The Deathsniffer’s Assistant (The Faraday Files Book 1) (37 page)

“Your sister is at a very delicate time in her life,” the doctor finished the thought easily. His smile was warm and seemed genuine, but Chris wouldn’t be fooled by it. A man like this could hardly do what he did without learning to fake a smile. “She’s caught the attention of many important people, all of whom have plans and schemes she would fit nicely into.”

“And you mean to tell me you aren’t one of those people.” Chris tried to let only the faintest edge of a threat touch his voice, but he could tell from the way the doctor’s smile flickered that he’d been more direct than he’d intended. He checked his smile, found it still hanging on his lips, and pushed onwards. “Doctor, I am perfectly aware Lowry has been sniffing around our door for most of Rosemary’s life. My father didn’t do a thing to keep her abilities quiet. He did everything but take out advertisements in the papers.” He met the doctor’s eye, issuing forth a challenge. “I’m also perfectly aware
you
work at Lowry.”

“The Richard Lowry Academy of Proficiency Categorization is a very large institution, Mister Buckley.” There was no answering challenge in Doctor Livingstone’s voice, only gentle correction. “It is what it is, a monument built to house a flawed, old system, but it isn’t only that. It’s a place of learning, of study, and of forward-thinking people who recognize the work Doctor Lowry did all those years ago may have served us well, but the risks of hanging our society upon it have come to outweigh the benefits.”

Chris held up a hand. “Please,” he said. “Please, I’ve read all the interviews and speeches. I’ve even heard some aloud. You aren’t going to convince me of anything.”

“No,” the doctor said, having the grace to look abashed. “Of course not, and forgive me. Giving the same talks over and over can become a bit of a habit.” He shot a look behind him and then turned his attention back to Chris with a question on his face. “Can we sit, Mister Buckley? Circling about one another like wild animals is very tiring. I’d rather speak to one another like civilized men.”

The open honesty in his face caught Chris off guard. He reminded himself this was all second nature to Doctor Francis Livingstone, who’d spent years perfecting all the ways to make people trust him. Avery Combs had been very convincing, too. But even as he carefully told himself that, he found himself inexorably drawn to the older man, his gentle demeanour and the frank openness of his face and speech. He raised a hand to cover his tired, strained eyes, and gave the inevitable answer. “Yes. Yes, that’s fine, Doctor. Please do.”

When he lowered his hand, the doctor had eased himself into a chair, and Chris knew he couldn’t do this alone.

“Just a moment, please,” he said, backing away ungracefully. “I need to use the mirror.”

The doctor’s face clouded. He stopped relaxing back into the chair he’d taken and leaned forward, a furrow creasing his brow. “If I’m not welcome, tell me now, and I’ll leave,” he said urgently. “I was invited here by your nanny. I didn’t know she didn’t have permission to offer.”

After a brief moment of confusion, Chris couldn’t help his chuckle. He folded his lips, swallowing the rest of his mirth. “Please, relax, Doctor,” he said, turning away to hide his amusement. “I’m not contacting the police.”

He mirrored Fernand.

Before the old man could greet him, Chris grabbed the edge of the table and leaned forward, so close his nose brushed the glass. Keeping his voice very low, he shot a look over his shoulder to tell Fernand he wasn’t alone. “I need you here,” he murmured.

Fernand’s brows pulled down into a confused expression. “Chris?” he asked, his own voice a bare whisper. “What is going on? Who’s there with you?”

Chris debated his answer. Fernand was a stolid old traditionalist, frowning mightily whenever he heard tales of that new radical way of thinking. Chris had seen him turn up his nose at many a headline that mentioned the man now sitting in his parlour, muttering about how there was no wrong in using the gifts the Three and Three provided. There were different ways to approach this…

He settled on honesty. “Doctor Francis Livingstone,” he said, and while Fernand’s eyes widened and his brows pulled down even further, Chris hurried on in hushed tones before he could say anything else. “I know you don’t agree with his politics or his movement. I know you’re a defender of the old ways until the end, just like all the Buckley men you’ve served.”
Except me.
Chris took a deep breath. “I also know,” he said, “that you’re not my father. You’ll give anyone a fair shake, Fernand, especially when they have something to say that can help someone you care about. That’s the sort of man you are.” Chris saw a tiny softening around the mouth and eyes of the old man, and that would have to be good enough. “The doctor says he can help Rosemary.”

Fernand hesitated only a moment. His voice was gruff when he spoke, but Chris already saw him pulling away from the mirror, grabbing his cane and hobbling towards his coat and hat. “I’ll be there within ten minutes,” he said. “Don’t let the man say a bloody word until I’m there.”

When Chris returned to the parlour, he felt his shoulders squarer, his back straighter, and his heart lighter. He felt like his normal self once again. He smiled at the doctor and settled into the chair across from him. “I apologize for my outburst when I first came in,” he said. He felt his words flow from him, smooth and controlled, like he was accustomed to.

“You had a trying day, you said.”

“Worse than you could probably imagine.” The image of Ana’s tattered body flashed before his eyes again, and he forced it down. “But it still doesn’t excuse just how rudely I behaved. Whoever may have invited you, and whatever circumstances you might have come under, you’re a guest here.” He held up a hand to forestall the words he could all but see the doctor gathering on his tongue. “I’ll hear what you have to say, but not yet,” he said. “My…”
My financial adviser
certainly didn’t give the right impression. “A friend of our family is going to come and sit with us while you talk. I’ve been told I’m an overly pliable sort of fellow. I don’t want to be talked into anything.”

“I think that’s very fair,” the doctor agreed, and then, without missing a beat, “why don’t you tell me about yourself, Mister Buckley?”

Chris considered. Making small talk certainly sounded more compelling than sitting and waiting for Fernand for ten minutes. “Well,” he said, giving in to his desire to lose himself in simple conversation, “I’m wordweaver categorization. Very strong.” He always felt the need to add that, as if it made his proficiency any less menial. “I work as the personal assistant and secretary of an investigative truthsniffer.”

“Oh? How long have you been doing that?”

“Less than a month.”

“And do you like it?”

Chris managed a smile. “As I’ve said…it’s trying work.”

“Of course, naturally.” There was a sincerity to the doctor that Chris was finding it very hard to remain suspicious of, a sort of latent integrity that shone through everything he did. It could have been feigned, but he found himself losing to it, being pulled in by it. The doctor smiled. “Any friends?”

Chris shook his head.

“Hobbies?”

Again. “Only Rosemary,” Chris said, injecting all the meaning possible into the statement.

The doctor didn’t miss it. “There’s nothing more important than family,” he said with surprising ferocity. “I’ve done everything I can to keep my wife and children away from the risks of my name, and if I thought for a moment they were at risk, I’d give it all up. Hand it down to some younger bloke who doesn’t have as much to lose.”

Too personal, too close to the mark. Chris tried his best to push the conversation back to the meaningless and friendly, feeling as though he was trying to divert the course of a river. He forced himself to not look at the clock. “And what about you?” he asked. “Tell me something I don’t know from the papers.”

Doctor Livingstone smiled. “I have a granddaughter,” he said, a conspiratorial twinkle in his eye. “She was born last month, and she’s the prettiest screaming bald creature that ever lived.”

Chris had to laugh. He had been old enough when Rosemary was born to remember her in that stage. He’d heard some elder siblings were jealous of new babies, but never him. Julia had told him stories until the day she died about how fiercely he’d loved his new sister. Her favourite had been the time he’d had a dream about harpies flying in through her window and carrying her off. He’d pulled all the blankets off his bed, dragged them into the nursery, and slept leaning up against her cradle to the sound of a fiaran’s icicle chimes tinkling over their heads, determined to protect his baby sister from anyone who might harm her.

The smile that had crept onto his face vanished as he couldn’t help but draw parallels between that evening long ago and last night’s events. He looked over Francis Livingstone again, and was unable to help himself from noticing, once again, the aura of trustworthiness the man exuded. Rosemary
was
in very real danger, and not only from the traditionalists. If this man could do something to help…

A commotion at the front door caused both of them to turn their heads. Moments later, Fernand was limping in, huffing and puffing and leaning heavily on his cane. His gaze went stormy when it connected with the doctor. He stopped in the entryway to the parlour, hunching over his cane and putting all his weight upon it. His face was red.

Chris got to his feet and hurried over to his old friend. “Fernand?” he asked gently, laying a hand on the old man’s arm, but he was irritably waved off.

“I’m fine, Chris,” Fernand insisted, straightening—mostly—and hobbling over to the nearest chair. “I just decided to get on horseback and make my way here as fast as I could.” He shot a glare at the doctor. “I didn’t want anyone filling your head while you were waiting.”

“We’ve only been making nice,” the doctor assured him.

Chris hovered near Fernand’s chair. Despite the insistence of health, he couldn’t help but notice how the old sumfinder’s fingers trembled where they gripped the cane, how the colour in his cheeks was set off by the grave-white of his hands. He’d never seen the old man looking quite so fragile, and it seemed wrong to just go and sit. “Fernand,” he said delicately. “Do you need a glass of water, or…”

“Oh, sit down, young master.” Fernand waved him off again, more insistently this time. As Chris awkwardly moved to his seat, trying not to stare at the old man’s feeble appearance, Fernand turned his attention to the doctor and his chin jutted forward. “I’m Fernand Spencer. I knew Master Christopher’s grandfather. I hear you can help little Miss Rosemary.”

Chris took his seat. He watched Doctor Livingstone nod slowly and lean forward, steepling his hands before him. “By now,” he said, “you’ve realized Combs and his supporters aren’t going to leave your sister alone. You did a fine job keeping her out of the spotlight for as long as you did, Mister Buckley, but that time has passed, and you won’t get it back. They knew the girl was a wizard, but they also knew your father to be a man who made tall claims. They gravely underestimated her potential all these years, and are currently berating themselves for all the possibilities they let go by. Well, no more. White Clover changed that for good.”

The doctor looked at each of them in turn, seemingly searching for some question, some protest from either of them. But Chris had nothing, and Fernand didn’t appear to, either, for he kept his silence. The doctor continued. “No matter your affiliation or your politics,” he said, “you have to know Combs and his lot will do anything for their cause.”

“The same thing has been said about the reformists,” Fernand put in then, unable to help himself.

“There are certainly factions of the movement who could be accused of that,” the doctor agreed without missing a beat. “And nothing to be done about it, I know. But please, Mister Spencer, don’t group me with them. Whatever can be said about this group I’ve somehow ended up heading, not every arm of it speaks for me. I don’t believe in unwilling sacrifices.” He folded his hands before him and his voice was impossibly clear as he said, “Rosemary can’t stay in Darrington. She needs to leave, and soon.”

Chris’s heart sank. “That’s…” He shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, but no. Our family home is in Darrington.
I
am in Darrington. Where would you have us go, Vernella? From what I’ve heard, it’s nearly worse.”

“Not Vernella, no.” The doctor shook his head. “Cooperton. Now, don’t blanch, young man. I realize it’s not exactly an urban centre, but it’s small, it’s honest, a lovely little university town, and it’s far from the reach of Combs and his ilk. Your family home will do just fine here by itself, and Rosemary could find a good life there. A peaceful life, out of reach of those who would use her.”

“No,” Chris repeated. “I can’t be separated from her. I’ve raised her. I’m all she has.”

“You’re a wordweaver, you said?” The doctor looked him up and down and nodded consideringly. “My cousin is a truthsniffer working in a laboratory in Cooperton. She needs a technician and an aide. You could do just fine.” He misinterpreted the expression that must have showed on Chris’s face. “You’d be well paid, of course.”

Chris raised a hand to his temple. “This isn’t exactly what I was expecting,” he murmured, dazed. Leave Darrington? No, of course not. The Buckley family had been in Darrington since Reginald Buckley had served as a lab technician to Richard Lowry, all those centuries ago. Everything they had was here, all their assets, all their investments, all their ties…

But he remembered Fernand with the file and the low voice, saying all the money had dried up and he was liquidizing whatever was left. He remembered all the times he’d shyly admitted to having had no friends, remembered how all the old Buckley family steadfasts had dried up and blow away as the money had evaporated in the six years since the Floating Castle.

When he really looked at his life, there were only two things tying them to Darrington: the home, which could be shut up and left until Rosemary was old enough to fend for herself, and his position with Olivia Faraday as a Deathsniffer’s assistant. A job that had directly resulted in an intruder in Rosemary’s room, her music box tipped on its side, and the note and knife.