The Deathsniffer’s Assistant (The Faraday Files Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

job.
    He had no choice.
    “I’m sure,” he agreed.
    Olivia sat back in her chair and let out a deep breath of satisfaction. She looked as though she’d just finished a grand meal. “All right,” she said. “You’re hired.”
    He coughed politely. “Don’t you mean to say you’ll recommend me to Mister Faraday?”
    She laughed. “No,” she said. Then sighed and shook her head. A smile spread across her lips. “You see, Mister Buckley, you seem a little naive, so I’m not going to hold it against you. But really, you shouldn’t have made such assumptions, and you
should
have put it together as soon as you heard my name. Olivia. O. Faraday.” She leaned over the desk to hold out her hand in a pleasant greeting, and the smile widened, feral and cheerful and horrible all at the same time. “Deathsniffer.”



he encounter was still fresh in Chris’s mind when he stumbled, dazed, up the front steps of his home. He closed the front door and leaned back against it.
    Employment. Finally, at long last, employment.
    Employment under a woman who appeared to be mad. Employment with a Deathsniffer who wore the name like a badge of honour. Employment earned in an interview where he had humiliated himself to depths he had hitherto not known he was capable of.
    But it was employment.
    He closed his eyes.
Be in at 8 o’clock tomorrow, Mister Buckley,
the Deathsniffer had told him, teeth gleaming through her smile.
No later. I’ll run you through the ropes, and soon enough you’re going to be right at home here.
    The thought was far more unnerving than it was comforting.
    He didn’t hear the sound of approaching footsteps. In fact, he didn’t notice anyone else was in the room at all until he heard a tentative clearing of a throat, and then a tight, professional voice saying, “Mister Buckley. I see you are home.”
    Chris’s eyelids flickered open. The room swam in tones of too-blue and too-white. He blinked and focused his gaze on the horribly dressed woman standing in the alcove off the staircase. The governess, yes. He’d forgotten about her in the face of Olivia Faraday’s…everything. He straightened, brushed what may have been a piece of lint off his topcoat, and gave the woman a polite nod. “Miss Albany, yes, of course.” She still didn’t smile. “You’ll be pleased to know I have been offered the job I interviewed for today. Assuming you want it, your position here at the estate can be permanent.”
    “Ah. Yes,” the woman said. “Of course.” Her prim nod came a moment too late, and she reached up to push a few loose strands of hair back behind her ears.
    For the first time, Chris noticed how pale she was, how her hand trembled ever so slightly as she lowered it back to her side. It seemed quite out of character that her tight bun was anything but immaculately maintained. He frowned. Something had spooked her.
    His thoughts immediately leaped to the worst of all possible conclusions. He scanned the foyer, panic rising in his throat. “Where is Rosemary?” he asked. It wasn’t like her to not be right at the door the moment he returned from an errand. After all of his previous interviews, he’d had to fend her off with two hands, hiding his disappointment as well as he could. Where was she now? If something had happened to her…
    But Miss Albany shook her head. “She is fine,” she assured him. “In the kitchen, just where I found her.” Her eyes flickered in that direction and Chris saw something pass beneath her carefully maintained expression. Fear…but awe, as well.
    That was when he knew what she’d seen.
    “…she’s not as powerful as she appears,” he said. He shifted into the practiced lines with ease. He’d been repeating these lies for nearly six years, after all.
Gods, Rosemary, again?
“Really, it’s just minor wizardry. Very minor. She likes to show it off, but her control is mostly an illusion. She has a naturally beautiful voice, is all.”
    Miss Albany started.