The Deathsniffer’s Assistant (The Faraday Files Book 1) (20 page)

“That’s…amazing,” he said finally, entirely without guile.

Ana averted her eyes, but her cheeks flushed with what might have been pleasure.

“It is,” Mister Grey spoke for her. “Evelyn doesn’t think so.”

“She says it’s shameful that I want to bind,” Ana said, seething anger and deep bitterness hovering just beneath the quiet hurt in her voice. “Our exemption from categorization is what sets us apart. It’s what puts us
above
people like…like you,” she said, faltering and shooting him an apologetic glance. “She doesn’t care that I’m a wizard, not categorized. She doesn’t care about how much it matters to me. She doesn’t even care that it…it…” She visibly searched for the words. “It makes me feel alive,” she finally concluded with a flash of confidence that vanished as quick as it had appeared.

Chris tried turning the conversation back to realms less intimate. “What time did you leave the gallery?”

“…I don’t know,” Ana said. “It was very late. Most had already left when we…” And then she sighed, closing her eyes. “When we fought.”

Chris furrowed his brow, momentarily distracted from his distress. That was new, was it? Yes. Yesterday, Ana had spoken of what a lovely night the three of them had spent. He remembered weaving it into his transcription. He fought to keep his voice neutral as he asked. “You and the Duchess?”

To his continued surprise, Ana shook her head. “All three of us. But Ethan and me, especially.”

“It was over something so silly,” Ethan said. He reached out and brushed hair back from Ana’s face. “I’m sorry it ever happened. When she mirrored me the next morning and told me about…about Viktor, I was here within the hour. It wasn’t something to hold against each other, not when it was so idiotic to begin with.”

“We shouldn’t have started,” Ana amended. “But Mother loved that we did, and she just pushed it as far as she could.”

“I left the gallery,” Ethan admitted sheepishly. “My own opening, my first one. I was so angry over absolutely nothing, but I just needed to clear my head. I walked along the road, feeling stupider by the moment. But I was too proud to go back and apologize.”

“I stayed. Mother and I both,” Ana concluded. “Until very, very late. We were the last to leave. She kept trying to talk to me about how proud she was that I’d stood up to Ethan, that I’d ‘finally seen him for what he really was.’ I didn’t want to hear it, but she’s so
tireless
.”

“I know you didn’t believe a word of it,” Ethan hurriedly told her, and she gave him a tremulous smile. Once again, Chris felt the intruder. He could leave, but Ana’s story had changed, and that was something he felt Olivia would surely want to know.

“And then, when you returned home…” Chris trailed off.
Was the Duke still alive?
He didn’t want to ask.

He could have fallen onto his knees in gratitude when Ana spared him having to. “I didn’t see him,” she murmured. And then, all at once, her face crumpled and she gasped for air as though she were dying. “Oh, Gods,” she gulped, and the sheer pain in her voice was enough to rend Chris’s heart in two. “Oh, Maiden Maerwald, I wish I could see him just one more
time
.”

And then the dam broke, and words surged out of him. “I’m sure he loved you very much!” he exclaimed. “I’m sure if he’d have known what was going to happen, he’d have told you!” Ana turned slowly to stare at him through wide, dark eyes, and he was still talking. “I know it must be hard to think you’ll never be able to ask him if he cared, if you just weren’t good enough, if―” He shook his head. Mister Grey had turned to stare as well, and his shoulders had gone tight as he leaned into a protective position, but Chris just couldn’t seem to stop
talking
. “But you have to know he can’t have just not cared. You were his daughter. You―”

“Who do you think you
are
?” Ana cut in. Her voice was shrill and she stared up at him with eyes full of tears.

“I―” Chris crashed back into himself, and there weren’t any more words.

“You don’t know me!” Ana buried her face in Mister Grey’s shoulder, and her shoulders shuddered. “You don’t know anything
about
me. I don’t even know your name!”

“I…Christopher Buckley. I’m―”

“―the Deathsniffer’s assistant, yes, I
know
.” Ana’s voice was muffled against her beau’s shoulder. Mister Grey glared at Chris fiercely enough that he took a step back and reached blindly for the latch. “I don’t want sympathy from anyone who would work for someone like her,” Ana continued, and the sob that had barely been held back suddenly wracked her body. She collapsed, weeping, against Mister Grey.

“Get out,” the painter commanded.

Chris didn’t need the direction. Already, he was half-turned and fumbling with the latch. His heart pounded and his stomach twisted. The door fell open and Chris tumbled into the hallway. He hadn’t noticed he’d been leaning all his weight forward, and he was so confused he had to catch his feet and still almost sprawled onto the hardwood floors. “I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I’m so sorry. I―”

He cut himself off, closing the door in his own face. He sank to the floor, pressing his back up against the door and putting his face in his hands.

“Dammit,” he murmured, and then, when he realized absolutely no one would hear him, and even if they did, things could not possibly get worse, “
Horseshit.
”

Would they tell the Duchess he’d been snooping about? What would Olivia think of that? Why had he been such an utter idiot? The last question was especially compelling. The words had just fallen out of him like unrestrained cargo. What had he been thinking?

He growled. Nothing to be done for it. He braced his legs under him and started to push up…

…and stopped.

He squinted down between his feet. The hand that had been rubbing the back of his neck slowed, then stopped. He blinked, peering closer. Was that…?

He let himself fall back down, twisting uncomfortably to get a better look at it. There in the cedar, of a grain so fine it could only be the result of an attentive dryad’s cultivation, there was a darker spot. A rusty brown line. Not a circle, like a droplet would be, but as if it had been scuffed.

Chris touched the wood, sliding a single finger along the line. He didn’t know enough about construction to be able to feel a difference in the darker area, but he knew enough to put together a theory. Liquid seeped into wood. That was why it was destructive to leave wet clothing on a fine grain.

What if someone had spilled a drop of blood here, and, not noticing, had stepped in it? They would have slipped, and the droplet would have become a scuff. They certainly would have noticed it then, but by that time, it would already have been crushed into the grain. Not hard enough to stain, not yet, but hard enough it would take more than a moment to clean, and someone fleeing from a murder, with a bloody weapon in their hand and spray on their clothes, well, they wouldn’t exactly have had time to fetch a mop.

Excitement bubbled up in him as he stared at his discovery. The killer had been here right after they’d done in the Duke. In this hall, and by the direction of the scuff, they’d gone into the very room whose door he now leaned against. Someone had tried to clean the stain, servant or butcher, but by that time, the wood had been ruined and the only way to fix it would have been to replace the entire plank. He might never have noticed if he hadn’t been so close, and staring right at it.
This
was something Olivia would find interesting.

He leaned back on the door as he pulled himself to his feet. He needed to find her. The parlour needed to be searched, the staff and the family needed to be questioned, and―

He fell backwards. He let out a strangled sound, wheeling his arms and trying in vain to regain his balance as he fell. His wrist struck something soft, and someone seized it in a rough grip, tight enough to hurt. If that weren’t enough, he found himself hauled up by his arm to a standing position, and then he was staring into pale blue eyes.

Ethan Grey may have been more slender than Chris, but he was much, much taller. The iron grip on his wrist retreated, but Chris found himself unable to pull his eyes away from Ethan’s. They were standing so close. “Uh.” But before he could stammer out an apology, a gentle hand fell on his shoulder, giving him reason to tear his gaze away from Grey’s handsome face and the tiny speck of blue paint under his left eye.

Lady Analaea stood with her small hand on his shoulder. Her face was still splotched and her eyes still wounded, but there was a strange softness in her expression. “Mister Buckley…” she murmured, and said nothing more, merely stared at him with that curiously gentle face.

“…my lady,” Chris said eventually, and decided it was time to find the apology that had escaped him before. “Forgive me. I shouldn’t have said those―”

“Thank you for saying them,” Ana interrupted, and she gave him a tremulous smile. It lit her face up like a beacon. “They were only so difficult to hear because I had convinced myself I never would. I know you didn’t know my father. I know nothing you said came from a place of authority. But that doesn’t matter. Thank you.”

“It
is
interesting,” Olivia repeated, stepping in another circle around the dark brown mark. “I’ve seen blood in wood enough times to know this is the real thing.”

Behind them, in the parlour where Ana and Ethan had sat, there were now three efficient and smartly uniformed police officers. After Olivia had been summoned and the situation explained, the Deathsniffer’s first act had been to get on the val Daren mirror and have Officer Maris Dawson send over some manpower to search the room. The coppers did so now with the determination and skill of industrious ant-men. Furniture was overturned, shelves were disassembled, the grand worldcaught painting was taken off the wall.

“The killer went into the room, then?” Chris asked. He spoke quietly, trying to avoid being overheard by the staff who’d gathered to stare at the activity with wide eyes and affronted expressions. But despite his attempt at subtlety, he couldn’t keep the excitement about of his voice.

Olivia nodded. She was trying to hide it, but she was excited, as well. Excited and energized.

“And why would they do that?”

“I don’t know.” Her response was prompt, as though she’d been waiting for the question. “But it’s a question, and for a truthsniffer, a question always has an answer.”

“Always?”

“Absolutely, Mister Buckley.” She feigned hurt with the coy innocence of a debutante at her coming out ball. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Absolutely,” he echoed. It occurred to him that he was returning Olivia’s grin with one of his own. That same innervated exhilaration he saw sparkling in her eyes like drink or drug was burning in him.

“Miss Faraday,” one of the police officers called, and the moment was gone. She turned about, her loose peasant’s skirt twirling. “Miss Faraday,” the man repeated. The tasteful, dark decor had all been overturned and moved about. “I’m sorry,” he said, “we took this place apart, but the only thing we found is this.”

One of the other officers stepped forward and extended a gloved hand. Cradled in his palm was an ancient brass key.

Olivia gasped and darted forward, seizing it like a striking snake. “
Yes
,” she whispered. “Oh yes, there you are, beautiful. I’d wondered where you got to.” She clutched it against her chest. “Officer!” she barked, and he snapped to attention on instinct. “I guarantee you, the killer came to this room after she did the Duke, and that means she left a lot more than just this.”

The officer swallowed and glanced over Olivia’s shoulder to meet Chris’s eyes. “Ah, Miss Faraday―”

“There was some reason for her to come right to this room,” she said, her conviction solid as a rock. “Maybe that reason isn’t immediately obvious, but we are
going
to find out what it is.” She twirled about to give Chris one of her smiles. “Mister Buckley, it’s going to be a late night.”