“I will,” Elodie assured her, and they both pretended not to know that the advancing tidal wave of magic might just overwhelm her every effort to do so.
“Now excuse me,” Amelia said. “I see one of the nuns trying to hide the dean’s silk stole…”
Leaving her to it, Elodie hurried after Gabriel, her thoughts swirling withthe disaster threatening Oxford and Londonwhat Amelia had said. She felt so charmed by the information, she could have been identified as a level nine thaumaturgic node.
“To Cheltenham next?” she asked Gabriel as they strode through the nave.
“The cascade reached here in only four hours,” Gabriel replied. “At that speed, it will be through Cheltenham before we can get there. We have to make straight for Oxford and hope we arrive in time. The next train leaves in…” He consulted his wristwatch, and his frown leaped. “Twenty-three minutes.”
Elodie’s swirling thoughts tripped to a standstill. “You have the Hereford rail schedule memorized?”
“Of course,” he said as if it were obvious. “Needing to make a quick turnaround was always a possibility. One must be prepared.”
“Somebody should give you a badge for Best Geographer.”
“You mean my 1887 Mercator Award for Excellence in Exigent Geographical Science?”
She laughed. “That would do, yes.”
She wanted to ask him how he’d felt, accepting the award, and whether he’d hung it on his office wall, and what his favorite color was, but she had no chance. Exiting the church, they raced back through Hereford to the train station.
Thankfully, although there existed no official award for running fast, it was a skill emergency geographers tended to excel at, as is usually the case when one regularly finds a flood or furious rosebush hot on one’s heels. Consequently, they reached the station just in time to board the Oxford-bound train before it departed.
The following three hours were spent in the train’s first class dining car, where they laid maps and notes across a table, drank copious amounts of tea, and planned to yet again save the world methodically (Elodie rolled her eyes at Gabriel) and safely (Gabriel frowned at Elodie). He was polite, listening to all she suggested. She was also polite, pouring his tea and not calling him Mr. Grouchyboo.
Indeed, their conduct was so exceedingly polite that Elodie felt like the morning’s tryst had never occurred and the words“my every thought circles back to you, my every breath wants to kiss you”never spoken. (Gabriel might be able to memorize train schedules, but Elodie remembered theimportantthings.) Thecloser to Oxford they traveled, the more their conversation faltered, until Gabriel resumed using “hm” instead of actual, polysyllabic words, and Elodie chewed her bottom lip so much it bled. Evidently having passionate sex, followed thereafter by narrowly avoiding death, did not automatically resolve relationship issues. Elodie was at a loss as to what to do next.
Gradually, they dwindled into an uncertain silence. Gabriel stared out the window. Elodie stared at the silver teapot. In fact, both were watching the other’s reflection in said window and pot.
Patience shall be my compass,Elodie decided at last, reminding herself of the determination she’d made in the fields of Dôlylleuad. If she proceeded with care and gentleness, she might unearth the secret troves in Gabriel’s heart. Impressed by this rather nifty pun, she turned back to him with studied casualness. “I hope Professor Jackson hasn’t caused any further explosions in Dôlylleuad,” she said.
As conversation starters went, it had promise, but Gabriel only responded with “hm” again. The silence clamped back down.
“I wonder if Baby recovered fully from the magic he ingested,” she tried while the train was paused in Evesham.
“Probably,” came the reply.
The silence dug a hole in the space between them and began laying concrete foundations.
“This is a very long journey,” she commented with perhaps a tad less patience than one might wish for as they traversed Moreton-in-Marsh. Gabriel inhaled, surely for the purpose of answering…Elodie held her own breath…
Then he nodded and went on staring out the window. At which point, Elodie reached for the sugar canister, butwithdrew her hand again, since throwing it at her husband’s soddish head reallywouldbe undignified behavior.
But no one had ever called Elodie Hughes Tarrant a quitter (perhaps because they were too occupied with calling her scandalous). “Your sister is interesting,” she remarked in a carefully offhand way as the outskirts of Oxford appeared in view.
At this, Gabriel did look up, teacup suspended en route to his lips.Such kissable lips,Elodie thought with a quiet sigh, and her own cup shook so much in her hand that tea splashed into the saucer. Gabriel watched expressionlessly as she hastily set it down.
“She’s always been the most interesting one in our family,” he said. “When she chose to study history instead of science, it caused a general uproar, but she insisted. The fact she was able to exorcize two ghosts from our aunt’s house did rather help her cause.”
Elodie was hard-pressed to restrain her excitement at this voluble response. Gabriel had never spoken much about his family, and she’d never dared to pry. But now, encouraged by his revelation, she propped her elbows on the table, rested her chin upon them, and looked at him with big eyes. “So, do you have any other siblings?”
“No.” He began folding his napkin to within an inch of its life, and Elodie thought that was that. Frustrated at his refusal to share anything of himself, she reached for her teacup again. But then he said, “I do have a cousin who is like a brother to me, however.”
Once again, tea splashed, and the teaspoon tumbled right off the saucer, clattering against the table and eliciting disapproving murmurs from nearby diners.
“Indeed?” Elodie asked, the nonchalance in her voice betrayed by the mayhem she was causing with her dishes.
“Devon. He’s currently on honeymoon in New Zealand.”
