“That’s the job,” Elodie said.
“The job?” Amelia smiled wryly. “Oh yes, that too.”
“Final call!” the conductor announced. Elodie dashed for the train. She had just entered when Motthers began frantically hollering her name. Pausing, Elodie turned to see the student waving his clipboard at her. “Professor, wait! I forgot to tell you! It’s urgent! There’s another problem—!”
Toot!
The conductor shut the carriage door, and as Elodie tumbled into a seat, the train began its journey toward magic.
Chapter Three
What goes up must come down, although
that can take between seconds and millennia,
depending on whether one is a man or a mountain.
Blazing Trails, W.H. Jackson
The train arrivedin Aberystwyth just after noon. Both Professors Tarrant disembarked from their separate carriages, several yards apart. They looked around the station and the luminous azure sky beyond. They double-checked their luggage. They watched a seagull glide on ocean-scented breezes that scudded along the platform. Finally, when every single excuse had been used, they began to look at each other—
“Professor Tarrant!”
Elodie turned so fast she made herself dizzy. A sallow young man was running toward her, waving a clipboard. She watched him apprehensively through windswept hair, fearing he might be a student who’d tracked her all the way to Wales to complain about her course prerequisites…
Suddenly, Gabriel appeared at her side in a protective stance, arms crossed, expression indomitable.Well, goodness,Elodie thought. Howchivalrouscontemptuous of female capabilities! Did he think her some fainting damsel? Why, she’d been dragging herself out of bogs, dusting herself off after fallingout of trees, and, um, perhaps this wasn’t the most helpful line of thought after all.
The young man arrived in front of them, breathing heavily as a consequence of his short dash across the station platform. “Professor Tarrant,” he said between gasps. “I’m Algernon Jennings, an accountant with the Home Office. I was appointed yesterday to manage this assignment, and I took the overnight train in the interests of our budget.”
The implied criticism of their having caught a more expensive morning service did not escape Elodie. She gave Mr. Jennings a closer look. Dressed in a cheap, undersized gray suit, with an old suitcase in one hand and a tent rolled up under his arm, he was apparently planning to camp out in an office. His thin brown hair contained so much pomade a tornado wouldn’t have been able to stir it, let alone the afternoon’s breeze that played havoc with Elodie’s. Testosterone was attempting to cultivate a mustache above his upper lip without much success.
This must be the other problem Motthers had tried to warn her about. Elodie did what she always did in the face of problems: she smiled. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Jennings.”
The young man blinked as if only just noticing her presence. “Hello, are you Professor Tarrant’s secretary?”
Her smile vanished faster than doughnuts in a faculty lounge. “No, I most certainly am not.”
“I beg your pardon. How good of the professor to bring his wife along on the job.”
Elodie blinked. Beside her, Gabriel developed a sudden cough.
“I’m not Professor Tarrant’s wife,” she said tersely. “I mean, Iam, but that is beside the point.” (Actually, she would rather like to take the point and stab someone with it just now. Eitherof the two men in her vicinity would do.) “I’m also a professor in my own right. Why have we been given a manager?”
Algernon Jennings looked at Gabriel as if seeking permission to reply. Fed up, Elodie picked up her suitcase, turned on a heel, and began striding toward the station exit. Gabriel joined her, and Algernon scampered to catch up.
“Too many field operations have come in over budget lately,” he explained. “Just last month Mr. Kapoor bought new binoculars, even though one lens of his existing pair still worked perfectly well. And—”
“You won’t need that tent,” Elodie said, having stopped listening to his speech after the first sentence. She did not actually care why he was joining their assignment. She’d just realized that he would provide a convenient third presence between her and Gabriel, which elevated him from a “problem,” into a godsend. “The weather forecast is too unstable for camping,” she explained. “We’ll be staying at the village inn.”
Jennings’s eyes widened. “The inn?! But the cost of renting rooms for an entire team…uh, where is the team?”
“We’re it,” Elodie told him. “Hurry up, please, we’ve no time to waste.”
“But—but—” Algernon dropped his clipboard, then almost tripped as he hastened to retrieve it. Elodie and Gabriel did not pause in their stride, and he was forced again to catch up. “But there’s been a disaster!”
“Well yes,” Elodie replied briskly. “That’s why we’re here.”
“No, I mean another one!”
