Through time II ; Flames of time

Milford

*Lily*

I wake to the smell of coal smoke and the particular grey light that means rain against the window, and for several dislocated seconds I cannot place the room. The ceiling is too high. The mattress beneath me is stuffed with horsehair, not foam. Then the day before settles over me like a second skin: Leo“s engagement, the police ledgers, the chronometer on his desk with its brass fittings and its impossible readings.

I dress quickly in the clothes laid out on the chair, a plain wool dress in charcoal, serviceable and anonymous. Mary“s clothes. The fabric pulls across my shoulders as I do up the buttons, and I catch myself pressing too hard, my thumb leaving a small white dent in the cotton. I make myself stop. I make myself breathe.

Downstairs, the house is already stirring. A maid I do not recognise passes me in the corridor with a nod and a murmured good morning. I return the greeting and keep walking, my boots loud on the floorboards. The kitchen is warm with the smell of bread and strong tea, but I do not stop for breakfast. I take a cup from the tray by the door and drink it standing, the heat sharp against my tongue, and then I am out the back door and into the mews before anyone can ask me where I am going.

The cab ride to Scotland Yard takes twenty minutes through streets still slick with last night“s rain. I watch the city scroll past the window: women in wide skirts stepping around puddles, a boy selling newspapers on a corner, a steam van belching white into the damp air. All of it solid and ordinary and wrong. I am living inside a photograph that someone has breathed on, the emulsion softening at the edges.

I find Leo in his office on the second floor, bent over a stack of papers with his sleeves rolled to the elbow and his collar undone. He does not hear me come in. The gas lamp on his desk has burned low, the mantle blackened, and I realise it has been lit all night. There is a cup of cold tea at his elbow, a skin of milk floating on the surface.

“You haven't slept,“ I say.

He looks up, and the confirmation is right there in his face, in the bruised colour beneath his eyes and the particular stillness of someone who has been staring at the same page for too long. “The reports from the Southwark arch,“ he says, as if that explains everything. “I thought I“d missed something.“

“Did you?“

“No.“ He sets down the paper and rubs at his left hand, the bandaged one, the gesture automatic. “But I might have.“

I cross to the desk and lift the cup of cold tea. “I“ll get fresh.“

“Lily.“

I stop.

“Thank you,“ he says. “For coming back this morning.“

I do not say that I had nowhere else to go, that the flat in London in 2026 feels less real to me now than this gas-lit room with its stacks of yellowing paper and its smell of old wool and ink. I do not say that I came back because the alternative is sitting alone in a basement flat while the world comes apart at the seams. I say, “You“d be useless by noon without tea,“ and I go to find the kettle.

By the time I return with two fresh cups, the morning has settled into a rhythm. Leo reads aloud from the reports, his voice low and steady, and I listen with my elbows on the desk and my chin propped on my hands. We are working through the ledger from 1871, the year of the Deptford disappearances, when the door opens and a man I have not seen before steps into the room.

He is neatly dressed in a dark suit, his collar stiff and his cuffs fastened with plain silver links. His hair is parted precisely on the left, and he carries a leather folder under one arm with the air of someone who has been carrying it for years. He stops just inside the threshold and looks from Leo to me and back again, and I watch him make a decision.

“My lord,“ he says. “I wasn“t aware you had company.“

“Milford.“ Leo straightens in his chair, and some of the exhaustion lifts from his face. “Come in. This is my cousin, Miss Mary Tempest. She“s been assisting me with a private matter.“

Milford Finch. The name slots into place from yesterday's conversations. Leo“s new assistant, the meticulous one, the man who keeps the files in order and the ledgers up to date. He has the kind of face that gives very little away, but his hands adjust the folder under his arm, and I see his knuckles go pale where he grips the leather.

“A private matter,“ he repeats.

“Of some urgency,“ Leo says. “Close the door.“

Milford closes the door. He does not sit down. He stands beside the visitor“s chair with his folder still tucked against his side, and I notice that he has positioned himself so that both Leo and I are in his line of sight. Not a man who likes surprises.

Leo leans forward and pushes a stack of papers across the desk. “I need you to cross-reference these reports with any known inventors or disgraced former employees from the relevant periods. Men who would have had access to mechanical workshops, to experimental apparatus. Men with grievances.“

“Which reports?“

“The anomalous ones. The ones that don“t fit.“

Milford does not reach for the papers. He stands very still, and the silence in the room gathers itself around us. The gas lamp makes a small sputtering sound. Outside, a carriage clatters past on the cobbles.

“My lord,“ Milford says, and his voice is careful in the way that a man“s voice is careful when he is choosing every word. “I have been in your employ for almost two years. I have never questioned your methods. I have filed reports I did not understand and followed instructions I could not explain to my superiors. But I need you to tell me, directly, what it is we are looking for.“

Leo“s jaw goes tight. I watch him measure the distance between what he can say and what Milford will believe, and I see the exact moment he decides to bridge it with authority rather than explanation. “I am giving you a direct order, Milford. Cross-reference the reports.“

“A direct order to do what, precisely? To search for inventors who do not appear in any official registry? To trace complaints that were dismissed before they were ever recorded?“ Milford sets his folder on the corner of the desk, and the motion is precise, controlled. “I am not refusing. I am asking for the parameters.“

I look at Leo. He looks at me. Something passes between us, a silent negotiation, and then I turn to Milford and say, “We“re looking for a man who believes he was wronged by the institutions that rejected his work. Someone with technical knowledge, probably self-taught, who made complaints that were dismissed as crankery. Someone who talked about energy sources that didn“t exist yet, or theories about time that no one took seriously.“

Milford considers this. His expression does not change, but his hands relax slightly where they rest on the folder. “That is a specific profile.“

“It is,“ I say.

“And you believe this man is connected to the disappearances in the police reports.“

“We believe he may be,“ Leo says. “That is what we need you to confirm.“

Another pause. Milford picks up the folder and tucks it back under his arm. “I will need access to the patent office archives. The rejected applications from the last twenty years. The complaints registry, if one exists.“

“Whatever you need,“ Leo says.

“And I will need the morning.“

“You have it.“

Milford nods once, a small, economical motion, and turns to go. At the door he pauses. “My lord. If this man is dangerous, I would prefer to know it before I find him.“

“He is,“ Leo says. “That is why I need you to find him.“

Milford leaves, and the door clicks shut behind him. I let out a breath I did not realise I had been holding. Leo slumps back in his chair and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes.

“He“s good,“ I say.

“He“s the best. And he“s right to be cautious.“ Leo drops his hands. “I“m asking him to dig into something that doesn“t make sense by any measure he“s been trained to use.“

“He“ll do it anyway.“

“Yes. He will.“