•Discombobulate• |An Assassin's Creed Syndicate Fanfiction|

•II |Of meetings and lies|

London, 1868

Tick.
'Where will Jay go?'

Tack.
'It's long gone ...'

Tick.
'Maybe he'll be in trouble with those bastards of Blighters'

Tack.
'Mh, no, it's not from him'

Tick.
'And if he had any ...'

"Oh, what is it?I had never noticed it, "the young woman suddenly exclaimed, interrupting her numerous, confused and worried thoughts for her friend, rising quickly from the stool she was sitting on. What she stopped her thoughts, it was nothing more than a big album that, leaning on one of the shelves of the many pieces of furniture, immediately attracted Tessa's attention;walking quickly and stealthily towards the shelf, she stood up on her toes to reach the one that looked like a book. Once caught,she contemplated it for a few minutes, punctuated by the ticking of the clock hands that hung on the wall.

She thought it was one of Henry's books, where he listed the expenses of the shop, what he sold and what he owned;but she was amazed when, opening the diary,she saw that some plants and some flowers were attached to it. And the corners of her mouth rose slowly in a sweet and almost invisible smile, when she remembered that time when Jayadeep told her that the herbarium was a donation of his mother.

She began to leaf through it carefully, reading with quick and fugitive glances those few sentences that were written on the slightly yellow pages of the herbarium ...

Tack.

Tessa lifted her head in the direction of the clock, examining the position of the hands and then sighed wearily when she noticed the time: it was more than an hour that Henry was missing from the shop and she was starting to be impatient but, above all, to worry.She thought there was no reason ti be worried, since the Assassin was not looking for trouble ... but she also thought that if he told her where he was going instead of going out of the store quickly without giving her any explanation, now she would not have to stay alone in the store waiting for hus return.

With a quick wave of her hand,she closed the herbarium and then walked back to the desk and, before settling back in her chair,she put the diary in one of the drawers under the wooden table.
Sinking into the chair and literally collapsing on the desk and resting her head on the wooden surface,she listened to the sound of the clock hands, while her gaze did not move from the door of the shop.
And one question, that since Henry had left his shop in a quick and resolute way, turned in her mind, reappeared in Tessa's head: 'Why did not Jayadeep take her with him?'

And her lips rippled in a nonchalant and almost weary grimace, when she heard the door of the shop open;not even lifting her head from the desk,she idly raised her arm and gesticulating with a slow gesture of her hand, pointed to the exit.
"For the moment we are closed, please, you can come back later," she muttered in a monotonous, cantilevering, almost nagging voice, repeating like a parrot those words she had memorized every time Henry told to people entering the store during closure.
"You were able to say it, finally" a male voice uttered to her, far too familiar, that did not scare her at all from his sudden appearance in the shop.

The corners of Tessa's mouth rose quickly, in a slight, purely amused smile when she heard the words of her friend. She felt Henry's quick, hurried footsteps move closer to her, until he too was behind the desk; turning her head to one side she managed to see the Assassin who, bending and quickly opening drawers, began to pull out some sheets and then put them neatly on the wooden surface.
The young woman frowned in a confused expression when she recognized the people on those pieces of paper, and quickly raised her head from the table and then leaned a questioning look on Jayadeep.