He cursed under his breath and mounted the first rung.
He went slowly, testing each handhold and foothold before ascending to the next. His hands were clammy and almost numb with the cold, but when he lost his nerve, he just had to glance up at the dark form of Olivia above him, climbing doggedly higher, before he shook his head and continued on. Whatever was up there, there might be a risk, and gods only knew what she might get up to alone.
Olivia’s form vanished almost all at once, and Chris, so focused on climbing and not falling, was, for a moment, irrationally paralyzed by her absence. Gods, had she fallen, somehow? Did he not notice her tumbling by him, screaming? Was she lying below, neck broken, even now?
“Olivia?” he called. His voice sounded very high to his own ears.
Her head poked over the edge. “Oh, hell! Hell! Shit! Christopher, come quickly! You’ll never believe this! Gods, Emilia Banks, you absolute—genius! How did you do it? How did you…” Her voice faded off as she vanished back inside. Chris clenched his teeth and continued pulling himself upward, heart in his mouth.
She helped pull him up. The feeling of being out of the rain was almost overwhelming for a moment, and Chris took a moment just to cling to the solid surface of the wooden floor. The scents of manure, hay, and wood shavings combined with wet wool and dampness and filled his nose. He took a deep breath. “I can’t imagine how we’re going to get back down,” he panted.
“It’ll be fine! Stop whining! Gods, it’s hardly the moment, Chris!”
She tugged him up to his feet. His head brushed against something, and he raised a panicked hand, certain that it was bats or something similarly unpleasant. His fingers brushed a collection of thick black wires all cabled together.
Olivia followed the movement and nodded excitedly.
“Copper wrapped in rubber,” she said.
He frowned. “I’ve seen some electric current from cloudlings carried like this. But the lights… they’re not the result of cloudling binding, I don’t think.”
“It’s not!” Olivia rocked excitedly on her heels. She pulled him deeper into the loft. “We thought that Em might be mucking about in spirit-tech again. Like with her disruptor—a device that she devised while attempting to, most audaciously, automate or artificially recreate the art of spiritbinding.”
“Yes, I recall. She only managed to successfully recreate unbinding.” His lips twisted, remembering the effects of her invention in the wrong hands. “It’s a shame she didn’t manage to replicate any of the useful aspects of spiritbinding.”
Olivia stopped and looked up at him. Her eyes were very large and blue in the dark. “Chris,” she said, dropping his hands. “She did.”
They seemed to be at the ending point of the black wiring. They all lead to the same place: a roughly hewn box sitting in the corner. Carefully, Olivia knelt and lifted the lid of the box.
Inside, carefully nestled into a bed of straw, sat one of the strange glass, wood, and metal contraptions they had seen stacked all over the table in Miss Banks’s secret lab. Only this time, the glass chamber filled with dark, distilled vinegar was glowing faintly with the black, cloudy nimbus of a bound alp.
Chris’s breath caught up in his throat.
“This is what she was working on,” Olivia murmured. “This is why she’s in danger. Gods. I can hardly believe it, but she cracked it, Christopher. Emilia Banks bound a spirit.”
hris hovered in the space before the magic mirror, watching his reflection trapped beneath its surface stare out at him sullenly while the chimes before it swayed. Rain pounded furiously on the windows and the walls and the door. Above him and around him, all the Harvest Festival’s many guests slumbered in borrowed beds under borrowed blankets, their heads cradled on borrowed pillows.
He hummed Will’s frequency under his breath. His reflection looked as miserable as it had a moment before.
By the time he and Olivia had managed to descend the ladder from the loft, the Festival grounds had been quite empty. The very world had seemed different, and Chris’s mind curled through hallways and labyrinths of thought and possibility as he and Olivia made their way back into the coat room to shed their protective rain garments.
“How?” he had breathed, more to himself than anyone else. “She said it herself. Summoning, much less controlling elementals, requires an element of human will!”
“I had rather hoped you might have some insight,” Olivia had murmured.
Chris shook his head. “I can’t even begin to fathom. It should be impossible, Olivia.”
“Mn.” Olivia folded her arms and tapped her toe. “I can only imagine that whatever she’s put together, it’s rather quite dangerous. Mucking about with spirits and summoning; Gods, Em.” She’d heaved a sigh and spread her hands in a shrug. “I suppose it’s clear enough now why she’s so desperate to keep it out of the hands of the traditionalists or the reformists. First thing tomorrow, we need to get back on this. Get a decent sleep, please. I’ll need you at your best.”
But he hadn’t gone to his own room.
Rosemary’s door had been closed firmly. She didn’t respond to knocks or even calls. When he’d pushed it open, letting himself inside, he’d been met with a cold hearth, an empty bed, and no sister in sight. He’d thought of that handsome lad she’d danced with, Monty, and clenched his fist. Was she with him? Was she… indulging? She was so young! He couldn’t even think about it.
Of course, the alternative was that she was even now making a report to her traditionalist allies back in Darrington.
He’d sat in the empty room, at the edge of her bed. Her things all smelled like apples and fresh linen. He thought of Billy Jones nodding at the sight of Rosie’s photo. He thought of her cold eyes on the stairs, of her sharp tongue when they’d briefly danced. If she was working against Miss Banks, doing the bidding of the Combs family… would he even know?
Most likely not.
Chris had gone to his own bedroom after that. Olivia’s door across the way was firmly closed, and the sight of his bed didn’t fill him with any sense of exhaustion. He’d stood at his window and looked back into the orchards. Despite the thick, dark clouds and pounding rain, he’d been able to see the silhouettes of the apple trees all swaying in the wind. He’d watched them, watching the night grow deeper and darker, and then, shaking his head, he’d turned back out and walked down the stairs to the mirror.
He needed to speak to Will. He needed to.
Only, with the mirror in front of him and waiting, he didn’t know what he’d say. Nothing seemed at all adequate.
It wasn’t as if their fighting was a new thing. Will had been angry at him before. Furious at him before. He was a constantly fuming wolverine and was always ready to take offense to something or another. It was part of his charm. The way they brushed up against one another, bickering and then reconciling… it was part of the game.
And yet, what had happened the day before Chris had come to Summergrove had been something else entirely. Will’s rage had been something nearly alive. And for once, it wasn’t petty, or silly, or blown all beyond reason.
What Chris had done…
Who the hell do you think you are? My emotions belong to me!
How the hell was he supposed to make something like that right?
He turned on his heel. This was… pointless. Will probably had moved his frequency! He must be back in his family home, by now. Chris would just disturb whoever now lived in the flat on Black Canning street. It was late. This was idiotic. He needed to just…
Just…
He walked to the mirror and tapped Will’s frequency.
His reflection disappeared in swirling mist. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the mist was clearing, and Agnes Cartwright stood before the mirror, chestnut hair so much like Will’s tumbling around her shoulders.
“I know you,” she said. Delicate fingers reached out to stroke the surface of the mirror. “Julia’s boy.”
Chri
s swallowed hard, as he always did when he thought of his mother. “Yes,” he said. “It’s me, Missus Cartwright. Christopher.”
“Christopher,” she repeated. And then, frowning, she snatched her fingers away from the mirror, and her face turned stony. “You made my son cry. You hurt him very badly.”
Heartsick, Chris nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I did. That’s why I’m mirroring. I need to speak to him.”
“I don’t think he wants to speak to you.”
“Please, Missus Cartwright. I want to apologize, to…” He shook his head and his hands fisted at his sides. “Let me talk to him. I need to make things right.”
Missus Cartwright swayed before the mirror like seaweed in a current. Her eyes unfocused and Chris bit down on the urge to press her. She did things on her own time. Finally, she blinked slowly and her gaze fixed back on his face. “I haven’t seen him,” she said.
Chris’s heart fell. “He’s… not there, then?”
She shook her head. “Not since last night.”
He tried not to think of where Will might spend a night. Of the handsome blunts who ran the alleys of the neighbourhood, who would sometimes catch his eye when he left Will’s late enough and wink.
What right did he have to be jealous? He thought of Rachel spinning him through a country reel. Hadn’t he told Will himself that whatever was between them, it certainly wasn’t a relationship? It was better for everyone if Will found someone else to attach himself to, another man to hold him and kiss him and adore him and give him what he wanted, and…
And he wanted to deck that man upside the head.
He choked down nausea. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. It sounded forced.
“You should be,” Agnes replied. Her chin came up. “You’ve broken his heart, Christopher Buckley.”
He swallowed hard again. The lump in his throat was the size of a goose’s egg. “I know,” he said, his voice sounding very far away. “I’m the worst kind of bastard.”
“He’s gone to get our home back. The home Graham bought for us after we were married.” She wrapped her arms around her middle and smiled at him faintly. “He was so handsome, my Graham. His broad shoulders and big hands and gentle eyes. He loved me when I was just a girl. I loved him, too. I loved him so much, Christopher.” She sighed. “And then he died. I’m glad Will is getting our house back. But it won’t bring back my love.”
“I’m sorry,” Chris said quietly.
She nodded. “Yes,” she agreed, and then shook her head. “Will will come. He’ll take me to the new house. The old house. I’ll tell him you want to speak to him. You need to fix his broken heart. A broken heart is the worst thing to live with.”
“I… thank you,” Chris murmured. He didn’t know what else to say.
Agnes turned away from the mirror. She didn’t break the connection, simply wandered away. Chris saw the parlour area. It was sparse. The great portrait of Doctor Graham Cartwright over the mantle was gone, and boxes and baggage were scattered around. He breathed a sigh of relief. Will’s mother was right, then. He had to be partway through moving, rather than anything more… clandestine.
Suddenly, he found that he missed Darrington badly enough that it was an ache in his breast. He missed the roar of the city, the crush of people, being surrounded by strangers, the anonymity of a crowd. Hackneys and churches and great winged carriages flying overhead. The jingling harnesses of police cars with their unicorns. Gods, even the desperate faces of people begging on street corners were… familiar.
Will.
Ah, Gods. He missed Will quite desperately. More than he could ever have thought possible.
He dragged a hand over his face and broke the connection himself, sending the chimes spinning and tinkling in a disharmonic cacophony.
“… Christopher?”
He jumped, taking a half-step away from the mirror, throwing up his hands and gazing into the shadows. “I—” he said, and then, a little shrill, “who—?”
Rachel stepped from the darkness, still in her pretty lilac dress. It was wet in patches and dripped quite alarmingly around her ankles. Her hair was unbound and wet around her shoulders. She looked like a drowned rat, and yet he felt a bump in his heartbeat, a lightness in his chest, and he took an involuntary step towards her.
“Gods, are you all right?” she asked, hurrying to his side. “You feel….”
“Wretched,” he finished for her and shook his head with a small smile. “I’m only sorry that you have to read it in me. It’s unpleasant enough for one person.”
“Heavens. You sound altogether… what is wrong? What are you doing on Elouise’s mirror at this hour?”
He couldn’t even think of a good excuse. Why bother? The truth was stranger than fiction, in any case. “I had to speak to a friend,” he said, sounding very tired. “It didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.”
She laid a hand on his forearm. He stilled, extremely aware of the warmth of her through his sleeve. Involuntarily, his consciousness reached out to hers, wrapping around her, trying to read her feelings the way that she could read his. But while he could sense her, her essence, just as with Jones and Maris at the guest house, he had no understanding of what she was thinking or feeling.
“You’ve seemed… out of sorts since I saw you at dinner last night,” Rachel said. She ran her hand down his arm. “There’s a hopeless, dark undertone beneath all your feelings. This is why?”
“I…” He sighed. “Yes. I just… I had a squabble with him before I left the city. It was… ugly. Things were said. Mostly by me.”
She searched his face. Her eyes were so large she almost looked like some innocent woodland creature, sometimes. How had he ever thought her plain? She favoured him with a small, knowing smile. “You do have trouble with that temper, sometimes,” she said gently and stepped closer. “But I suppose the good news is that you have friends?”
He shook himself, drawing away from her touch. “I’m not sure I do,” he said. His skin burned where she’d touched him even through the layers of coat and shirtsleeves. He tingled from head to toe. It was so… dark, so quiet, so intimate. He swallowed hard and ran a hand through his hair. “I… I ought to…” Her eyes were on him, and they burned. “I really ought to find my way to bed, I… Olivia, and I… our investigation… she’ll need me in the morning, and…”
He brushed past her, all but shouldering her out of the way in his hurry to get to the stairs. His face burned.
He had his hand on the banister and was one stair up when her voice, sharp in the darkness, stopped him in his tracks.
“For once, Christopher, could you—could you give me a clear sign of what it is that you want from me?”
There was something so harsh and yet so desperate in her tone that he couldn’t take another step. He turned slowly. She was gazing at him, large eyes shining from the shadows. He swallowed. Rain pounded on the windows.
“I don’t think I understand,” he began, but she cut him off before he had even decided what he was saying.
“No, you do. I know you do. I…” She shook her head and took a step forward, hands clenched into fists. “I feel it come off you in waves. Attraction. Desire. I’m not supposed to mention it. The etiquette of heartreading. But it’s not easy for me, not when I… not when you are so very handsome, and I’ve never read feelings like that from anyone before. Not towards me.”
“I tried to kiss you,” he said. It came out accusingly, and she stepped back. He tried to be gentler as he continued. “You’re the one who pulled away.”
She wrapped her arms around her middle. “Perhaps because I was confused? Did you consider that? You act one way and then another. I never know—”
“Of course you know! You can feel it!”
“I don’t know what I feel!” Rachel retorted, and then closed her eyes and looked down at her feet. “Gods. I don’t know what I feel about any of it.”
Time passed. Somewhere, a clock ticked. Chris couldn’t look
directly at her. He brushed hair back from his face. “I…” He took a deep breath. “I… apologize for….”
She snapped her head up. “Please don’t apologize!” she cried.
He looked down. She looked… anguished, her features locked in a desperate plea. He growled under his breath. “I have no idea what you want from me,” he said.
“Well—that makes two of us! I just know that I don’t want your regrets!” She tangled her hands in her skirts, looking up at him. “I just… I just want to know what you feel, Christopher. Can’t you give me that? You can’t imagine how hard it is to do my job, to complete my—my…” She blinked and looked away. “Are you just being polite? Or… or is this all in my head, am I reading too much? Or even if you’re just being improper, I need to know! Once I know, I can….”
She trailed off and looked up at him. Waiting.
“I’m not being polite,” he said. He thrust his hands into his pockets. “And… and I’m being quite improper, in all honesty,” he said, “but not in the way I think you mean.”
“What do you mean?” she pressed. She took a step closer towards him. There were still over six feet between them, and yet that one step seemed to pull the tension so tight he thought the air might shatter. “Won’t you tell me how you see me, Christopher, so that I can just put all of this to rest and do my duty?”
“I’m sorry I’ve complicated things.”
She laughed quietly, and something like desperation fluttered along the edge of her voice. “You’ve made things more complicated than you could possibly imagine, in fact. This was all supposed to be…” She closed her eyes tight and turned her face away. “Please,” she murmured. “Please, just… tell me I’m plain and common, and that we are entirely unsuited, and that you have only just been….”
“I can’t,” he said.
“It would be better if you did.”
“I know.”
“Then please, Christopher.”
He shook his head. He stepped down from the stair and moved toward her. She flinched. “How can I tell that you that you’re plain and common and unsuitable when you’re beautiful and kind and strong and bold….”
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