Chapter Twenty-One
Momentum
Oliver checked the plan he had made the evening before and sighed. If he kept at this pace, didn’t take any breaks, and no one dropped off anything else, he might get caught up by midnight at the earliest. Oliver sighed. After going through all of the evidence that had been dropped off for testing, he had prioritized them, mapped out the time necessary for the longer tests, and scheduled his day within an inch of its life. As soon as he finished breakfast, he set up all of his equipment and moved in a steady rotation between his microscope, reference books, his chemistry equipment, and the sink, and still, he had a mountain of evidence to go through. So far, no other dead had come in for autopsy, which wasn’t surprising as people tended to kill each other less the closer it got to Christmas. If it had been a July heatwave, there was no way he would have been able to even make a dent in the evidence. Checking his equipment, he confirmed a precipitate was indeed forming in his first test while the second was finally boiling. He picked up the next piece of evidence from the pile and brought it over to the bench.
What had piled up mostly came from the charity bazaar, but thus far, it had revealed little. Without knowing where it came from in relation to the event itself, Oliver could make little sense of it outside of whether or not it was a poison, shifter fur, or human blood. The latter had been mulled wine four out of fivetimes thus far, and he suspected the investigators had collected anything that looked even remotely suspicious. Opening the envelope, Oliver carefully dumped out the smashed boutonniere Mrs. Cutler had been wearing. One of the healers must have taken it from his jacket pocket in the infirmary and given it to the lead investigator on the bazaar case, and now, it had made its way back to him. Oliver sketched the boutonniere before placing it under a magnifying glass to dissect it. He picked the blood-soaked rose petals off and set them in a pile, but as he pulled off the top layer, he found shards of glass that may have just been debris that was already on the stage but could have also been a glass ampule. He set the pieces aside to take a better look at later. The pin on the back was unremarkable, but there was a large thorn sticking out of it. Oliver wondered if it had been used to inject Mrs. Cutler with the curse or if its presence was merely a coincidence.
What intrigued Oliver most about the boutonniere was the paper wrapped around the flowers’ stems. He would have expected to find ribbon or paper, but when he yanked it off and unrolled it with his tweezers, he found it covered in writing. The words had been etched into the parchment as if the writer had traced over them repeatedly until they nearly perforated the hide. Laying it flat, Oliver tried to read what it said, but it gave him a headache when he tried to parse out the words. It may have just been the spacing of the tall, skinny, undulating font that was throwing him off as he could scarcely tell where one letter began and the other ended, but hadn’t Mr. Ramsey said the same about trying to readThe Corpus Arcanum? The writing looked different from what he saw in the library’s copy of the book. It was still antiquated and obviously harkening back to something Oliver didn’t understand or recognize. Someone tied to the society could probably read it, but he wasn’t sure they would gain anything by it. The words were so imbued withmalice that they could bleed a woman dry from the inside out, and that intent was as much as he needed to know.
When the timer went off, Oliver checked one of the developing tests and quickly jotted down the results. He had twenty minutes or so until the lunch plates arrived, so he wrote up a summary report of all the evidence for Inspector Conklin and the other investigators working on the charity bazaar case. The letters from her and the other investigators were getting progressively more irate, and if he didn’t do something, they would make their displeasure known. On a good day, he didn’t handle yelling well. Today, he would probably burst into tears again if she looked at him wrong. All he had to do was keep busy. If he kept busy, the investigators wouldn’t come and bother him, and he couldn’t dwell on the head inspector’s impending wrath. He really didn’t want to be around for his reaction when he realized they had no intention of stepping away from the case or that Felipe had plotted against him by going to the papers.
Oliver glanced at the clock and shook out his hands in time with a long, slow breath. Felipe had left to speak to the reporter fromThe Society Chronicleover an hour ago, and the longer he was gone, the more anxious Oliver became. When he focused on Felipe’s end of the tether, all he felt was cold determination and focus, but the thought of Felipe’s words appearing in the paper within the next few days made Oliver break out in a cold sweat. If things went wrong, they would end up squarely in the head inspector’s crosshairs. He could fire them, but there were far worse things than getting fired. Oliver swallowed down the fear and returned to the evidence report. Felipe knew what he was doing. Oliver had to trust it would all work out in the end. As Oliver sent the preliminary evidence report up the tubes to the investigators’ floor, a familiar knock sounded on the lab door a second before the lock jiggled.
Gwen, Oliver thought with relief a second before the door swung open to reveal Gwen in the blue and gold gown Oliver knew was one of her favorites. Her eyes immediately found him from across the room, and relief flooded her features. Crossing the lab in three long strides, Oliver collided with Gwen. She threw her arms around his neck, and Oliver held her tightly. A calm he hadn’t felt in days rushed over him as he buried his face against her shoulder and inhaled the familiar scents of her hair oil and lotion. He had missed her; he had missed this.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Gwen said into his chest. Pulling back, Gwen’s dark brown eyes darted over his form as if looking for any signs of injury or infirmity. When she didn’t find any, she lightly slapped his arm. “Don’t you ever do that again. You scared me and Felipe half to death.”
A small laugh escaped Oliver’s lips. “I’m sorry I worried you.”
“I’m still not used to you risking life and limb. You do look much better than you did in the infirmary. You’re always pale, but you were ghostly. How are you feeling?”
He still felt winded going up and down the stairs, and if he exerted himself too much, his heart sounded off, not that he would tell Gwen or Felipe that. It would get better with time and rest.
“Much better,” he said giving her a tight smile. “I saw your note. I hope you know how much I appreciate what you did for me. Knowing you put things in order as best you could and that you took care of Felipe in my stead helped me rest more than any doctor’s orders. Felipe said you brought clothes for him and sat with us for a few hours. I don’t remember any of it, but I’m glad you were there with him. He does far too much by himself.”
“He takes his husbandly duties very seriously,” she replied as she levitated the tin of coffee grounds down from the shelf.
Oliver’s cheeks heated, so he quickly turned away to fill the percolator with water. “How’s Ivy holding up? Felipe said she managed to hold back the tide at the bazaar until more help arrived. She saved a lot of people.”
“Ugh, she did, and she won’t let any of us forget it,” Gwen said with a roll of her eyes that ended in a smile. “She has been preening for days, and Michael—Dr. Perkins—isn’t helping. I expect a proposal will come any day now.”
“That’s wonderful. I’m so happy for her.”
“Don’t be. She’ll be even more insufferable after.” Gwen’s smile faltered as she drifted closer to Oliver and dropped her voice. “Michael also told us that Felipe’s arm was the worst burn he’s ever seen. He said Felipe could have died or had his hand amputated if he wasn’t a self-healer. I didn’t realize it was that serious when I came to sit with him. He never said anything or acted like he was in pain. If I had known, I would have done more to make him eat and rest.”
“I don’t know if he would have even if you tried. I had to practically beg him to let me see his arm and clean it. We had a,” Oliver paused to find a better way to put it, “lengthy discussion about dealing with our feelings and being vulnerable without being self-destructive. You know how he was in Aldorhaven after he was shot. It’s even worse if he’s worrying about me at the same time, but his arm does look better now. I’ve been making sure he eats and rests, and I check how he’s healing every time I fix his bandages. I just wish he would treat himself the way he treats me.”
“I don’t think any of us are particularly kind to ourselves. That’s why we need others to remind us. Speaking of Felipe, where is he?”
As much as Oliver didn’t want to talk about it, he had to tell Gwen what happened with the head inspector in case she got caught in the crossfire. “He’s upstairs talking to a reporter.”
When Gwen raised a questioning brow, everything that happened after he was released from the infirmary came tumbling out. Oliver recited what he could remember that Head Inspector Williams said to them before doubling back to the magical minutiae of how he kept Mrs. Cutler alive. The words came out in fits and starts when he returned to Felipe announcing his retirement and what had been said since. Gwen listened intently to every word, even when he had to stop to shake out his hands or gather his thoughts. When he finished, she floated the box of sweets off the shelf and held it out to him. Oliver stuffed a piece of fudge into his mouth to keep the feelings burbling in his brain from coming out.
Gwen shook her head. “I just can’t believe Felipe’s actually retiring. I thought hell would freeze over first. How is he taking it? I know it was his idea, but you know what I mean.”
“He seems relieved. I expected him to be upset or grieve a little considering the circumstances, but last night he seemed lighter than he’s been in— in all the time we’ve been together.”
Gwen patted his arm and gave him one of those familiar half-affectionate, half-pitying looks. “You know grief moves at its own pace. It may not be real yet for him, Ol. Not everyone ruminates on the eight hundred ways something could go wrong or change things.”
“I know. I just feel bad that he’s taking it better than I am. I should be happy for him, but I still can’t fathom what our lives will look like in a few months. All I know is that if it brings him peace, then I know it was the right decision, and I’m glad he’s done it.”
“What about you? Have you come to any important decisions about your future?”
“About being an anchorite?”
When Gwen nodded, Oliver sighed and turned off the Bunsen burner as the last of the liquid above it burned away.He busied himself with adding the final reagent to the test and taking the beaker off the heat to buy some time. At first, Oliver had told himself he was writing off becoming an anchorite because he didn’t want to hurt Felipe, and that was a very large part of it, but ultimately, he didn’t think he deserved it, even if Felipe wasn’t a factor. Having the required minimal moral standards didn’t mean he would make the best choices for everyone. Oliver was nothing if not self-aware: he was a man of limited imagination and ambition, who stuck to his moral code as best he could to do right by others, and while he held grudges, he tried to give people the benefit of the doubt when they hurt him. Objectively, those weren’t bad things, but they weren’t noteworthy or noble enough to warrant any level of influence behind the scenes.
The only two people he thought would be worthy of being the anchorites were Gwen and Felipe. Oliver swallowed against the knot in his throat. He wished he could nominate Felipe instead of himself. In the few days since he spoke to Tony DeSanto, he had been trying to make things right for newer members, and even going up to speak to the reporter was a step toward more accountability for the head inspector’s decisions. It had taken a spark to get him going, but now that he was, the momentum felt unstoppable. Oliver had never felt that sort of drive.
