“Drat.” Elodie regretted now having made Algernon leavehis tent behind—although then again, camping near an unstable thaumaturgic fey line during a thunderstorm was, while not a risk to one’s life, certainly a risk of continuing that life in the form of a shrub or unusually tall chicken.
“Three pound,” Gabriel said. Everyone looked at him.
“What are you saying, mister?” the innkeeper asked.
“Yes, what are you saying?” Algernon echoed with alarm.
“Three pound,” Gabriel repeated. “Per room.”
A pivotal moment of silence followed…
“Per night,” he added.
“Per night, hey?” The innkeeper grinned, stepping aside to allow them inside. “As I’ve been trying to explain, of course I can help!Croeso, fy cyfeillion.Never let it be said that a Welshman isn’t happy to let Englishmen come in and take over his house! The lad can have my youngest boy’s room, and my daughter’s should suit you and your wife, good sir.”
Instantly, Elodie’s pulse tumbled into panic. But there was nothing to be done: they were caught between a rock and a hard place—or, more accurately, no place at all.
Besides, sharing a room was no disaster. After all, nothing existed between her and Gabriel except a marriage license (and a subscription toThe Fashionable Scholarmagazine, which kept turning up in Gabriel’s mailbox despite Elodie having informed the publisher repeatedly, and increasingly desperately, of her correct address). The tremulous feeling in her heart as she glanced at her husband indicated no more than a desire for some tea after the tiring journey from Oxford.
In fact, not even that. Aninclinationfor tea. Avague wish. There was no desire in her whatsoever.
The innkeeper led them indoors, saying that his name wasMr. Parry and he was entirely at their service (so long as they paid cash, extra for linen, and purchased their meals on the premises). “What brings you to Dôlylleuad?” he asked as they went upstairs.
“Dr. Tarrant and I are geographers,” Gabriel said. “We’ve been sent here by the Home Office to investigate the thaumaturgic disturbances.”
“Investigate?” Parry echoed sharply. “What do you mean by that?”
“To inquire into the facts of a matter,” Gabriel answered. “From the Latinvestigium, to trace.”
“It’s our job to identify problems,” Elodie said before the innkeeper fell too far into confusion, “and fix any insofar as we’re able.”
“I don’t see why you need toinvestigateorfixanything,” Parry said sniffily. “No one’s been hurt. Except old Ellis Jones, but he shouldn’t’ve been smoking his pipe in the street. And it was completely unrelated that Lloyd Brown turned into a daisy bush. Besides, after the drought, we’re grateful for magic, we are. It’s done wonders for our economy. We’re going to be the next boomtown, even bigger than Llandrindod Wells, I’m sure of it! They just have healing spa waters. Our waters explode!”
“I hardly think—” Gabriel began, and Elodie interrupted before he sacrificed the Second Rule of Fieldwork:don’t cause trouble with the locals(the First Rule beingtake your own toilet paper with you, just in case).
“How long have the disturbances been occurring?” she asked.
“About a month,” Parry said. “I’d just extended the inn to better cater for tourists coming out from Aberystwyth on day trips, so it was lucky timing for me.”
“Speaking of Aberystwyth, is Woodrow Jackson a guest here, by any chance?”
“Indeed he is. Odd chap.”
“Odd?” Elodie prompted warily. It was the kind of word people tended to use about Professor Jackson when they were too polite to say things like “addled” and “I didn’t understand that ‘disaster expert’ meant literally being an expert at causing disasters.”
Parry cleared his throat. “Well, for one thing, he told us he was a chair at Aberystwyth University. Obviously not in his right mind, thinking he’s furniture. He went up to Devil’s Knob yesterday, and we haven’t seen him since. If he’s not back by tomorrow, you can be sure that I’ll—”
“Send a search party?”
“Rent out his room,” Parry corrected.
Elodie chewed her lip worriedly. She retained an exhausting memory of the last time Woodrow Jackson went up somewhere alone then had to be dug out from the resulting landslide. Had he met trouble again, or was he just camping while he assessed the geographic situation?
Weighing these two possibilities, she addedrescue the professorto her mental list of Urgent Tasks.
“Where is Devil’s Knob?” she asked.
But evidently Parry thought that, if he told her, she’dinvestigateand thus single-handedly destroy the village’s income, for he muttered something about “over that way,” accompanied by an imprecise wave of the hand. “Here we are now, these rooms are for you.”
