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“As a white person, that’s hard for me to answer. You’re a doctor, which is unusual for you here. We wouldn’t think twice about it in Canada. However, you’d still have new patients asking where you came from and expecting you to speak with an accent.”
“Nothing new, then.”
“The ease of travel means the borders are more fluid, which has been going on long enough that no one should presume a person of colorwasn’tborn in Canada, but it’s still—”
A loud knock sounds, making us both jump. I go to scramble up, glass in hand, but that’s not happening from a sitting-on-the-ground position in this clothing. I set the glass down, and Gray extends his hand to help me up. Another knock, and now it’s clearly coming from the front door.
I go to check my watch. I’m so much better about that lately, but my fuzzy brain forgets until I see a wrist that’s not my own, and my gaze goes instead to the clock on a shelf.
“It’s after two,” I say. “Who would be at the door?”
“Someone in costume, looking for a treat while threatening a trick?”
“That’s probably the best of options at this hour, isn’t it?”
“No,” he says, moving past me into the hall. “We do receive the occasional potential client at such hours if a family member passes in the night.”
“Should I open it?” I say, straightening my dress as I reach the door. “Being the maid?”
He waves that off and pulls open the door to reveal a teenage boy in a cap, with sharp eyes and skin a little darker than Gray’s.
“I have a message for your employer,” the boy says with an English accent.
“For Dr. Gray?” Gray says, calmly, no hint of annoyance.
“Yes.”
“That would be me.”
The boy hesitates. His gaze travels up and down Gray, who simply waits it out, letting the boy take his time analyzing the situation.
“You’re Dr. Duncan Gray?” he says finally.
There’s no incredulity in his voice. It’s a question, maybe a little wary, as if fearing a trick.
“Yes,” Gray says. “May I help you?”
“You’re to come with me. You and your assistant.”
“That would be Miss Mitchell here.”
The boy notices me for the first time, and his reaction is equally cautious. I look no more like his idea of a doctor’s assistant than Gray looks like his idea of a doctor.
“I presume,” Gray says, “that if you are asking for us both, it is a matter related to detection rather than undertaking, and in that, Miss Mitchell is my apprentice and assistant.”
“Whatever you say, guv.”
I know what the boy’s thinking—what most people think when Gray claims to have a pretty teenage girl as his “assistant.”
“She is my assistant,” Gray says. “To imply otherwise is to suggest she lacks some trait that makes her worthy of such a position. The same as it would be to suggest I lack some trait that makes me worthy of mine.”
The boy only purses his lips in thought and then says, “Fair point. All right then. Bring her along.”
“Thank you,” Gray says dryly. “But neither of us is going anywhere in the middle of the night without more information.”
“Why not? From what Jack says, you can take care of yourself.”
“Who are we going to see?” I ask.
