“From what I can tell,” he continued, “all those memories have only started unlocking very recently. Perhaps not until you met Mister Cartwright, here, on the job with Miss Faraday. It had all been passive, until then. Instinct. Not at all like my sister, who’s been nursing the gift since she was just a girl. A lifetime of refining and practising, so that she can write people as easily as you’d sign a bloody cheque.”
Olivia smiled grimly. “I knew there was a reason I didn’t like her.”
Rosemary hauled Chris to his feet. Her hands were shaking wildly on him, and when he tried to reach for her, tried to comfort her, she snatched away from him and stomped her feet. “Someone explain to me what’s happening!” She stared at her governess, who was also attaining her feet. Her voice cracked when she said, “Rachel?”
“Rachel,” Chris echoed, staring at her.
She wouldn’t look at either of them.
“It was her,” Olivia said, sounding more tired than Chris had ever heard her in a moment like this one, where all the chips were down. “I didn’t suspect until she suggested we bring her to Darrington and didn’t know until we arrived here at the estate. Like I said: too late. But it was all her.” She sighed. “How did you know about the secret laboratory, Miss Albany?”
Rachel flinched. For the first time since they’d arrived, she spoke. “Garrett wrote me. Told me. Arthur suspected, see. Arthur, who was reporting on what Miss Banks did in her attic lab, couldn’t help but note that progress had halted. He told me to look into it.”
“And you just did?” Chris demanded, anguished.
Her gaze fluttered to him, and then away again. For an instant, he saw a cavernous well of pain in her brown eyes. “I didn’t. I tried to stay out of it. But then you told me where the lab was. In the cellar. Under the canopy. You wouldn’t dance with me, but you told me where I could find Miss Banks’s work.”
“And so you… you were at the house?” Chris tried to grasp the enormity of this. “You took the notes? You locked Rosie and I in the vault? You…” A skull caved in, rimmed with frost. “You killed Mabelle Greene! I… she was… you two were….”
Rachel wouldn’t look at him.
“What?” Rosemary asked weakly.
“You—” Chris shook his head. “I… I don’t understand. I didn’t dance with you, and so you… you pumped me for information, you worked against us, you killed a girl, a friend, for a brother you hate?”
“Nonsense. She doesn’t hate me. Family is family,” Albany said.
“Blood is blood,” the reformists all intoned as one.
Rachel clenched her eyes shut. “Blood is blood,” she whispered a soft, pained echo.
“Our creed is very simple,” Albany said, smiling. “Loyalty above all. For the good of all Tarls, everywhere. That’s what we stand for, we Young Blood.”
“That’s what you call yourselves?” Olivia asked. “Gods, what a cliché. Well. I did notice no one over thirty was idiot enough to join your cause. Not such a surprise, I suppose. All vaunted ideals and bristling malice. I can see the appeal for children.”
Albany’s smile tightened around the edges, and his eyes gleamed dangerously.
“What I can’t figure out,” Olivia said, and she sounded genuinely sad, “is why you killed Roger, Miss Albany.”
Rachel flinched. “I didn’t—” she began.
“You did. You stood there, and you force-fed him so much self-loathing and despair that he tied his own noose. You watched while he kicked and struggled and died. What does it matter if you didn’t knot the rope yourself?” She shook her head. And then she spat, vicious: “Roger Greene was a good man. He had a long life ahead of him. He had a daughter. He had friends. You didn’t just take his life like a self-respecting, decent murderer. You took everything. Even his own dignity. You wouldn’t even let him be him in his last moments alive. What you did to him isn’t better than what you did to his daughter. It’s a thousand times worse.”
Rachel curled in on herself more and more with every word. “Please,” she whimpered. “Please stop.”
“Really, goodness,” Albany said. “I feel I ought to be stepping in, here, to protect my little sister.” He clucked his tongue.
“I had to,” Rachel said, bringing hands up to wipe at her eyes, to tug at her hair, to flutter helplessly before her. “It was never supposed to—it was never supposed to be this way, it was just… it just all kept getting out of hand. Roger saw me. Listening, watching. He would have told Miss Banks. He would have told, people would have known, but then it was done, and I thought I could buy it all back with the research, but May saw me and it just—it just—”
“It got out of hand?” Chris gasped. His voice was cracking, shaking. He could barely stand up. His head felt like it had been split in two, and his heart—Gods, his heart was a thousand times worse. Rosemary was in danger. William was in danger. And Rachel was… “Don’t you understand–this isn’t—you can’t go back! You can’t change this! You have blood on your hands!”
“Oh, Christopher,” she whispered. “You have no idea how much blood I already had on my hands.”
And then it struck him.
All at once, it struck him.
Fernand in his bathtub. He’d been fine. He’d been just fine, and then, suddenly, he was gone? Just gone, just… he’d been fine, and Chris had seen the blade, felt the knife, Will had shown it to him, made him live it, made him see it all, and the door had been locked, and the seeing had confirmed it, and it had to have been a suicide.
It had to have been a suicide.
All evidence said it was a suicide.
Just like Roger Greene.
“No,” he said.
Rachel hiccupped a sob.
“No,” he repeated, harder. “You wouldn’t have—you wouldn’t have. You wouldn’t have stayed on, you wouldn’t have taken my sister to the country like nothing had happened. You wouldn’t have—kissed me, you wouldn’t have—”
“Oh, but she did,” Albany said, simply. “I ordered Spencer’s death. He was going to send you and your sister both to the country, you see. Out of our hands. We’d never get what we needed from you if it went through. Thankfully, Rachel was able to finesse it before the papers were signed. Miss Faraday’s offer was unexpected, but… ultimately, rather fruitful, wouldn’t you say?” He wrapped an arm around Rachel’s waist, pulling her closer. “Rachel is a good girl. She does what she’s told.”
“It wasn’t like that, Garrett,” Rachel said.
“Oh? Wasn’t it? I thought you wanted back in, Rachel. Are you not loyal?”
“No,” Chris repeated. His throat ached. His middle ached. Every part of him ached. It was like no time had passed, like he was still back there in that bathroom, with blood everywhere, with Fernand dead. “No. He was everything to me. He was the only father I ever….”
Albany shrugged. “He was traditionalist scum. Not a death I regret having to orchestrate.”
“Garrett, stop it!” Rachel pushed him aside, and she flew to Chris’s side. “I’m sorry. I regret it, I regret it all, Christopher! It’s not what I would have wanted, I never would have—you don’t understand. You don’t know what I… what I owe him, I never wanted…” Her hands were on his face, cupping his cheeks. They trembled. She looked up into his eyes, and tears overflowed from hers. “I’m sorry, this is such a mistake. Please, please. Please. Forgive me, forgive me, I’ll make this right, I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know why I’m here, I’m sorry.”
And maybe—maybe, if this had happened the morning after. If she’d met him outside of his bedroom and confessed everything, rather than Olivia bringing him to Fernand’s exsanguinated body. Maybe then, it would be different. Maybe then he’d accept it.
But it had been six months. Six months where she’d smiled and laughed and flirted and acted as an agent against him all the while. Six months where he’d believed so many things. Six torturous months of grief, of healing, of a wound slowly scabbi
ng and then scarring over, and now it was ripping open, tearing him apart, and he was bleeding. He’d bought her little act, and while she’d danced right under his nose, she’d taken two more lives.
Forgive her?
How?
He pushed her away.
“Christopher,” she whispered.
“Rachel, please,” Albany said. “You’re embarrassing yourself. I think your poor beau would agree that the window for this sort of thing has long passed, and the things you’ve done are more or less unforgivable.” His voice lowered, and he turned coaxing, sweet. “For him, at least. For me, Rach? You know what kind of forgiveness I’m capable of. You know I’ll love you no matter what you do. Haven’t I proven that?”
Rachel responded, going back to him and letting him tuck her under his arm like he was a mother bird.
“There’s a good girl,” he said. “I’m sorry this has been so hard for you. I really am. But you’ve made your choice, Rach, and it’s the right one. You brought me, Miss Buckley. We have her now.”
“Really!” Rosie shrilled. She stepped forward, hands held up like she intended to fly onto Albany’s body in a flurry of punches. “That’s very bold of you! Believe me—you aren’t taking me anywhere.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Garrett Albany said.
And then he turned, cocked his gun, and shot Will.
The fireball expended from the barrel exploded into Will’s knee, and he writhed, screamed, howled.
A wave of heat, smelling of burnt flesh and fabric, hit Chris and brought him to his knees. “Will!” He leapt forward but stopped when Albany turned the barrel of his gun on him.
“Ah-ah-ah,” he said. “I know you’re rather fond of the young man, so let’s not escalate this any further, hm?”
“Garrett, stop!” Rachel grabbed his arm. “It doesn’t have to be like this! I brought her here, so why—”
Albany brushed his sister off as if she were a fly. He looked at Rosemary, grinning. Behind him, Will writhed and howled. Tears streamed down his cheeks. Dark blood seeped forth from the ruined flesh of his leg. His gaze landed on Chris. Chris locked eyes with him. His middle hurt. Everything hurt.
Rosemary’s voice was very low and very dangerous. “I could show you fire,” she breathed. “I could call forth a salamander so large that it would burn this house to the ground in an instant. You deserve it. Both of you deserve it!”
“You would kill all these people along with it.” Albany smiled. “Imagining, of course, that we don’t just open fire the moment you start to sing. Unfortunately, Miss Buckley, a pistol beats a ‘binder every time.” He waved his as if demonstrating. The barrel smoked. “You will come with us. You’re not the game-changing piece Emilia Banks conjured up, no. But I think Rachel might be onto something. I think you might be better.”
“I won’t do anything you ask,” Rosie spat. “You and your evil sister can rot in pieces spread across all three hells!”
“Then I’ll shoot your brother next,” Albany said blithely. Playfully, he pointed the barrel at where Chris lay, crumpled, on the floor. When Chris made eye contact with the orange hole fire would come through to end him, he could barely manage a single emotion. “He’s not really necessary, anymore. I think you might cooperate if I took him apart piece by piece….”
“You said you wouldn’t hurt either of them!” Rachel cried.
Chris choked down sobs and screams and emotions. He locked on Olivia, who stood, unmoving, her face hard as a stone, in the middle of all of this. “You let us come in here,” he gasped. “Why? Why would you do that? You knew you suspected. Why….”
His employer’s mouth twisted. “Because there was a chance I was wrong. And there was no other course of action I could think of that didn’t end with William dead,” she said. Her mouth worked and then, quietly: “I couldn’t do that to you.”
Albany barked a startled laugh. He looked from Chris to Will, and then back again. “Gods…” Albany shook his head. “Gods, is it actually true? I discounted that rumour entirely, on account of Rachel’s pleas not to harm you. But the two of you really are fucking, aren’t you?”
A knot tied in Chris’s stomach. He looked away.
Albany laughed delightedly. “Gods! I thought I’d stumbled across a promising game piece when the two of you were friends. Ah, but they always called me lucky. Francis used to say that to me, do you remember, Rach? ‘By all the gods, Garrett,’ he’d cry. ‘You have the devils’ own luck!’ And I do.” He began to pace before the battle line defined by his army. “All I wanted was the list. Michael Buckley’s list. The list that named all of us. The only thing left in the world that could be used against me. After six years, finally, the Buckleys hire more staff. Easy enough to get my sister in. One last job for the cause, eh, Rach?
“Only Rosemary Buckley really is the wizard savant her father boasted. White Clover. Grapevine. Avery Combs, then Francis, and my sister is there in the epicentre! Combs sends Livingstone to prison right when I’m about to make a move against him! Emilia Banks’s brilliant mind slides right into the middle of things! Coincidence after coincidence after coincidence.” He shook his head slowly, as if in wonder. “That’s how I know I’ll win, you see. The world only aligns itself like this for very special people. And I. Am. Special. Tarland is crashing to the ground, and I’ll define where the pieces land and how it comes back together. I’m Cwenraed the Youth! I’m Richard fucking Lowry!”
“What do you want with me?” Rosemary asked.
Finally, she sounded afraid.
Albany smiled. “You’re the key, little miss Rosie,” he said. Sweet as sticky sugar. “Richard Lowry used Reginald Buckley to build this rotten society, and I’ll use his great-great-granddaughter to tear it down and remake it in my image.”
“I’d never help you do that!”
“I think you might. I intend to walk out of here with two Buckleys, see. I suspect you’ll be quiescent with your brother there.”
“You promised me, if I came back if I proved myself—” Rachel said.
“I promised you the least amount of death possible, dear,” Albany said. “And don’t you fret. I don’t intend to hurt Mister Buckley. Not unless Rosemary forces it of me.”
“And what about us?” Olivia asked. Chris couldn’t imagine how her voice stayed so steady, so clear. He couldn’t imagine why she projected it so loud and so regal. Didn’t she see how absolutely—buggered they all were? “Me. William. I don’t suppose we fit into your plans.”
“No, I’m afraid you don’t.” Albany shook his head sadly. He lifted his gun again. “I haven’t decided, entirely, about Mister Cartwright. That could go either way. He’s useful, see. That timeseer business. But you, Miss Faraday… I think you may be more trouble than you’re worth. Something tells me that if you leave this house, you’ll find me. Or, more appropriately…” He waved the gun lazily in Chris’s direction. “You’ll find him.”
“I would fully intend to,” Olivia said firmly. “Make no mistake.”
Albany sighed. “Yes, as I thought. In that case, I suppose I intend to kill you.”
“The way you killed so many others. Other than ordering and coercing the death of Fernand Spencer, Mister Albany, just how many bodies do you have buried?”
He shrugged and laughed. “Deathsniffer to the last, hm? Ah, Gods. It’s hard to say. Directly? Ten, perhaps. Indirectly but intentionally? Oh… forty, maybe? Now, indirectly and accidentally…” He smiled, showing off those awful, fanged canines. “Hundreds. Thousands.”
Olivia nodded.
And then: “Is that good enough, Hannah? He won’t slip through any gaps at trial?”
The air beside Olivia shivered, shimmered, and then, moving as if she were emerging from billowing fog, the delicate, uniformed, blonde beauty of Officer Hannah Burke appeared, an icepistol held before her and at the ready, trained on Albany. “It should suffice,” she said, her voice as soft as ever. “Though something tells me that a snake li
ke this can slither through a great deal unscathed.”
Albany looked, for one moment, absolutely stunned. And then he began to clap, the pistol in his hand rattling. “Oh, very good. Good show. What the hell is this, now?”
Officer Burke opened her palm to reveal a small crystal ball that glowed with the black nimbus of alp-light. “I’m almost disappointed,” she said. “Tarland’s peacekeeping force proved this summer that we’ve kept secrets. Did you think that the timeseers were the only tricks we kept in reserve?” She nodded to Olivia. “You did well, keeping everyone talking and distracted so that the sound and light aberrations didn’t announce my presence.”
“I’m just glad that you arrived,” Olivia snapped. “When you didn’t provide any signal when we entered, I thought our messenger either hadn’t delivered the message, or you didn’t understand what I meant by fox in henhouse.”
“Is there a meaning for the metaphor other than ‘traitor in our midst?’” Officer Burke cocked her head. “I thought it a miracle you didn’t tip the person in question off instead of me.”
“Yes, well, I was working under considerable stress, Hannah. Do be kind.”
Officer Burke made a noncommittal noise. In all this time, she’d never broken eye contact or line of sight with her gun from Albany. Now, she turned her full attention to him, as well. “Garrett Albany,” she said, voice as cold and brittle as ice. “You are under arrest for murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, attempted kidnapping, multiple counts of conspiracy, and sedition.”
Albany smiled. But it didn’t seem quite so easy as it had a moment ago. “I think I’m offended,” he said. “You think a single police officer somehow evens these odds? You may have noticed, Officer, that I have quite a few people here willing to kill or die on my orders.”
“Blood is blood,” Katie Woodruff intoned, her own pistol trained on the police officer.
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