The Heartreader's Secret

by Kate McinTyre

  A sound like two pillowcases stuffed with sand hitting the floor and a single trill were all that preceded the swarm. Abigail and Tremaine utterly dominated whatever room they were in, and Chris knelt to scratch Tremaine between his black ears while Abigail mewed piteously and turned figure eights between Olivia’s legs, disappearing under the folds of her red velvet skirts, only to reappear looking ruffled and chagrined moments later.

  “Yes, you are very pathetic,” Olivia informed the cats, who meowed back in unison. Abigail trotted off, tail waving like a flag, while Tremaine stood on his hind legs, paws on Olivia’s calf until she reached down and scooped him into her arms. He settled in immediately, resting his chin on her shoulder and purring furiously.

  It wasn’t a shocking sight, not anymore. Chris no longer felt unfair and embarrassing pangs of jealousy at the obvious affection on Olivia’s face while she patted Tremaine’s furry, black head. She was a complicated woman, Olivia Faraday. The sort of woman who could rub her nose against a feline companion and matter-of-factly inform it that she loved it, and, at the same time, scoff at demonstrations of affection between humans.

  She was what she was.

  “I knew it was coming,” Olivia said finally, looking up from Tremaine’s contented purring to meet her assistant’s eyes.

  “So did I,” Chris admitted. In fact, it seemed late. He’d been holding his breath for weeks, waiting for this moment. If Benji Edison was the last spiritbinder, hope was lost for the traditionalists. Unless they got their hands on a ‘binder strong enough to sustain them for another generation. A second Richard Lowry. A gifted wizard to rally behind.

  Someone like Rosemary Buckley.

  “You know it’ll get more difficult from here,” Olivia murmured. “Summergrove will stay safe, I promise you that, but only from those who’d do something to her. Remove her without her consent. Whisper in her ear unseen. Nothing can really stop her from being found, in time. And from there… Rosemary will have to make her own choices. You can hardly tie her up and lock her in an attic. Not only would that make you a monster, they’d break her out and then have the right of it.”

  “I know,” Chris said. He didn’t know what else to say, though every word was like a blow.

  “Mn.” Olivia breezed past him, deeper into her flat. He followed. Everything was draped with throw blankets or covered with pillows. Chris had always imagined Olivia’s living space to be utilitarian and sparse, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. Everything was soft and fluffy and jewel-toned, and figurines of unicorns, cats, and hippogryphs covered surfaces everywhere. Every Abigail Tremaine mystery, battered old copies that had been published decades ago lined the mantle, enclosed with carved bookends picturing Abigail and her sleuthing assistant, Johnny, the stableboy. It was a sentimental shrine built to Olivia herself, and just about the last thing anyone would have expected from her. Compared to Emilia and Maris’s tasteful home, or the fine Buckley estate, or the lovely furnishings hidden beneath the cracked and troublesome exterior of the Cartwright flat, or even the offices of O. Faraday, Deathsniffer, Olivia’s taste in her personal space was downright tacky. No elegance. No simplicity. No style.

  But character. Character in spades. Chris found, to his shock, that he was starting to find that had value in its own way.

  “What will you do, then?” Olivia called back from areas deeper and more personal than Chris was allowed to penetrate. Chris moved into the combined kitchen and dining room, sliding into one of the wooden chairs at the table. Somewhere, under a prismatic crocheted tablecloth, stacks of mail and half-read novels, and a delicate teacup still half filled with tea, the surface was polished oak. He’d seen it, once. Briefly.

  Chis moved the teacup to one side, making a face. The milky film on top wobbled unpleasantly. “What will I do about what?” he called back. It was a coward’s answer; he knew exactly what she was asking. But it earned him a few moments to consider.

  She heaved a grand sigh. “You’re insufferable,” she declared, voice muffled. “I hate it when you do that, you know. Dissemble that way, when you know perfectly well what I mean! It is, I swear, your absolute least pleasant character trait of a long, long list! What do you intend to do about Rosemary? About the reporter? About the Combs family? About the reformists and Garrett Albany? About any of it?”

  It was a question he’d been dodging, barely one step ahead, since spring. In some ways, for his entire life. He folded his hands on the table and actually took a moment to dip a mental toe into that swirling whirlpool of the inevitable, advancing future. He yanked it back. Acid and poison. “Avoid him,” he said. He was speaking too low for Olivia to hear, but they both knew she hadn’t really been asking for her own sake. “Avoid all of them, as well as I can, for as long as I can. Keep working for you so Rosemary can stay in Summergrove. Try and just… stay ahead of it.” He shook his head. Stared down at his hands. “Just stay ahead of it,” he repeated, achingly aware of how close on his heels it all really was.

  “Mn.”

  He glanced up, surprised. Olivia stood in the doorway, having changed into a light, airy dress that trailed behind her, white with small bunches of berries patterned across it. It was halfway between proper visiting attire and a bed gown. Where did she find her clothes? Tremaine was still buried in the crook of her neck, purring away, but her other hand held a small box wrapped with brown paper and tied with twine.

  “Well, that’s not much of a solution,” Olivia mused, gliding across the floor. Her feet were bare. She really had no sense of propriety.

  “I’m not very good at solutions,” Chris admitted. “Just at barely staying out of trouble.”

  “And only because of me.” She clucked her tongue. Looked thoughtful. “You should get a flat,” she announced. “At least then, they wouldn’t know where to look for you.”

  “Which would leave the estate utterly vulnerable to intruders.”

  “Yes, because you are the factor preventing that, right now. They’re terrified of how you could weave them to death. Write rude messages onto their faces.”

  He ignored her teasing and pushed on. “And, of course, I might not be able to find a flat. More and more tenement houses are being abandoned by their landlords.”

  Olivia sighed. “Admittedly, I have less of a clever retort for that,” she admitted. “Rent rising to account for maintenance and utility costs rising, tenants turned out because they can’t meet the rising rent, rent rising again to make up for the empty flats…” She gave him a look. “The world is finally in the midst of falling apart in earnest.”

  She wasn’t wrong. It seemed naive, how he used to look ahead to the day when Rosemary reached her eighteenth birthday. Would the Tarland he brought her out into even be recognizable? He nodded glumly, and she sighed.

  “Oh, don’t make that face. It’s very depressing. You’re much prettier when you smile.” And she set the brown-wrapped box on the table and slid it across to him.

  His throat went dry. And a little thick. “What’s this?” he asked.

  She glowered and made a shooing gesture. “Oh, you know what it is,” she snapped. She shifted Tremaine, who grumbled. “I don’t forget dates. I just debate whether or not to resign myself to escalating levels of commitment.” When he didn’t move, she snorted. “If it’s not open in ten seconds, I’m taking it back. Mark my words.”

  He didn’t doubt the threat and set upon the twine and paper with gusto. A small black box emerged from beneath the wrapping and within that….

  He gazed down at cufflinks and a tie clip of gold and polished ebony. They glinted beautifully under the warm salamander light, and he reached out a finger to nudge them. Not a crazed figment of his imagination. Real gold all through; the weight was unmistakable. His heart beat faster, and he found himself swallowing, swallowing, and swallowing again. “Olivia….”

  “It was going to be something practical before I remembered that you are a ridiculous portrait of male vanity. What a waste of royals.�
��

  He blinked away his blurry vision. “Olivia,” he repeated. “Gods. I….”

  Her hand on his wrist stilled him. He looked up to see her face looking… chagrined. “Please, don’t.” He’d never heard her ask him so sincerely for anything before.

  He swallowed. Nodded slowly. Took a deep breath. “Hypocrite,” he said, and found his voice remarkably clear. “I’ve never seen a human being spend so much on accessories as you, and I never even see them twice. At least these will go with most everything.”

  She threw back her head and laughed, a bellow of delight that sent Tremaine scrabbling off and tearing out of the room. “Oh, very good,” she said, finally, when she stopped. “Delightful. Just delightful.”

  He wanted to say more. There was a great deal, in fact, that he wanted to say. Instead, he gave her a small smile and tucked the box into the inside pocket of his greatcoat. She seemed to melt with relief and then threaded her long fingers together on the table before them. “Well,” she said. “I’m partway through a very compelling book, and I’m not in any mood for conversation. I’d throw you out without ceremony, but you have just gained a stalker. So I’ll be kind. You can stay for now, so long as you’re quiet.”

  “I think I’m developing a talent for quiet,” Chris said, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

  “It’s a highly underrated skill,” Olivia replied, climbing to her feet. She went to sweep out of the room, theatrical and haughty as the fake Old Blood noble she’d created. But before she went, she touched his shoulder lightly. “Happy birthday, Christopher,” she murmured.

  He knew better than to reply, and she left him in grateful silence.

  think I see her.”

  Incense hung thick in the air, wisps of fragrant smoke dancing like ghosts. Chris felt as though he could lift a hand and brush layers aside as if they were gauzy curtains.

  “Yes… there she is. Do you see? She’s smiling. Hold my hand tightly, yes. Yes, there. She sees you.”

  “I….”

  The second voice was as faint and hoarse and wavering as the smoke in the air. Chris remembered the first time he’d experienced a seeing. He was surprised that anyone could manage to speak at all.

  “She knows you’re here. I can feel it. She’s so grateful for a chance to see you again. To say goodbye. Here. I can hold this image, but not for long.”

  A flicker of movement caught Chris’s eye as he ventured deeper into the flat. Agnes Cartwright stood in the doorway to the kitchen, her sanctum. Beautiful and ethereal as ever, she raised a finger to lay against her lips. Her eyes were very far away, but she smiled faintly, and Chris thought that she understood what was going on.

  Her son was working.

  “Th—I can’t any longer, I’m sorry—” William’s voice cut off all at once, and Chris heard a scrape of furniture as he collapsed into his chair, slumping forward. The client who sat with him began to cry very quietly, and Chris stepped close to Missus Cartwright.

  “Is business good today?” he asked, very softly.

  “Hello, Christopher,” Missus Cartwright replied. She wasn’t nearly as quiet as she should have been. She sometimes forgot things quite suddenly, like the fact that she had just instructed his silence. “Are you here to see William or Graham?”

  She also occasionally forgot where and when she was. Chris laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’m here for Will,” he said.

  She peered at him for a moment before shaking herself and nodding. “Of course, of course. Graham is long dead, I know that. I know that.” She turned away, but not before Chris saw a glint of tears in her eyes. He cursed himself quietly. He tried to be gentle with her, to never upset her, but she was so changeable and odd. He never understood what she was thinking, or if she was thinking at all. He stood helplessly in the kitchen entrance.

  “I’m just glad I could see her,” William’s client was saying. The woman’s voice was faint, and Chris could hear the tears in it. “Thank you. Thank you.”

  “I do what I can.”

  Chris found it hard to connect the gentle soul with the William he knew: a petty, mean-spirited, petulant young man. One he cared about very much. “Please, let me help you out.”

  Chris knew better than to loom in the doorway while Will escorted his client to the door. He followed Missus Cartwright into the kitchen. Their small, filthy flat on the disreputable Black Canning street was beautiful and well-furnished in every room except this one. It was too hard to replace the old stove, the grimy counters, the washtub. Half of the fixtures boasted steadily glowing spirit nimbuses, but others went empty and unused. Missus Cartwright stared listlessly into a cup of tea on the table. Did she see something in the dark liquid? Her expression shifted from sad to curious.

  “I’m in the middle of a very busy day,” William said from the kitchen doorway. “And I think you upset my mother.”

  Chris turned. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight of Will Cartwright, sour expression, folded arms, and all. His heart skipped a beat and radiated a warm, pleased glow. It was becoming harder and harder to ignore that feeling with every passing day.

  “I didn’t mean to distress her,” Chris said quietly, trying not to disturb the woman in question.

  Will’s gaze slipped past him to land on her. “Mother? How are you feeling?”

  “I miss your father,” Missus Cartwright murmured, and then shook herself and looked up. “But I have you, William,” she said, with a radiant smile that swept away the tattered kitchen. “And I do love you. You’re such a good son.”

  “Ah,” Will said, and Chris had the pleasure of seeing his friend’s ears turn red. “I—don’t do that, Mother. Gods know, I haven’t done nearly enough, I…” He growled and turned his head away. His cheeks were red, too. “Will you be all right here if I go sit with Chris? I suspect it’s his lunch, and I have time before my next client.”

  Missus Cartwright nodded and smiled. She turned her head to stare at the wall and began humming under her breath. Chris recognized the song; it was Missus Cartwright’s favourite. “Fly With Me” by one Lila Gladstone, a talented artist killed in the Floating Castle incident like so many others. Like his parents. Like William’s father.

  They had a great deal in common.

  He followed Will up a flight of stairs that bowed and creaked under their weight, wincing on every step. Will and his mother were both willowy, slender beauties, but Chris had some meat on his bones. He was always worried the old wood would just splinter and collapse underneath him.

  “I’m glad you came.” Will glanced back over his shoulder before opening the door to his second-floor bedroom.

  “Then you’ve forgiven me for upsetting your mother?” Chris tried to keep his tone light even as his mind hopped in circles. He tried not to think about propriety and chaperones and how there should be a roadmap for this exact situation, where Will sat on the edge of his bed, Chris lowered himself into the chair beside it, and their knees were close enough to touch.

  When Will reached out and laid a hand on his knee, Chris couldn’t bring himself to so much as flinch.

  “You’re good to her,” Will said. His voice was painfully kind, brutally sincere. “In truth, I’m glad she has another familiar face in her life.”

  Chris glanced away, resting his eyeline just over his friend’s shoulder. “I came to…” He cleared his throat awkwardly, tripping over potential words. To see you. Because I’m weak and something is wrong with me, and when I go long enough without seeing your face it starts to hurt inside in ways that I don’t like to think about.

  And to ask you to put your tongue in my mouth.

  “Ah, I came to check on the status of your suit.”

  “And only that?” Will asked. There was a lilt in his voice. Chris loved it, but not as much as he hated it.

  “Please don’t flirt,” he pleaded.

  Will scoffed and rolled his eyes, but he withdrew the hand on Chris’s knee. “I should pour a tumbler of scotch,�
�� Will said. His mouth seemed unable to decide if it wanted to half-smile or whole-glower. “You have an entirely different view of the flirting after that.”

  He waved off the words Chris had already prepared to protest. Something about his judgement being impaired, and besides, he was halfway through a work day and could hardly go back to Olivia’s office sloshed and—

  “And other times, as well. It’s not just the drink. Some days… Gods, I really never know with you.” The glower won the war and settled into Will’s features. “But I suppose today it’s all strictly professional. Well enough.”

  “Strictly friendly,” Chris protested. He tucked his hands into his armpits.

  “Coward,” Will said, but it lacked any real venom. He just sounded… tired.

  Chris didn’t argue. “The house?” he prodded, desperate to move the conversation in another direction.

  Will sat back on his bed. The annoyance on his face melted into deep, aching sadness.

  Damn.

  Chris’s lips twisted in bitterness at himself. Be my dearest friend, Will. But only just my friend, regardless of what you feel, regardless of what I feel, unless, of course, I decide that I want it differently today and today only, and Cwenraed the Youth only knows what the hells I’ll want tomorrow.

  Will beat him to it. “They still don’t want to sell,” he said.

  Chris realized, embarrassed, that at least half the sadness on his friend’s face wasn’t because of him. He snapped his mouth closed, cutting off a half-prepared flow of embarrassing words and taking just a moment to breathe.

  “They value the estate too much?” he finally asked instead, all innocence.

  Will scoffed. “They don’t give a bloody toss about the estate,” he spat, but the venom couldn’t hide the hurt in his voice. “But they know that I value the estate too much. My own fault. I showed my hand. Never show your sodding hand. I told them I grew up there. I told them it had belonged to my father, before the Floating Castle. And”—his lips twisted—“I told them I was William Cartwright. The timeseer.”