A Thousand and One English Nights (Book Three of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Fifty Four: Ring. Sister. Piano.

He awoke to the worried face of John Danvers, and one look at it was enough to convince him that his adventures in the past hadn't altered the present in the slightest.

He was in his bed at the Academy. Up here, the ivy clustered so thickly over the windowpanes that it was like a pair of translucent green shutters. He had chosen the room for this very reason. It had the best view in the Academy: no Oxford.

Daylight was battling through the ivy, which meant that his half-hour in the past had been much longer here. Perhaps he had actually slept through an entire night. Manda would be pleased – although probably not once she heard what he'd dreamed about.

He fumbled in the sweaty tangle of bed-sheets and extracted his arm. The skin of his knuckles was unbroken, but the hollow feeling in his chest had come with him.

Danvers took a step back on seeing his face, but he still had the effrontery to say, "Thank heavens! You're awake."

"What are you doing here?" said Jack.

"She insisted on watching over you," he said, waving a hand at Elsie, who was standing by the ivy-shuttered window. "And I could hardly allow her to remain in your rooms unchaperoned--"

"Get out, both of you."

"But--"

"I said get out!"

It was half an hour before he felt ready to face them, even though his blank expression didn't alter in all that time. He was beyond tears now. He just wanted to find his three missing girls and then get busy dying. When the French girl found him, he'd be ready. 

Danvers must have been waiting for him outside his door, because as soon as he emerged, the bastard started trotting at his heels, trying to draw a thousand matters of business to his attention.

"There's a man from the Oxford Times waiting in your office, and Miss Ginniver's sent a rather strongly-worded letter, saying you ruined her wedding-night. And people are queuing all the way down Headington Hill to speak to Elsie--"

"Fine," said Jack. "I'll deal with it."

"Soon?"

"As soon as I've spoken to her myself."

"She – uh – she didn't mean to upset you."

"I'm not upset," said Jack. This was technically true. You needed internal organs to feel upset, and he seemed to have left his in the past. Perhaps Ellini was dancing with them.

He got rid of Danvers by telling him it was vital for Elsie's safety that he supervise the queue of visitors outside the gates. Elsie herself was in the Entrance Hall, her face turned towards the window which looked out over the gravel drive. If she was apprehensive about the crowd, if she was guilty about what she'd put him through, or offended that he had ordered her out of his rooms, she didn't show it. The look on her face was one of childish excitement, and she had barely wished him good morning when the reason for this excitement tumbled out of her lips.

"I haven't been idle." 

"I'll bet," said Jack, holding up a hand to stem the tide of explanations. "Can I ask you a question before you tell me about your next bewildering scheme?" 

Elsie tilted her head. He could tell she didn't like being derailed in the middle of her speech, but she was also curious – unfailingly, inescapably curious. She had to hear him out. "Very well." 

"That place you sent me to – without my consent," he muttered. "It was a memory, yes? You didn't actually send me back in time?" 

Elsie faltered. He saw her lips move, as if she was trying out a few different responses before she settled on one. "It was the place I found... when I sent my mind in search of Ellini," she said at last. She drew herself up, as if daring him to make fun of her. "She lives there."