wrong word for the fizzing, lighthearted feeling that came over her when she made a Dream public. Was it a sin to be so… exhilarated by her fame? No, not her fame, but that of her talent. Interpreting Dreams left her feeling stretched out, but in a good way, as if her mind were expanding to encompass ideas and images beyond her waking self. Seeing those Dreams come true, particularly in the public eye—it felt as she imagined it would feel to have a child who played the pianoforte with such skill that everyone admired and praised her. Having others admire and praise her Dream filled her with joy on its behalf.

  “Will Bow Street enlist your help in finding more counterfeiters?” Cecy said. “Since you have proven your accuracy.”

  “Possibly, though forgery is not the only crime they are concerned with,” Lewis said, “but I would be surprised if the Bank of England did not contact you.”

  “I… that had not occurred to me,” Sophia said. The idea left her feeling angry and guilty at the same time. Of course the Bank of England would want every advantage in pursuing the counterfeiters, though no doubt they had their own Seers working on the problem. And as generous as their rewards were, they likely could not afford her services—or, rather, the going rate for the services of an Extraordinary Seer, given that Sophia herself never took money for her Sight. But forgery was a serious problem, an attack on the foundations of the government and society, punishable by death; was it her duty to help stop it, regardless of Lord Endicott’s involvement?