The Heartreader's Secret

by Kate McinTyre

  “Rosie!” he said, throwing up his hands in a warding gesture and trying not to be deeply hurt. “I would never give any of this up.”

  She folded her lips. “Not even to Olivia?”

  “Olivia would never—”

  “But that’s the danger! Em says… Em says that everyone has someone that they think would never. And that’s how dangerous secrets get out.” She shook her head. “No one can know.” She gave him a long, searching look. “Why are you really here?” she asked, finally.

  “I…” He swallowed. “Roger Greene….”

  “Was the only other person who knew about the lab.” She sighed and settled down onto the ground in one movement, sinking her head into her hands. “Even he didn’t know what it was we were doing, exactly. But he knew the location. He helped us get in.” She looked up, and her big blue eyes were haunted. “And now Roger is dead.”

  “That…” Chris furrowed his brow. Shook his head. “I’m sure that doesn’t mean anything. I’m sure it’s—”

  “No, it does!” Rosemary insisted. “Em left a message for me. I found it under my door the day she disappeared. ‘Roger is dead. I’m not safe. Mail this letter, guard the lab, and call me back if—’” She stopped. She peered at him closely and then shook her head. “You’re here looking for Em, aren’t you? You’re the ones who broke my guarding-ward on the lab.”

  “I… that is… we…” Chris sputtered helplessly.

  Rosie glared, planting fists on her hips. “I just told you the biggest secret in all Tarland!”

  “It’s not for me to tell!”

  “Neither was this.”

  Chris looked down at her helplessly, and she sighed and shook her head.

  “You’re so stubborn, Chris,” she said. “You always say it about me, but you’re worse. You’ve always been worse.” She turned and stretched out onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. He followed her gaze. Uneven mortared stone hung above them. “Well,” Rosemary said, sounding suddenly exhausted. “You’ll find her soon enough.”

  “What do you…” Chris took half a step forward. “Do you know who took her? Is she all right?”

  “Gods!” Rosie snorted. “No one took her! She went off on her own, into hiding, until this all blew over. Only, you all showed up so it couldn’t blow over. You found the lab, and you broke my ward, and so I called her back.”

  “You—”

  “That’s what the sylph was for. She should be getting the message any moment. And she’ll come, like she said she would, and let us out.”

  Chris shook his head. “I’m not so sure about that. She needed Mister Greene to move the barrel in the first place, didn’t she? We may be trapped here for some time, Rosie.”

  “Silly. It’ll be fine. That was before she built the winch.”

  “The….?”

  “Winch. Cables and cranks?” Rosie sighed and then curled onto her side, arms around her middle, and yawned. She looked very young. “How can you have so completely ruined so many things you don’t even understand?” she murmured. “It all would have been fine if no one came to the lab while it was being watched. Maybe this is all your fault. Mabelle. Someone sneaking in.” She shook her head. “It would be easier if it was your fault.”

  “Maris thought Miss Banks was in danger,” Chris said quietly. Watching her curled up made his eyelids and limbs heavy. He swallowed. “Did… did you know that the two of them are—”

  “Yes,” Rosie said simply.

  Chris looked down at her, his insides roiling. It didn’t seem right, that she should be so calm and nonchalant while the knowledge ate at his insides. “It’s not right,” he said. “It’s unnatural. Miss Banks is a lovely woman, and Maris is… strong, and passionate, and tough, but—”

  Rosie opened her eyes and glared at him. Her eyes glittered with anger and unshed tears. “Are you actually—ooh! You can be so—you act like you’re so much above the way that Daddy could be, sometimes, but you’re just as closed off as him!”

  Chris gaped and then hurried to defend himself. “Now, see—”

  “And now you’ll defend him?” Rosie scoffed. “It’s not as if they’re the way he always made it out to be! All his talk about depravity and unnatural behaviour, but they’re good people! They are!” She shook her head. “I bet you don’t even know that Fernand was the same way.”

  The ground dropped out from under him. The room spun. The ceiling collapsed. Chris dropped to his knees, the wind going out of him as if he’d been punched. “Wh…” he breathed.

  “His nephew is always going on about it, being so cruel and awful. But everyone in the country knew. Fernand only kept it a secret in the city. Arsehole Dayton says that it’s so that no one ever called his relationship with you into question. I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t know why he kept it such a secret. Maybe it was just because of the things Daddy used to say. Fall of society and whatnot. But it makes sense, doesn’t it? In all the years we knew him, he never had a lady friend, did he?”

  No. He never had. His big, beautiful house in the city, Solstice family dinners every year, all their talks about life and plans and the future, and never so much as a hint of a woman in his life.

  “I think Father only ever saw anything one way,” Rosie murmured.

  “I—”

  “I think you’re a lot more like him than you like to think you are, Chris.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that, at all.

  Silence passed. Rosie closed her eyes again. Rolled onto her other side. Chris thought of Fernand’s kind eyes and big heart and all the love he’d had to give the Buckley children. How he’d never asked for a penny, how he’d been father and protector both to them, how he’d been willing to give over his entire estate to Chris and Rosie before he’d taken his own life so suddenly.

  Had Fernand loved anyone?

  Had there been someone in his life, like Maris and Emilia had each other? Had he had someone to hold? Or had he gone through all of his life lonely and afraid and cold in the night?

  Chris swallowed, and he choked, and he bit back a sob.

  “Is there…” He clenched and unclenched his fists. “Rosemary. Is there enough air in here? Are we suffocating? I feel like I’m suffocating.”

  “You’re fine,” she replied sleepily. “Go to sleep, Chris.”

  Fernand had been like Maris. Like Miss Banks.

  Like him.

  Chris curled onto his side, swallowing hard. Trying to breathe. In and out. In and out. But the entire world had switched into its head, and he was lying on the ceiling, looking down at the floor, in a world where Mabelle Greene had been shot, where his sister could make her own choices, where Tarland might have hope for the future, and where, if Fernand were here, there might be someone who could understand Chris’s own heart.

  Somehow, he slept.

  It seemed as if no time at all passed. Like he took a breath, let it out and opened his eyes to find his throat sore, his body stiff and cold, and the squealing sound of working steel filling his ears.

  He sat up.

  “Wh….”

  Rosie stirred in the packed dirt across the way. He could barely see her in the pressing blackness, just a girl-shaped outline in the dark. She rubbed her eyes. “Emilia…?” she asked faintly, and then stiffened. “Emilia!” she repeated, louder. Like she was calling out.

  The door at Chris’s back rattled and groaned, and he had the wherewithal to scuttle off, still half-asleep, to one side right before it clicked and slid open, revealing the darkened silhouette of Emilia Banks standing beside the steel contraption, which had pulled the great empty barrel right uphill using a series of steel cords.

  She shook her head.

  “Gods,” she said. “What did Maris do?”

  hris wiped sleep from his eyes and struggled to balance his swollen head atop his neck. Their location left no possibility that everything from the night before had been some sort of dream. For a moment, it all threatened to overw
helm him: Jones, Livingstone, William, Rachel, Rosemary, Mabelle. Fernand. He swallowed it down, slamming the doors on all those cupboards and their troubling contents, focusing on the one thing right in front of him:

  “Miss Banks.”

  “Mister Buckley,” she said and sighed. “I will admit… you aren’t who I expected to see in my laboratory when I received your sister’s signal.”

  “Em!” Rosie struggled to stay upright, squinting at Miss Banks in the darkness. Her salamander lantern had gone out, and her dress and face were covered in dark smudges. She looked dirty and miserable, and Chris felt the overwhelming impulse to go and tuck her into a bed somewhere. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I’ve made a mess of all of it.”

  “Rosie.” Miss Banks stepped over Chris as if he weren’t there, hurrying to his sister’s side. Droplets of water fell over Chris like rain from her wet skirts. She seemed to be wearing a travelling dress, without one of her signature smart, feathered hats. She also wore riding gloves, he saw when she reached a hand down to Rosemary. “What on earth happened?”

  Rosemary pulled herself up. She dusted off her trousers and her blouse, but her hands were so dirty she only smeared herself. She sighed and looked up, shaking her head. Her eyes shone strangely in the dim light. “Someone got in. I don’t know who. It was while I was sending the sylph. They took a prototype, they took your notes, Em, we couldn’t get out, I couldn’t chase them, I—” Her face crumpled, and it seemed to Chris as if the reality of the night before crashed in on her all at once. “Em, Mabelle—she’s dead! Someone shot her! Upstairs, in the f-foyer, she’s—”

  She choked. Hiccupped.

  Miss Banks pulled her into an embrace that was gentle and comforting and kind. “Ah, Rosie, I know. I know. I saw her. I’m so sorry that you had to, darling. I’m so, so sorry.”

  Rosemary completely lost herself, collapsing into sobs and clinging to the engineer and weeping from her chest and stomach in a way that Chris knew all too well.

  He struggled up to a sitting position, himself.

  Miss Banks met his eyes over Rosie’s head. “Tell me Olivia isn’t here.”

  He sighed and nodded.

  She pressed her lips tight. “And Maris.”

  He nodded again.

  “Idiot woman,” Miss Banks said, pressing her eyes shut tight. “I told her. I told her everything was fine, everything was under control.”

  “She…” Chris swallowed hard and cleared his throat. His head felt so heavy, his eyes so dry. Nothing quite seemed real. “She thought that you were in trouble,” he said. “The letter….”

  “The letter was supposed to encourage her not to come after me. But, no. As always, she has to jump in, half-cocked, thinking that I need to be taken care of…” Emilia shook her head. She threaded her fingers through Rosemary’s hair. Chris watched them with a feeling that wasn’t entirely unlike jealousy. “How did she even convince Olivia? There’s no murder.”

  “Roger Greene,” Chris said.

  Something dark crossed behind Emilia’s eyes, and she wrapped her arms so tightly around Rosie that his sister grunted and struggled to escape. “I’m sorry,” Miss Banks murmured to her. “I’m sorry, Rosie. There, there.”

  “Mister Greene—” Chris began.

  “I know all about it, believe me,” Miss Banks said quietly. She sighed and pushed up her delicate golden specs. “I was practically with him when he died.”

  Chris froze. He swallowed hard, remembering the words of the veterinarian. Someone had stood by and watched while the stablemaster had thrown the rope over the rafters and strung himself up.

  “I’d come up that morning. I couldn’t sleep. We’d just installed the new light fixture in the dining room, and I wanted to see how it had held up. I rode up before dawn. I turned the light off and on, made notes. I…” She shook her head. “That feels like it happened in another life. When I went back to the stables, Roger was there. I told him I was making progress. I hate that I don’t remember what we said, but he was jovial and friendly and…” She covered her mouth with a hand tightly, closing her eyes. A moment passed. “I wasn’t gone more than five minutes before I realized I’d forgotten my hat. And when I went back…”

  “Someone else was there,” Chris said, quietly. He didn’t think it had been Miss Banks. Not the way she was speaking. Not with the way that two truthsniffers both trusted and cared for her so deeply. Which meant that there must be a third witness.

  “Yes,” Emilia said, bowing her head. “That’s been my conclusion. I’ve known for a long time that those with agendas have had their eyes on my work. If someone overheard that conversation… and if Roger had spotted them….”

  “Then Mister Greene didn’t commit suicide!” Rosemary pulled back from Miss Banks’s embrace, her eyes wide and guileless and so very young. She shook her head furiously, sending curls flying. “I knew it. We both knew it! May swore up and down, she swore that the horses were acting too strangely! But, Em—hanging is hardly a way to kill someone, and Officer Geoffries from town did an investigation! He said there wasn’t any doubt it was a suicide! So why—how…?”

  “We need to talk to Olivia,” Chris said quietly. Every muscle aching, he forced himself up off the ground. His knees wobbled. He wiped at his cheeks, just under his eyes, and saw the dirt on his face. “There’s…” He glanced at Rosie. A body, he stopped himself from saying. “There’s been a murder. This is her element. She can make sense of this. Find out who’s responsible.”

  But Emilia was already moving. “Roger is already dead. Poor Mabelle, too. Nothing will bring them back.” She looked over the table of prototype spiritcells, and then to the one completely empty of her notes. “This, however… this is an apocalyptic sort of disaster about to happen.” She patted Rosemary’s head. “Justice is going to have to wait. We need to prevent something worse from happening.”

  Rosemary swallowed hard but nodded.

  Miss Banks brushed away flyaways that had escaped her bun. The usually jewel-like undertones to her dark skin were gone, leaving her wan and pale. She closed her eyes tight, which only served to bring out the dark circles underneath. “The first train to Darrington doesn’t leave until eight. The first mail coach, eight thirty. I know, because I had to eschew both when I made my escape. Unless the thief did the same, that gives us time enough that we might be able to stop the thief from bringing my notes to Albany or the Combses—whoever holds their leash.”

  A surge of hope filled Christ’s chest. “There’s more than that,” he said. “Assuming the roads are still flooded—”

  Em folded her lips. “I almost lamed my horse getting here, and I’m a good rider.”

  “Last night was the Festival. All the guests are still here. There’s a good chance that whoever stole your notes is still on the estate.”

  Emilia Banks took a deep breath and straightened. Some of the confidence and collected, elegant intelligence seemed to flow back into her with the oxygen. “We’re going to need Olivia for this if she can keep her attention off what happened to poor Mabelle.”

  Rosemary swallowed hard but remained steely. “We could make use of Elouise, too.”

  “And we’ll just have to pray for a miracle”—Em heaved a sigh—“If we want those two to work together.”

  It took almost a minute of knocking before Olivia answered her door.

  It opened a crack, and she peered out with one ice blue eye, looking Chris up and down. A delicate blonde eyebrow pulled down. “Goodness,” she said. “You look absolutely terrible.”

  “Olivia, Miss Banks is here.”

  The eyebrow shot all the way up. “Well,” Olivia said, and then the door swung open to reveal her standing there in a flowing, quilted dressing gown. “That’s rather unexpected, now isn’t it?”

  Chris shook his head. “I’ll explain, we just—the first thing we need to do is make sure that no one leaves the estate. The weather is breaking, and it’s only a matter of time before the roads are cl
ear enough to get through. Someone has her research—ah, that is, Miss Banks’s research, all her notes, and it’s dangerous, and Gods, Olivia, Mabelle Greene is dead, and—”

  Olivia held up a hand. “Bloody hells. Which, coincidentally, you look as if you were just dragged through. Wash up. I’ll dress. We’ll meet below.”

  Chris bit down on protests. He wanted to tell her about Rosie, about the spiritcells, about how stupid they’d all been to come here in the first place, and about Roger Greene. Instead, he nodded.

  “Don’t primp,” she warned him severely. “I want you presentable, not fancy.”

  With that, she shut the door in his face.

  His hair dripped onto his shoulders as he walked into the parlour, and he was folding his tie over and over, having completely forgotten how to manage a knot in lieu of the horde of them squirming in his middle.

  Miss Banks had changed from her soaked riding habit into one of her drably coloured and simply cut professorial-looking gowns. The dark forest greens in her clothing were given some life by the peacock feather in her hat. Rosemary had her hair braided in a crown around her head, her face and hands were scrubbed, and she wore a mint-green lacy dress with a high collar and puffed sleeves. Her hands were folded in her lap, but one foot jiggled uncontrollably, and she bit her bottom lip and glanced about. Her cheeks were still puffy.

  Olivia, sitting stiffer than she ever did, had her hair carefully coiffed and was wearing a simple, long-sleeved, high-collared white house dress with buttons from hem to neck. She’d barely look like herself at all if not for the cloth poppies stuck into her hair and the red stripes that ran up and down the lines of the dress and sleeves and adorned the lace at her hem.

  She met his eyes when he walked into the room. He stopped at the door. “You look…” he began, and then stood tongue-tied, unsure of how to continue.