Lazarus Machine, The (A Tweed & Nightingale Adventure): 1 (25 page)

Tweed started the carriage moving.

Octavia was silent for a while.

“So what you're basically saying is, you
saw
Jenkins take the silver into the dealer's shop.”

“
No…!
Yes. But I didn't remember that at first. I made the
deduction
first, then remembered that fact later. It doesn't invalidate my cleverness.”

“Oh, I'm afraid it does.”

“It doesn't!”

“Does.”

“Doesn't”

“It
does
!”

“It doesn't! I arrived at my conclusion
before
remembering where I saw him.”

“Liar!”

“I am not a liar. You…you flap dragon!”

“How dare you! You…you rump-headed miscreant!”

“Barnacle.”

“Over-used codpiece!”

Tweed paused, then said, “Well, that's just disgusting.”

Octavia smiled. “Thank you.”

Tweed was silent for a while. Then he asked, “Should we get something to eat?”

“Are you paying?”

“No. I'm poor. You can pay.”

“Fine. But I get to pick where we're going.”

“Nowhere fancy. I don't think I want to be surrounded by other people like you.”

“How dare you…”

And the steamcoach lurches and judders into the traffic, joining the stream of London commuters as they wend their slow way through the claustrophobic city. Tweed and Nightingale's argument trails behind them as they crawl through the streets, causing those who overhear to raise their eyebrows and peer inside the coach, hoping to catch a glimpse of the couple having such a fierce fight.

They raise their eyebrows even more when they see that the occupants of the coach are actually smiling as they argue.

Paul Crilley is a Scotsman with absolutely no tolerance for tropical climates and a love of all things cold. So naturally, he and his family now live in South Africa. When he is not sitting in front of the electric fan writing he can be found chasing monkeys out of the kitchen. (Really.)

Paul has also written a middle-grade fantasy series called The Invisible Order, about secret societies, faeries, and Victorian England, and spent a year writing on the computer game Star Wars: The Old Republic. He also writes scripts for comics and television. His website can be found at
www.paulcrilley.com
, and you can follow him on
Twitter @paulcrilley
. (Only if you want to, of course. No pressure.)

Paul is currently at work on the sequel to
The Lazarus Machine
.