England, West Coast
Devonshire, Dartmoor
St George, Skirrid Inn
5 November 1898, 11:30 a.m.

The clink accompanied a tray that slid onto the tabletop with a corner, and Elly placed a new pot on the table with nimble fingers. She pushed a strand of hair that had slipped back behind her ear with a slow movement, and Kyle's lips could be seen forming an appraising, yet more appraising, curve as the girl turned to Dr. Archer.

"Is there anything else I can get you? Would you like anything else?" she asked, and there was a hum in the young voice that sounded to Kyle like the purr of a cat in heat. Why did it irritate him so much? But what troubled him even more was how Dr. Archer reacted. As if moved by lightning, he sat up, fastened the top two buttons of his open shirt, and smiled meaningfully at the girl.

"Thank you, Elly. Breakfast is wonderful again."

Elly smiled, even giggled briefly, but then waved it off sheepishly. Out of the corner of her eye, she peered at Kyle as if to watch his reaction. She was trying to read him. So she wasn't stupid because she seemed to have noticed that her manner fell on deaf ears with him. As it appeared, Miss Oldren knew how to beat a silent skirmish from mind to mind. It made him crane his neck back, and his eyebrows - stern but not directly maliciously sly - slid a little higher.

"You can help us some more." he then remarked, perhaps a little drier than necessary. Then he pointed to the third chair at the table and motioned to her to please sit down. Irritation was quite evident in Elly's features; the doctor suddenly seemed much more alert. It was as if he feared Kyle might jump on the poor girl and eat her. What was wrong with Archer?

"You work here as a waitress and have lived in this village for a long time," he continued after Elly had lowered herself into the chair. "Can you think of any connection between the deaths so far? Marie and Sandra were about your age? How about the others? Were there any similarities?"

Elly frowned as if she had all the mysteries in the world to solve. Weren't girls like her trained to brush everything away with a nod and a smile to avoid confrontation? Instead, he could feel the thread tightening inside her. Anyone with anything like sensitivity and an eye for detail would have noticed.

"Similarities?" she asked, although she had already understood what he meant.

"Someone you didn't like or who had a problem with you? Or common interests?" Kyle specified, and Elly's finely curved lashes lowered as she stared at the tabletop. As if something was exciting there, she chewed on her red lips and pulled her long braid forward somewhat stiffly.

"I think there would be something... or someone," she murmured.

Kyle felt the crackle that was suddenly in the air. A cool, warning tingle pricked the back of his neck and made him shift his stance. He leaned back a little, his eyes still on the girl to whom he had perhaps paid too little attention so far. He was about to ask further when the doctor unexpectedly interrupted him.

"Who exactly? Elly, if you know something..." Instead, the latter automatically turned his powerful upper body towards her; his gaze fixed tonelessly on her face from sharp eyes and relaxed lips. Dr. Archer regarded her with a look as if it seemed to graze every pore. The doctor's hard shell somehow cracked in her presence. It was just little things. A slight twitch of his hand, the abrupt movement in which he adjusted himself to her and turned his chest towards her by the second, the barely visible dip his chin made downwards or the way his lips tightened, pressed together, and the pull around his eyes lost its hardness.

It was strange. It didn't fit somehow. But Kyle couldn't put his finger on what exactly was bothering him. That the girl was far too young? Or was it because she had flirted with him first, and it put an uncomfortable damper on his ego? Was it simple jealousy or wounded pride? Somehow, the ppuzzle piecewanted to avoid fitting into the nooks and crannies. Kyle couldn't grasp the feeling or why.

"I..." put in Elly at that moment, and her slender chin tipped down a little more towards her chest as if they were lecturing her. Was she scared? It would be understandable. After all, several people were dead, and no one wanted to be the next victim just because it came out that they hadn't been able to keep their mouths shut.

"Miss Oldren." You could see the contours around Kyle's chin loosen, smooth out, and the bright eyes that always looked a little too sharp, a little too cross and mischievous, as if he was already concocting the next insolence, poked up spitefully. "Please, tell us what you know. Nothing will happen to you. You have many friends and able protectors in the village, don't you?" He couldn't help the little jibe. It was impossible not to notice that everyone seemed to want to wrap the girl in cotton wool.

"Will you protect me, then?" she asked instead.

Without hesitation, the doctor put his hand on hers. "Of course, Miss Oldren. " Tell us what you know," he said, and Kyle snorted softly. Trying to look calm, he squared his shoulders slightly and tilted his head as he inwardly counted to ten.

"There was talk in the village a few weeks ago." the girl began hesitantly, lowering her tone. She swallowed once harder as she leaned forward to close the conspiratorial circle.

"Father Ewans sent Old Madam Jäger away and wouldn't let her join in the devotion. And Mr. Andrews..." she hesitated and slid around a little in the chair. She felt visibly uncomfortable saying what was on the tip of her tongue. "He slapped little Annabeth, Mrs. Jäger's granddaughter, on All Hallows Eve."

"He slapped a child?" spoke Kyle between them, anger bubbling up in his chest before he could stop it. His fingers clenched into a fist tight enough that they squeezed in his palms, and the expression in his eyes gained hardness. There was little that could bring Kyle Crowford close to exploding immediately. But children, or violence towards the weaker in general, was one of them.

Elly swallowed hard, her shoulders slumped with her posture in the chair, and then she nodded slowly. A lost expression spread across her features, and briefly, for a split second, Kyle wondered if he had misjudged her. "Yes, he did. All the children in the village know they are not welcome here. Mr. Andrews was very touchy about that subject... about what happened to his wife." She murmured, and it was little more than a whisper. "Marie didn't get on very well with the old Jäger either. And Sandra was her best friend." she recounted, and Kyle remembered the thing from the night they arrived.

"Then a lot of people in the village don't get along with Mrs. Jäger? You don't either?" he asked, and Elly's eyes widened.

"Me? What makes you think that?" she asked, caught off guard, her gaze falling on her hands, which were tightening.

"When we arrived, I saw them chasing the older lady away. Quite harsh, it seemed. That was Mrs. Jäger; I take it? What happened?"

Elly stared at him as if he had caught her with her cheeky fingers on some unfinished cupcakes or in one of the biscuit tins resting carefully on the top shelf of a pantry. The kind a child suddenly had in her features when she felt caught and didn't know whether to lie or tell the truth.

"That... It wasn't like that at all." she stammered, her fingers nervously gripping the ribbon of the long braid. Kyle felt his patience leave him again, and the dull throbbing pressed behind his forehead. As if he were sitting in one of the large, glass greenhouses in Kensington Garden, by the tropical plants in the stifling heat, unable to escape the sultriness with its oppressive nuances of greenery and plant scent. 

"What was it like then?" Here they FINALLY had a new trail, and he wasn't about to let the threads slip from his fingers again, even if he had to reach for it with a bit more peachiness.

"Kyle." rumbled the doctor's voice beside him, giving him a sideways glance. He knew he wasn't charming right now, but sometimes a smile didn't help.

"Mr. Andrews and Mrs. Jäger disagreed about the price of food. They had a big fight, and Mrs. Jäger wished the devil on him." Elly pressed out uncertainly, and her gaze flitted back and forth between him and the doctor. "Madam didn't want us to sell her anything else. Some of the villagers think Mrs. Jäger is..." she hesitated for a moment, "Well.... a herb woman. Our guests didn't react very well to her, as did Mrs. Andrews after the loss of her husband. And Mrs. Jäger wouldn't leave... so I had to turn her out of the inn," Elly told her, her eyes as wide as a deer looking unexpectedly into the lights of a lantern.

Then she rose, and the chair almost toppled behind her had she not just grabbed it. "I'm sorry. I have to go back to the kitchen now. There's a lot to do, and I have to prepare lunch. Mc Hoon and his men will be here soon," she said, reaching for the tray. Scrabbling, she pulled it from the table and pressed it to her chest. She was half a step away before anyone could say anything back and hurried off into the shelter of the kitchen.

"What was that all about?" growled Dr. Archer. His voice carried a slightly irritated tone. A hissing fuse steamed lightly, sending up barely visible threads of smoke that dissipated into the air as it went. Small lambent flames ate their way up the fuse, which Kyle didn't know why it was there in the first place. What would the powder keg bring when the hissing flame reached it? For some reason, though, it planted more complacency in his gut than remorse.

"What was that about?" the mage grinned smugly, then rose and pulled the dark blue cloak from his chair, slipping into it in flowing movements. The long frock coat was a dark blue color with black folded lapels. It was a beautiful piece that he had sometimes worn to hunt with Lord Wellington and had fortunately taken with him as a spare. It was also why he tugged it to size before Kyle reached for his cane and top hat.

"Thanks to me, we finally have a trail again." he declared, not without a hint of smugness. Kyle wiped once over his right shoulder and once over his left, flicking away a non-existent speck of dust. He was not fazed by Dr. Archer's gaze, which was probing, as if he had pressed a knife to the poor girl's neck.

It was also why he jutted his chin, and the magician raised his eyebrows as he looked down at the seeker. "What are you waiting for? We'll visit this old lady sometime."