She started to pace again and stopped herself. “I believe—this is where the explanation becomes confusing. I entered a Dream from which another Dream opened, and another. It was as if, within Dream, I took all those steps I have just described without having to wait, or to exit and re-enter Dream. I saw a reality much further in the future than has ever been possible before.”
“How do you know that future will happen? You did say the future branches too much to be reliably Seen,” Lewis said.
“It is true that Dream is sometimes difficult to interpret, and a Seer may be wrong about her understanding of it,” Sophia said, “but I have always known when I am right about my Dreams, and they have never lied to me.” She caught Mr. Rutledge’s eye again, and this time his amusement turned into a real smile, which she returned. Having his good opinion made her feel as if she could conquer anything Lord Endicott brought to bear on her.
“And I believe these… far-future Dreams? These new Dreams are no different than the usual kind, in that they may be changed or prevented by someone’s intervention. It is even possible that a Seer might have to take an active role in ensuring they are not altered by some other action. But all of that I will have to investigate at another time. What is important now is that I believe this new method of Dreaming will allow me to circumvent Baines’ Dream-disrupting ability.”
“I understand,” Daphne said, “or rather, I don’t understand—that is, it’s a little like skipping stones across the water, you throw the—or in your case you enter Dream, then go from one to the other until you—well, you don’t sink, obviously—what I don’t understand is how you can even do that when Baines will disrupt the first Dream—”
“Because you will not be trying to predict Baines’ actions,” Mr. Rutledge said in his deep rumble.
Sophia laughed. “I suppose it’s not that difficult to understand, after all,” she said, “since both of you seem to have grasped the principle.”
“Well, I have not, Sophy,” Cecy said, “so please explain it for those of us who are not quite so quick-witted.”
“It took me nearly half an hour to understand what they did in two minutes, so I believe I am not so quick-witted either,” Sophia said. “As Mr. Rutledge implies, my trying to See what Baines will do always fails because the Dream cannot predict his movements. But I am perfectly capable of Dreaming of where he is now, and when he is with the printing press, that appears in my Dream as well. While I cannot predict where Baines will move it, I know he will move it, and that it will end up in a new location. So I will instead attempt to predict not where it will be moved, but where it will be at some future point after that decision has been made. To be honest, I could have done that before, and I am a little embarrassed that I did not think to focus my Dreaming in that way.”
“It would not have mattered, though, would it, because Baines would still have moved on by the time anyone might have reached that location,” Lewis said. “And even now that we have Mr. Rutledge’s assistance, that will still be true—unless you, sir, have more secrets to reveal,” he added with a grin.
Mr. Rutledge shook his head. “My men—or, more accurately, the officers who report to my committee—can still only move so quickly,” he said. “But I believe Mrs. Westlake has an idea for how to work successfully within those constraints.”
“I do, Mr. Rutledge,” Sophia said. “I intend to follow those Dreams within Dreams until I have discovered where Baines will take the press two or possibly three locations from where it is now, and then you and your men may prepare yourselves to capture him at that place.”
“Then, if I understand you correctly,” Mr. Rutledge said, “you will have to find where it will be just far enough into the future that there is as little time as possible for it to be disrupted, but not so close to the present that my men cannot arrange his apprehension in time.”
“You have it exactly,” Sophia said. “We know there are seven locations to which Baines has access, but I have not yet identified the exact buildings within those locations, and that means more Dreaming, because I dare not predict where the press will be and then waste time trying to pinpoint where that place is.”
“Sophy, that seems like a dangerous amount of Dreaming,” Cecy said.
Sophia held out her hand to Mr. Rutledge. “Could I have that newspaper now, please?” she said, and handed it to Cecy. Cecy glanced at the page, then read more closely, her mouth falling open as she did.
“This is absurd!” she said. “How anyone could—he makes you sound dangerously unstable, Sophy!” She flung the newspaper on the floor. “Mr. Rutledge, am I correct in thinking the Bow Street Runners are investigating these allegations?”
“You are, Mrs. Barham,” Mr. Rutledge said, “and although being an Extraordinary affords Mrs. Westlake some protection, it is very possible a warrant for her arrest may be issued soon. Endicott has a great deal of political pull, and there is a faction in the government that would like to see Extraordinaries have somewhat fewer legal rights than they currently do. Mrs. Westlake’s trial would benefit them enormously.”
“I have no time to be concerned about the effects of too much Dreaming,” Sophia said. She picked up the newspaper, folded it, and handed it back to Mr. Rutledge. “If it is true Lord Endicott had King murdered in prison, then my confinement there could mean my death. We must find Baines, and quickly.”
Cecy stood. “Then let us begin,” she said. “Sophy, I will make you as comfortable as possible. The rest of you, take yourselves off. Sophy does not need an audience.”
“I should stay,” said Mr. Rutledge, “in order to act on whatever information Mrs. Westlake produces as quickly as I can.”
“Very well,” said Cecy.
“But—” Daphne said.
“I will be fine if everyone stays, Cecy,” said Sophia. “But—on the other side of the room, perhaps?”
She settled on the chaise longue with Cecy seated beside her. “When this is over, I intend not to Dream for a month,” she said in a low voice, making Cecy laugh.
“If you can manage it, I will be very surprised,” she said, then her smile became reflective. “Though not as surprised as I was when Dr. Garland gave me the news. You know she said that is likely why I became so dizzy after I was attacked? Oh, Sophy, it is too wonderful!”
“I am so happy for you, dearest. It is a beautiful baby, too.”
“Of course it is! Oh, but you should Dream. We have so many months ahead to talk about this!”
Sophia nodded, closed her eyes, and slipped into Dream. It was so easy, these days, what with all the practice she was getting, that she sometimes had trouble falling into a normal sleep. That frightened her, a little, but the thought of taking her revenge on Lord Endicott kept that fear at bay. She had no time for fear now, either, because she needed all her attention to learn the exact locations where Baines might hide the press.
Time and again she dipped into Dream, wandering the surreal landscape until she Saw something she recognized, then emerging to give the location to one of her helpers. By the time she was finished, she was exhausted and dizzy and nauseated and ready for a true sleep, but there remained one thing to be done.
“I will try to See the place the printing press will be soon, and hope I can also learn when it will be there,” she said. It seemed she lacked the energy to rise. Well, Dream did not require one to stand. The others came to gather around her, looking down on her until she felt as if she were surrounded by giant statues, looming over her recumbent body.
“That can wait until tomorrow,” Cecy said. “You look as if you are about to fall unconscious.”
She searched their faces until she came to that of Mr. Rutledge, who was expressionless. “You know what I have to do,” she said to him.
He nodded. “Mrs. Barham, tomorrow might bring anything. I understand your concern, but I believe Mrs. Westlake knows the danger.”
Cecy looked terribly torn. “Last one. I promise,” Sophia said. Cecy fin
ally nodded. Sophia closed her eyes and thought, Show me the press, and once more fell into Dream.
She was so accustomed to seeing Baines in these Dreams that it surprised her when he was not immediately visible. The printing press took up space in one corner of the featureless room, its spidery limbs tossing sheets of banknotes in all directions, where they disappeared before they struck the ground. Lord Endicott’s operation was becoming more efficient. Sophia turned in a slow circle and found Baines standing behind her, his handsome face already beginning to blur. How strange, that so many of the villains of this tale looked like the sort of men one would wish to sit next to at the dinner table, but were at heart evil and ugly. Behind him lay the second door of Dream. She hurried past him and laid her palm against that door.
The room beyond was fuzzy and featureless, but there was the press in one corner, and there was Baines, more solid now, and another door of Dream. Sophia looked around for an ordinary door, even one no more than an outline, that would link this room to its exterior, but saw nothing. She rubbed her temples, or tried to; she was as insubstantial as anything else within Dream, and told herself that her Dreaming body could not feel anything, let alone the pain of the headache her living body had been developing all afternoon. She crossed to the door of Dream and passed through it. Press, Baines, door of Dream, but the room was firmer and more well-defined, and there was another, ordinary door in the wall, its carved moldings setting it off so well from the slightly nebulous walls that she opened it with ease, then bolted through it before it could vanish.
The non-light of Dream was too bright and the surrounding landscape too dark, and she had to stand still for a moment to avoid falling down, because it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to ignore her real body’s pains and keep herself securely tethered to Dream. Her impossible headache was trying to cleave her skull in half, and everything had pale red rings around it, but she made herself focus on her surroundings. The child’s painting effect was more pronounced this time, and everything she looked at wavered, making the red rings surrounding it quiver in a nausea-inducing way. The day, what day is it, she thought, and stumbled into the street looking for ephemera.
The first newspaper she snatched at vanished before she could glimpse more than the headline MRS. WESTLAKE ARRESTED!!! Another sharp pain drove through her head, and her sleeping self twitched, making the landscape bend and twist until she forced it back into place long enough to establish her location in the waking world and match it to one of the locations she had identified.
She found another paper, this one lying in a gutter, half-obliterated, but she snatched it up and read the date just as her sleeping body convulsed and drove her out of the Dream. She jerked again, and then there were hands supporting her, holding her still. “Whitechapel,” she gasped, thinking she had gone blind before realizing her eyes were closed and she could not open them. “Late evening, the day after tomorrow. I saw half a sun,” she said. Then everything went red, and then black, and the pain was gone, and she slept.
When she next opened her eyes, she was in her own room, lying fully clothed on her bed. Daphne sat beside her, uncharacteristically still, with her hands interlaced on her lap and her eyes fixed on them. She raised her head when Sophia stirred, and said, “You don’t have to get up yet.”
“I believe I could not rise even if I wanted to,” Sophia said. “What time is it?”
“Half past six. Are you hungry?”
Sophia’s stomach rumbled. “Apparently I am,” she said with good humor, then added, “Is something wrong, Daphne?”
Daphne shook her head. “Everything’s fine.”
“You certainly seem out of sorts. Are you hungry?”
“Not really.”
Sophia rose enough to prop herself on her elbows. The pain in her head lessened when she did. “Where is everyone?”
“Cecy and Mr. Barham are in the drawing room. Cecy was in here until about an hour ago. Mr. Rutledge—I still cannot believe he is a spy—well, not exactly a spy, but he certainly isn’t what he seems to be, is he? Though now that I say that, I’m not sure what it is he seems to be, just not—at any rate, Mr. Rutledge left to arrange for Baines’ capture.”
“Oh. That is good. I will have to send him the details of the location.” She felt oddly bereft that he had left without saying goodbye, though how he would do that while she was unconscious was a mystery. Then she sat up more fully, ignoring the fleeting pain that went through her head, and said, “No, that is not good. I want to be there when they capture Baines.”
“So do I. Mr. Rutledge said, and I quote, ‘there is absolutely no way in hell I am taking either of you into Whitechapel at night.’ I told him he was being unfair, and that I would tell—anyway, he refused, but he left you this.” She picked up a man’s ring from the bedside table and handed it to Sophia. “He said he didn’t mind if you borrowed his eyes.”
It was a heavy gold ring set with a flat onyx stone that bore no design, a ring as plain as the rest of Mr. Rutledge’s wardrobe. On a whim, Sophia slid it onto her gloved middle finger, her largest finger, where it hung loosely. His hands are so large, she thought, and was reminded of how he had grasped her arm, both in reality and in her dream, and removed the ring, feeling embarrassed at how the memory warmed her. “I will try to find him in Vision later,” she said, laying it back on the table, “but now I believe we should eat—are you staying for dinner?”
“No, I am expected at home, but I will return night after tomorrow, and I expect you to tell us all exactly what you See,” Daphne said, her old exuberance returning. She hesitated, then threw her arms around Sophia and whispered, “You scared us. Please don’t do that again.” Daphne released her, and vanished.
Sophia lay back on her pillow and stared up at the ceiling. I spend so much time flat on my back, she thought, then nearly choked on her laughter as she thought of how that sentence might be misconstrued. Still, it was true. Was it only the necessity of protecting herself from Lord Endicott that had led her to this? Surely she had not always been so absorbed with Dream. No, it was only after Richard’s death that she had begun spending so much time in Dream, or in Vision, and when she had not been exercising her talent she had been thinking about how to exercise her talent.
What would her life have looked like had Richard lived? It was one of those questions that could not be answered, something where the future branched so far from the past there was no knowing where they might have ended up. She might have had a child. She might have been the one killed on the battlefield, not Richard. She might not have been driven to find the pirates’ secret, and Lord and Lady Enderleigh might be at the bottom of the Caribbean now.
So many changes that hinged on one man’s death. She no longer missed Richard; she could even admit to herself they had both been very young to marry, and that they had begun to grow apart thanks to the pressures of wartime service. Peacetime, when it eventually came, might not have been enough to bind them back together.
She removed her right glove and picked up Mr. Rutledge’s ring, steeling herself against the whirling images and the faint nausea that accompanied them. It was a profound mark of trust, him loaning her this ring; he could have no control over what she Saw of his life and history, and she might See some very personal and private things. She resolved not to linger over the images longer than was necessary to find the one that showed his current perspective. He trusted her, and she did not want to betray that trust. She dismissed the echoes, ignored the static images, and went searching through the moving windows in which pieces of Mr. Rutledge’s life played out in endless cycles.
She meant only to look at each image briefly, long enough to establish it was not the one she needed, but she soon became fascinated by what she saw. His undistinguished attire and large physique gave the impression that he led a rather boring, sedentary life, or would have if she did not know him so well, but what Sophia saw astonished her: foreign landscapes, exotically dressed men and women, cit
ies in Morocco and Russia and the American colonies and others she could not recognize. A richly dressed rajah, extending a hand for Mr. Rutledge to shake as equals. A woman—she turned away from that one quickly, not wanting to pry, but she was certainly beautiful and they had certainly been very well acquainted. He had every right to a relationship like that, did he not? It occurred to her for the first time to wonder why he was not married. Whatever had happened to the woman?
She watched in fascination until Cecy knocked on her door and said, “Are you awake? Oh, I am so glad. Where did Daphne go? She was supposed to watch over you.”
“She did, until I woke, and I feel perfectly well except for a bit of a headache.”
“Which will no doubt become worse if you persist in playing with Mr. Rutledge’s ring while lying down. Come, eat with us, and then you can continue your search. I hope you discover the right Vision before they attempt to capture Baines, or I know from experience you will be unpleasantly out of sorts and likely to inflict it on others.”
Sophia set the ring on the table and waited for the whirling images to fade. “I intend to be very pleasant,” she said, “because I am close to seeing my enemy brought down, and that makes it impossible for me to be out of sorts.”
She continued exploring the ring’s Visions after dinner, sitting in her uncomfortable chair and clasping it between her palms. Mr. Rutledge had done so many things in his life. What had brought him to work for the Bank of England? He had said he had experience at capturing criminals, yet he was no Runner; had he worked secretly for the military, or for the government? Now that she had Seen these things, she had so many questions she wanted to ask him. Or—perhaps it would be prying. It was prying, wasn’t it, spending so much time watching his life flicker past when she ought to be trying to discover the Vision he had given her permission to seek out. Embarrassed again, she told herself sternly to focus.
She found the correct Vision almost immediately, though she almost missed it because it looked like a static image, a single sheet of notepaper with the message THIS IS WHAT YOU SEEK MRS WESTLAKE printed on it in large letters. She smiled. Of course he would think of that. If only he had a Speaker Cecy could communicate with, to tell him she had located his Vision. But she knew him well enough to know he would assume she had found him by the night after tomorrow, when that would be crucial.
Wondering Sight (The Extraordinaries Book 2) Page 27