The Heartreader's Secret

by Kate McinTyre

  The trees moving in the wind. He wasn’t used to this sort of landscape.

  He turned back. Olivia was peering at some contraption where three flower-petal shaped steel blades extended from a mass of copper tubing, which attached to what appeared to be a small stove just big enough to house a small flame and one of the peat bricks. Olivia ran her fingers along the edge of one of the flower petals and raised her eyebrows. “Surprisingly sharp,” she murmured. And then she sighed. “Gods, this room makes me feel like an idiot, which is not a feeling I relish, Christopher! I quite like being the most intelligent person in a room. And would you believe she isn’t even a truthsniffer?”

  Chris couldn’t. He thrust his hands into his pockets. “How long did she live there?” he asked, unable to help himself. The questions burned.

  Olivia raised an eyebrow at him. “Live where?” she asked, and he could just tell that she was giving him a chance the back out.

  “The sav—the southern continent,” he corrected himself when a second eyebrow joined the first. “Surely she couldn’t have spent her entire life there. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Olivia gazed at him mildly. “I’m not sure,” she said, slowly and ruefully, “if I should be praising you for a deduction, or scolding you for an insult.” She shrugged. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, so I don’t have to be furious at you. You’re right! Her Tarlish is far too good and unaccented for her to be a native to that land and her name? Emilia Banks? A Tarl to the core, with a name like that, hm?”

  He had, of course, been thinking of her elegance, her education, her brilliance, her manners. All the things he knew he shouldn’t be thinking, which he knew Olivia would cuff him upside the head for if he admitted it. He almost felt he deserved it. Like he was getting away with some crime he deserved punishment for by letting her assume the best.

  She was watching his expression carefully. He could tell she could see exactly what he was thinking.

  She sighed.

  He prepared for the onslaught.

  But instead, she walked over to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. Standing so close like this, he was struck by how tiny she really was, the crown of her head not even reaching the bottom of his chin. “Sometimes,” she said, quietly. “Someone is ignorant because they don’t open their eyes to the world around them. I can’t bloody abide that sort of ignorance.” She tilted her head. “The sort that would make a fellow learn to hate himself because of who or what he discovered he liked. As if two well-suited young people falling in love can ever be wrong.”

  Chris held his breath. He knew what she was saying, but it was the easiest thing in the world to clamp down on his heart, twist his mind sideways, and slide through the crack of plausible deniability she’d left him.

  She sighed. She shook her head.

  His face burned, but he wouldn’t turn back and actually examine the words, their meaning. It was too late, anyway. The sound of Agnes Cartwright cocking her pistol echoed through his mind.

  “Idiot boy,” Olivia said, but there was some sympathy in her voice. She turned away, the tenor of her voice changing a bit. Still soft, still quiet, but firmer. “That sort of ignorance comes from swallowing a pill you’re given without thinking about it. It’s stupid ignorance.”

  He couldn’t look at her. Fine. He was stupid, he was ignorant, and he chose it. Fine. He swallowed around a lump in his throat. He just needed her to stop talking about it.

  Olivia shook her head at him. Fine. Fine. Just stop. I can’t think about it, about him.

  She turned and walked away. “Other times,” she said, and he breathed his relief, “it’s a bit trickier than that. A pill gets forced down your throat. The Queen, the Assembly, Lowry… Tarland itself all want us to believe in the savage continent. All based on kernels of truth spun out of villages in the deep jungle, or nomads on the desert sands. But it’s manure. Thriving port cities like Khari aren’t savage any more than Darrington is provincial. Society is considerably more than its most far-flung parts. The real truth is that the southern continent was always full of bustling cities and grand temples and vast universities, but Em’s people discovered this black rock a hundred years ago and have since begun creating real technology—alternative technology.”

  It seemed impossible. Chris shook his head. “But no one talks about it,” he said. “Livingstone, Albany….”

  “Of course they don’t,” Olivia chuckled low in her throat. “They’re every bit as ignorant. Everyone’s swallowed that damned pill, Christopher! And the few who haven’t, those who legislate trade and sign treaties with our neighbours, well! They just see the things we have to lose. After all, they don’t have a quarter the things that we do, with spiritbinding.”

  “But we don’t really have those things, either,” Chris said, dizzy with the possibilities. Could a damn black rock really make such a difference? “Not anymore. If the papers are right, if Benji Edison really is the last spiritbinder… isn’t it just smarter to adopt their ways and make the change?”

  Olivia spread her arms and laughed, “Ah, but there’s no black rock, here! Would you suggest that Tarland pay another nation our collective weight in gold… to go back at least one hundred years in technology?” She clucked her tongue. “Better to fix categorization, no? Then we Tarls remain the most powerful, advanced peoples in the known world, and needn’t kowtow to anyone.”

  “But we can’t fix categorization!” Chris shook his head.

  “Tell that to the Combs family.”

  By all the Gods, it was… “Madness,” he said.

  “So Emilia will pontificate,” Olivia said, turning away again. “She’s a rarity, our Em. Part of both worlds and neither. It’s a unique perspective. If I gave half a fig about this sort of thing, I think I might believe that she’ll successfully save the world.”

  There were so many questions he still had—about Emilia’s name, her accent, what ‘both worlds’ meant—but he couldn’t help but focus in on that last bit. He smiled faintly. “I think,” he said, with a small smile, “that you lie through your teeth.”

  “Excuse you?” Olivia groused, half-turning.

  “You give a bushel of figs, at least,” Chris said.

  Olivia Faraday coloured. Her eyebrows pulled down and her mouth puckered like she’d bit into a lemon rind. “Oh, bollocks, that’s quite enough of that. I don’t. Not even a dried fig, thank you very much. Now—”

  “Nobody up there move a bloody muscle!”

  The harsh, growling voice cut through the air, and Chris froze. Despite his fears, it most certainly wasn’t Livingstone or his nephew’s voice. It was guttural, angry, and ferocious, and his stomach performed a backflip when he heard the telltale cocking of a pistol’s hammer. His eyes sought Olivia, who was….

  Frowning.

  Not in a way that conveyed fear, or confusion, or even annoyance. He recognized that frown. It was the look she got when her truthsniffing was giving her that ‘itch between the eyeballs.’

  “Put your hands up,” the voice commanded, “and there had better be a godsdamned good explanation for why you’re going through a missing woman’s things at the crack of bloody dawn!” And Chris felt his own brow furrow, because the voice… it was familiar. Not Livingstone or Norwood, surely, but….

  Olivia’s jaw actually dropped.

  “Oh, six tapdancing Gods,” she exclaimed, hands falling limply to her sides. “Maris bloody Dawson, what in all Their names are you doing here?”

  “I—Olivia?” The growl left the voice, leaving only a confused, familiar Northern accent.

  It was Maris, all right.

  “Yes, Olivia! Put the safety back on that gun before you damned well kill somebody—kill me!—and get your arse up here immediately.”

  Moments later, an extremely shamefaced Officer Maris Dawson dragged her heels into the room. Olivia took one look at her and put her head in her hands. “What,” she said, voice muffled through her hands, “the hells, Maris!” />
  The policewoman cleared her throat gruffly and nodded first to Olivia, who couldn’t see her and then to Chris, who couldn’t stop looking at her.

  He’d never seen Maris out of uniform before—ever. Even when they’d been at the disastrous ball together, she’d been wearing her dress uniform. The sight of the policewoman truly off-duty was absolutely bizarre because she was in men’s wear. Not confusing feminine slacks like Olivia was wearing, but real trousers, cut in a style that he wouldn’t think twice of wearing himself: high-waisted, long-cuffed, and just slightly wider in the legs than he’d let a tailor get away with on him. At first glance, her white blouse even looked like shirtsleeves! He could only be glad that her wild nest of curls fell to her shoulders instead of being pinned in a bun or braid, or… or, well, it might all be quite confusing!

  The stout little policewoman ran a hand through those curls, avoiding Olivia’s eyes. “What about you?” she asked, voice gruff with embarrassment. “What are you doing up in Em’s lab at half past bloody sunrise? Lands sakes, Faraday, I thought you were whoever’s after her!”

  Olivia growled. “Please! We don’t even know if anyone is after her, you nincompoop! I’m investigating, which is what you told me to do if you recall? That favour I’m doing for you, the only reason I’m even here?”

  “Right,” Maris said. She cleared her throat again.

  “And? Gods, Maris. Why are you here?”

  Maris’s head snapped up, and her ringlets bounced. “Because I’m terrified!” Chris found himself swaying on his feet at the pain and fear in her voice. “Because I—I didn’t hear anything from you, yesterday, Olivia, and I started thinking, and I couldn’t stop thinking, and can you please try and understand, just for a moment, that I—”

  Her voice caught.

  Silence reigned. Chris looked at his hands. There was a hangnail forming on his index finger. He should see to it before it caused him problems. Maris bloody Dawson, carved of stone and stuffed full of as much rugged, hard-edged bluster as the North had on offer, had just almost started crying.

  Olivia sighed. “Maris…” she said. She raised a hand and pressed it to her temple. She shook her head. “Maris, darling, this is absolutely barmy, you know that, right? By all the Gods, woman. What were you thinking? After all of our efforts to try and make this as circumspect as possible, you hopped on a midnight train and came careening back here? Gods be good, it is a Deorday! You have work! Tell me that you at least made arrangements?”

  The lack of response was answer enough.

  Olivia cursed under her breath, so low Chris couldn’t hear the exact oath and was quite certain he didn’t want to. “You complete stonking wally. We can’t even lie about who you are! Everyone here knows you because you’re always coming up with Em!” And then, as if deciding something, she straightened, folded her arms, and took a deep breath. “Well. All right, Maris, no two ways about it. Does anyone with the police know about Em’s disappearance?”

  Maris shook her head slowly. “Only Officer Geoffries, up here in Summergrove.”

  Olivia nodded to herself. “Well, then, you’re just going to have to be here visiting her, only to find that there was a miscommunication about her little family emergency. It’s the only way to rationalize…”—she waved her arms about as if to indicate Maris’s entire person—“this.”

  Maris winced. “Gods, Olivia. That’s going to draw a world of attention to the whole thing, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t think you have much in the way of options! Someone’s definitely seen you mucking about by now! You can hardly just vanish yourself, even if you could somehow manage to explain missing half a day of work! No, absolutely not. You need to go into Summergrove—right now—and mirror in for a personal day. Not to my mother’s estate. Summergrove.” She blew out a stream of air. “The last thing we need is someone with an agenda hearing you in the Miller foyer telling an inconsistent story.”

  “So…” Maris’s brow furrowed. “Are you saying you’re letting me stay here?”

  “Letting. Isn’t that a lark? I’m saying that there isn’t much of a choice, Maris. Your presence is suspicious in the worst way, but you absenting yourself again? Somehow, even more of a disaster! No, you’re in the stink, now, and the only way out is through. Idiot.” She shook her head. She clucked her tongue. “You’re lucky I actually might be able to use you, or I’d be planning all sorts of revenge, right now!”

  Maris straightened, her gaze focusing intently on Olivia. “So I can help?”

  Olivia sighed. “I truly do hate encouraging you. But…” She shook her head. “Yes. Maybe. Can you read Emilia’s notes?”

  “Oh, Gods,” Maris said, wincing. But then nodded hesitantly. “Some. A little.”

  “Well.” Olivia indicated the piles of paper. “If you want to go through the most recent of these before you jaunt off into town to make your excuses where no one here can hear you, I wouldn’t find it amiss. Em was working on something… something that had her so excited that she put all her other work aside… and I can’t find any record of it anywhere.”

  Maris perked up. She met Olivia’s eyes. “Is it related to her disappearance?”

  Olivia shrugged. “It’s hard to say, isn’t it? But I do know she had a breakthrough shortly before she disappeared, and since I can’t seem to find any information on the bloody thing, I’d very much like to know if I just can’t see it… or if she was intentionally hiding it.”

  here was still no sign of Livingstone or his nephew, but the kitchen was humming with activity and smelling richly of rising bread when they entered on their way back out. The aging cook turned, spatula held like a weapon, to scold the interlopers, but then broke into a fond smile at the sight of Olivia’s face. She shook her head. “Still with your nose where it doesn’t belong, Miss Olivia?” Her eyes were soft, and her voice echoed with nostalgia.

  Olivia tipped the edge of her sharp little bowler hat and laughed. “I can’t give you lot heart attacks by upsetting the natural order of things, now can I? Ah, don’t worry, Maggie. I don’t intend to steal the bowls and lick them all clean, not anymore.”

  “Rascal.” The cook tutted and shook her head. “It was never you who did the actual thefts, now was it? You always just caused havoc and left the dirty work to…” Her face fell. She cleared her throat and turned back to the stove. “Ah, well. It’s good to see you, Miss Olivia. We do wish you’d visit more often, whatever the Missus says. It’s all family, as far as we’re concerned.”

  Olivia smiled sadly. “Indeed,” she said softly.

  Chris bit his tongue all the way back out to where the horses were tethered.

  Olivia swung herself up onto Alouette’s back as expertly as ever. The sun had crested the tree line and was bright and warm, shining down onto their faces. She shielded her eyes as she peered up at the tiny attic window. Chris followed her gaze. He couldn’t see a thing but was very aware of Maris’s presence.

  “Gods,” Olivia murmured. “I certainly hope that fool woman doesn’t get tied up going through Em’s things and forget to make her excuses to the constabulary, but bugger me if I’m not crossing my fingers that she finds something we can use up there.” She shook her head. “Em cracked something. She must have. Some breakthrough changed her perspective on everything else she was working on.”

  “If so… isn’t it just as likely that she left in pursuit of that, rather than some foul play?” Chris couldn’t help but ask. The more they found out, the more it just seemed as if Miss Banks was hot on the heels of a grand revelation. Or at least… he could hope as much.

  Olivia lowered her hand and picked up the reins. She glanced about. Chris became aware of a hum of activity and noise coming from farther up the hill. Picking and preparations for the Festival were underway. The orchard would be swarming before long.

  “Mn,” Olivia said, and then clucked her tongue to Alouette. The horse set off at a walk, and Chris scrambled up awkwardly onto Hobby’s back before
he could be left behind.

  Chris could see the estate up the hill if he stood up in the stirrups and got a good look at the laden apple trees. He felt quite proud of himself that he’d managed to gain some sense of direction out here in this strange, wild country with no roads or signs or crowds. But Olivia was headed in the opposite direction, farther down the hill.

  He chose not to question her, merely tried to steer Hobby in her wake. The stubborn beast clearly wanted to go back up to his stable where he could munch on hay and oats, but with an almost humanlike sigh, he finally resigned himself to the tugging of the reins and set off at a lazy trot after Olivia and Alouette, bouncing Chris about in the saddle like a bag of potatoes.

  Olivia shot him a little grin when he pulled aside her and Hobby fell happily back into a walk. “I think you’re handling yourself better today, Christopher,” she said. “By the time we find Em and get back to Darrington, you’ll be a consummate rider.”

  “And that skill will come in handy when I never ride again,” Chris said dryly, and she laughed.

  They rode in silence for a time, following a rough road between the cultivated apple trees and the wild, old-growth forest, flanked by long grass dotted with dog violets and aster. The horses stayed in the wagon ruts, occasionally lowering their heads to wuff at the long growth to either side. The air was cool, but the sun was warm on Chris’s back. Once his hips settled into the rhythm of horseback, the outing became quite peaceful.

  It seemed as good a time as any to raise concerns.