The Deathsniffer’s Assistant (The Faraday Files Book 1) (60 page)

A paper covered in familiar handwriting.

“That’s what I brought you here to see,” Olivia’s voice said quietly. “After I take it off the floor, it gets put into evidence. And then even I can’t touch it, once I rule on the case. Which I assume I’ll have to do, once William runs a seeing on that knife. Like I said, there’s only one explanation.”

With shaking hands, Chris reached out and peeled the paper up from the floor. Three quarters of it were soaked completely through with Fernand’s lifeblood. Whatever writing had once been there was gone for good. But the first quarter of the page was still readable, though droplets dotted it here and there, and Chris’s heart pounded in his throat as he scanned it.

My dear sweet Rosemary,

If you’re reading this, I’m not there with you any longer. I have left you in some way that did not seem entirely natural or lacking in suspicion. I do not know whether this will happen, but there is the chance it will, and the chance is great enough for me to write this letter. I am leaving it with Mister Spencer, along with instructions that it be given to you once you are officially categorized. I hope, by the time you are reading this, you’ve had time to heal from my departure from your life.

It is important that the contents of this letter never reach your sweet mother or your dear brother. They are cut from the same cloth, just as you and I are, and neither of them have the strength you and I share, my darling. Your mother is a fragile creature, and your brother a delicate one. Neither would ever be able to attend to this task I have left behind for you, and you must exercise caution to hide this from them. The last thing you would want is to incite one of Christopher’s jealous fits, correct?

Enclosed, I have left a list I have spent the last five years compiling. I realize it is not as helpful as it might be, but you must understand just how difficult it has been to track down even this information. It is imperative that―

The red tide enveloped the writing there. Chris peeled back the page, and, sure enough, there was another beneath it.

Katie
, it read,
sumfinder.

He furrowed his brow, running down the items―or were they names―that hadn’t been rendered indecipherable by the blood that had soaked even higher up this page than the last.

Maiden, spiritbinder.

Boathouse, truthsniffer (?).

Wil IV, lifeknitter.

?????, lifeknitter.

Dorothy, ??????

??????, heartreader(?) (needs more investigation)

Panther, spiritbinder.

The final name was underlined and circled multiple times. And all beneath it were impossible to make out.

“You should probably make a copy,” Olivia suggested, and Chris nodded.

“You…” his voice scraped painfully through his throat. He coughed. “You might bring me something to weave on,” he said, and heard her turn and walk away, leaving him alone with the letter from his father and the body of his friend. “Oh, Fernand,” he whispered into the quiet. “Oh, Fernand,
why?
”

And as it turned out, he had tears left to cry, after all.

The pantry smelled of spices and preserves and the sweet scent of old rotten apples. Christopher barely moved when he heard the door open behind him, and then close. He stared blankly at the leg of the table he sat at, blinking slowly in the tirelessly cheerful light streaming in from the single high window. When the blanket was wrapped around his shoulders, he reached a hand out to pull it closer around him, and when her graceful, long-fingered hand slid a mug of hot apple cider onto the table before him, it was all he could do from picking it up and hurling it at a wall.

Olivia settled into the other chair at the table. She leaned her crutches against the wall and propped her injured leg up on a big old jar of raspberry preserves. He couldn’t help but notice she didn’t even try to make eye contact, not even when he refocused his gaze to try and make it with her. He didn’t know if that was for his benefit, or her own.

“Thank you,” he murmured very quietly. Contrary to what he
wanted
to do, he took the cup into his hands, surrounding its body with his grip. The warmth soaked through the cup and into his skin. He breathed deep the scent. He didn’t drink, though. He didn’t want to drink.

Olivia ran her pinkie finger along the edge of the table. When he bothered to care, he noted how she’d cut her hair considerably shorter since their night at the hospital together. It fell only to her shoulders, now. The burns, he suspected, were the cause of the change. He doubted she would have gone to a barber if she’d had the choice. He wondered if it had already been done the day before, when they had spoken over Ethan Grey’s broken body. When she had slapped him. He hadn’t noticed. That was odd. He always noticed that sort of thing.

She didn’t say anything, and so he did. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I spoke to him yesterday. He was fine. He was bloody fine.”

“I don’t understand, either,” Olivia said quietly. “I never understand.”

They weren’t talking about the same thing, he knew, but it didn’t seem to matter. “Why would he―why? Yesterday, he was…” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t bloody make sense.”

“He had an appointment with his solicitor today,” Olivia said. He flinched at the prying tone of her question. He could even
see
her attempting, as she never did, to blunt her edges, and still it made him want to stand and walk out of the room to see her treat Fernand’s suicide like just more death to stick her nose in. “Do you…know anything about that?”

He could have laughed. Yes, he knew plenty about that. He knew that, in addition to having lost his only friend in the entire world, the one single thing left in his life that had been there for as long as he had…he’d lost his road out of Darrington, too. He hadn’t signed anything. Fernand hadn’t even met with the solicitor. The only people who knew anything about Fernand’s intentions were himself and the nephew, who would certainly not be advocating any changes to the inheritance. “I don’t think it’s related,” was all he said, miserably.

Olivia nodded. He could see her burning to ask more questions. She wanted to pick his brain to find out everything she knew in relation to Fernand, to why he would have done such a thing. It wasn’t enough to have a solution, not for Olivia Faraday. She needed an answer, as well.

She didn’t ask, though. He had to credit her for that, even in his ravaged emotional state. She didn’t ask. He thought of how she’d looked the day before, the strange and genuine devastation on her face when he’d told her he no longer intended to be her assistant. For some reason, he doubted she’d made that face when Constance had resigned.

It was as if she heard his thoughts. “Why did you leave?” she asked. Her voice was very small, as if she feared his answer.

He sighed. He considered taking a sip from his cup, but he still didn’t want to. Not without a stomach full of goose. Not without Fernand. “I told you. I’m leaving Darrington.” And he closed his eyes, shaking his head. “I
was
leaving Darrington, at least. Now I don’t bloody well know
what
I’m doing.”

“
Why
?”

“Because of
Rosemary
,” he said, snapping his eyes open and glaring at her. “
Obviously
. Haven’t you understood
any
of what I’ve been experiencing, these weeks I’ve worked with you? None of this was ever―it wasn’t supposed to
be
this way. It was supposed to be
simple
, at least until she was categorized. Not easy, but bloody
simple
. But then that
rubbish
with the cloudlings at White Clover changed
everything
, and ever since then, try as I may, I can’t bloody
protect
her!” He slammed the cup down on the table. Olivia looked up at him with wide eyes, and he realized he’d climbed to his feet, he’d raised his voice, and somehow, once again, tears were streaming down his cheeks.

Angrily, he swiped at them, continuing before she could interject. “I can’t. Not here, at least,” he said, sinking back into his chair. “Not in this city. Not so long as every eye is on her face. The only way out is out of Darrington, and Fernand―” He choked and gasped and swallowed. “Fernand was going to help us. He was going to send us to Summergrove. Everything was finally―Gods, how am I going to protect her
now
?”

A bubble of pure rage rose in his throat, rose into his mouth and then popped. Madness overtook him and, in the most childish display he’d exhibited since he was nine years old, he knocked the cup across the table as though it had personally offended him. Cider flew everywhere, a torrent of hot spicy liquid, and Olivia gasped and leaned away from the trajectory of the cup as it bounced off the table, hit the solid stone floor, and burst into a hundred pieces.

Immediately, he felt ashamed, slumping back in his chair. Breaking Fernand’s cup and spraying apple all over Fernand’s pantry was
not
going to bring Fernand back. Nothing would do that, not a bloody thing. He was only making a fool of himself. He choked back a sob, raising a fist to press it tight against his forehead. It pulled the skin of his healing gash.

“I’m sorry,” Olivia said gently.

He knew it was a stretch for her. All of this. But he couldn’t bring himself to care, so he merely shrugged one shoulder in surly acceptance of the empty comfort, not wanting to look at her.

He’d thought that would be it, but he saw her hesitate out of the corner of his eye, and then continue speaking. “It wasn’t…me, then?” she asked.

“Gods, Olivia,” he spat quietly. “Not every sodding thing is about you.”

The strangest thing happened then. She smiled. Not her manic, eerie, rictus sort of smile, or her mocking playful cruel smile. There was a genuine smile somewhere in the expression he saw Olivia make, and it was so strange and fascinating to him that he turned his head back to look at it fully. She brushed hair back from her face and squared her shoulders. “I can help you, Christopher,” she said.

He frowned. “What?”

“I can help you,” she said. She spread her hands on the table before her. “Summergrove. That’s a lovely little town. Very peaceful. Very quiet. Very…nice.” She turned her hands up so her palms were exposed, and then closed them into fists. “I know,” she said, “because I grew up there.”

“That’s―”

“Quite the coincidence, I know. And, to continue the coincidence, my mother still lives there. Elouise Faraday. We have a large, well-established orchard. A full staff and a whole crew of pickers and planters. It’s safe, and quite lovely.”

He peered at her, certain she’d finally gone quite mad. “What are you offering, Olivia?”

She cocked her head, and her smile took on a bit of its usual character, playful and teasing, but not mocking. “Exactly what it sounds like I’m offering, ninny. My mother is a woman of excellent character. You could send your sister to stay with her. She’d take very good care of her. The staff are all old faithfuls, so new faces trying to work their way in would be treated suspiciously. Whoever tried to come after your sister, they’d find it a right bloody task.”

“I―” Chris shook his head, trying to get his bearing. He ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t pay you.”

“I’m not asking you to pay me.”

“I don’t understand. You would send my sister and me to your girlhood home, to live with your
mother
, and not ask for anything in return?”

Ah, but there Olivia shook her head, folding her lips together and dropping her eyes from his. “I didn’t say you,” she said quietly. “And I didn’t say for nothing in return.”

He opened his mouth to ask what she was thinking about…but he realized he already knew. He closed his mouth. Shook his head. “Why?” he asked, and he found, as he did so, that he really, truly wanted to know. “Why does it have to be me? Why does it matter? I’m completely bloody replaceable, Olivia. You have to know that. How many assistants have you gone through? Why do you
care
?”

Olivia took a deep breath. She folded her hands and turned up her chin. “You’re good at it,” she said.

“I’m not.”

“You’re a fast weaver. Fastest I’ve seen.”

“Does that matter so much to you as this?”

“You’re quick-witted.”

“And yet you’re always ahead of me.”

“You have a strong stomach.”

“You’re a bloody buggering
liar
, Olivia Faraday. I’m a sodding
mess
when you put me with a―
Gods
.” The image of Fernand’s ashen face flashed up before his eyes, and Chris staggered with the force of it. “Gods,” he repeated, quieter. He put his face in his hands for only seconds before raising his head to stare at Olivia right in the eyes. She flinched from his gaze, moved as if she’d look away, but then didn’t. “I want to know why you want me so badly,” Christopher said. “I want to know why it matters to you enough you’d do something like
this
just to keep me?”

And Olivia Faraday’s eyes flickered down to where her hands curled together on the table. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. She took a deep breath, and when she let it out, it trembled, just a little. “Because, Mister Buckley,” she said quietly, “you’re the only one, the
only
one, who looks at me and doesn’t see a monster.”