AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I let go of Gideon and rubbed my arm. All the little hairs on it were standing on end. “Is that all?”
Gideon took a deep breath and raised his hand. This time it was shaking slightly. “We’re about to find out,” he said.
I took one of Dr. White’s little laboratory flasks from my pocket and handed it to him. “Go carefully. If it’s a powder, a breeze could simply blow it away.”
“That might not be such a bad thing,” murmured Gideon. He turned to me. His eyes were shining. “You see? Under the sign of the twelvefold star, all sickness and ills will flee afar. We’ll see about that.”
The hell with the twelvefold star. I’d rather rely on my flashlight.
“Go on,” I said impatiently, leaning forward, and then Gideon pulled out a tiny drawer in the chronograph.
I’ll admit I was disappointed. After all that mysterious carrying on, blah-blah-blah about secrets, it was kind of an anticli**x. The little drawer contained neither a liquid, Lesley’s best guess (“Sure to be red as blood,” she had said, wide-eyed), nor a powder, nor a stone of any kind.
All it held was a substance that looked like salt. Although particularly beautiful salt, if you looked more closely—tiny, opalescent little crystals.
“Crazy,” I whispered. “I don’t believe it! All that trouble and expense over the centuries, just for these few crumbs of whatever it is.”
Gideon held his hand protectively over the drawer. “Let’s hope no one finds out that these crumbs of whatever it is are in our hands now,” he said rather breathlessly.
I nodded. Again, apart from the people who already did know. I took the cork out of the flask. “Hurry up, then!” I whispered. I suddenly had a vision of Lady Arista, who as far as I knew was afraid of no one and nothing, certainly not of heights, coming up through the hatch to snatch the little flask away from us.
Gideon seemed to be thinking something similar, because he tipped the crumbs into the flask without any ceremony at all and put the cork back in. Only when it was safely stowed away in his jacket pocket did he breathe freely again.
But at that moment another idea occurred to me. “Now that the chronograph has done what it’s supposed to do, maybe it won’t work anymore for time travel,” I said.
“We’re about to find that out too,” replied Gideon, smiling at me. “Off we go to the year 1912.”
THIRTEEN
“OH, SHIT, I think I sat on that damned hat,” Gideon whispered beside me.
“Stop swearing, or the roof will fall in on us!” I hissed. “And if you don’t put zat ’at on, I’m telling tales of you to Madame Rossini!”
Xemerius cackled with laughter. He’d come along this far for the ride today. “The hat won’t save him. With that hairstyle, everyone in 1912 will take him for a roughneck. He might at least have given himself a proper side parting.”
I heard Gideon swearing quietly again, this time because he’d obviously knocked his elbow on something. It wasn’t all that easy to undress and get dressed again in a confessional, and I was pretty sure that it was also sacrilege to use one as a changing room. Quite apart from the fact that it was certainly also a secular offense to break into a church, even if you didn’t want to steal anything but just planned to use it as a launchpad for a quick trip to the year 1912. Gideon had unlocked the side door with a metal hook so fast that I didn’t have time to feel nervous.
k no notice of him, but climbed the narrow chimney-sweep’s staircase up to the roof and opened the trapdoor at the top of it. It was a fairly mild spring night—the perfect evening to come up here, and yes, for smooching too, why not? From up here, there was a wonderful view over the nearby buildings, and the moon was shining in the east above the rooftops.
“Where are you?” I quietly called down.
Gideon’s curly head appeared in the hatch above the trapdoor, and then the rest of him followed.
“Wow. I can understand this being your favorite place,” he said, taking his backpack off and kneeling cautiously down.
I’d never noticed before that the roof really was romantic, especially at this time of night, with the sea of bright city lights reaching out forever beyond the intricately decorated roof ridge of the house. Sometime we’d come here with a picnic, plus soft cushions, and candles … and Gideon could bring his violin … and with any luck Xemerius would be taking a day off.
“What are you grinning at?” asked Gideon.
“Oh, nothing. Just letting the fancy roam.”
Gideon made a face. “Oh, yes?” He looked carefully around. “Okay. I guess the show can begin.”
I nodded and cautiously made my way forward. The roof here was flat, but the slope began a couple of feet beyond the chimneys, marked off only by the knee-high decorative iron border. (And immortal or not, I didn’t feel that plunging four floors down to street level was a great way to enjoy the weekend.)
I opened the ventilation flap in the nearest of the broad chimneys.
“Why up here of all places, Gwenny?” I heard Gideon ask behind me.
