Free The Collectors' Society 01 by Heather Lyons Page B

town.”
    We wander into a kitchen that looks drastically unlike any I’ve ever seen before. Everything gleams, all sleek metals and white-marble counters, and it makes me think back to my last kitchen and of the smoking stove that was left better unused. “How long do catalyst retrievals typically take?”
    She lifts a silver lever and water pours from the faucet. “It depends, really. Some go incredibly fast. Others can take days, weeks. Very rarely, they can take months.” The water is turned off before Mary turns toward an icebox. “They stocked the fridge with some basics. And I believe there’s some tea in one of the cupboards.” Her smile is wistful. “No matter how many years I am out of my Timeline, or work for the Society, the English in me refuses to let go of tea.”
    I want to talk about the Society; Mary wants to talk about tea. “How long have you worked here?”
    “I’m one of the newer recruits, so . . . Officially ten years. Goodness. Has it really been that long?”
    Which must mean there’s precious little turnover.
    Minutes later, I’ve toured the entire flat. Mary points out a stack of magazines on a dining table. While there are what she calls basics in the closet in my new bedroom, I’m encouraged to sift through the periodicals and select a new wardrobe to be ordered. Furniture can also be selected, if I do so choose to change what’s already here. “After Sara retired,” she tells me, “her apartment was left pretty much alone so there’d be a furnished place for the next recruit—barring it was a female, of course. But obviously not everybody has Sara’s,” Mary pretends to gag, “personal style preferences. Feel free to change what you want. If you desire the walls painted, just let Brom know and he’ll have a team in here to change things for you.” She picks up a small porcelain doll off of a vanity and grimaces. “I never got why she loved these so much. Or, for that matter, didn’t take them when she left.”
    That doll, and all the others littering the apartment, will definitely be the first things to go. “Is the hope that I’ll take this Sara’s place?”
    “Haven’t you already?”
    “Why did she . . .” I think back to the peculiar word Mary used, the one that indicated she must have been Finn’s old partner. “Retire?”
    “Sara is an incredibly sweet girl, the sort that always has a kind word for everyone that she meets. But . . .” she trails off meaningfully.
    I’m blunt. “But sweet doesn’t always cut it, not when lives are on the line.”
    She’s pleased I’ve caught her drift. “No, it doesn’t.”
    The room we’re standing in is soft. A soft decor, as I’ve learned, does not represent a soft personality, though. Sometimes, it can be the delicate lure into insidiousness.
    “The Society must not view me as sweet, do they?” I keep my words light, but I’m most keen to see how she responds. “Or is it they just see me as the only in they have to Wonderland?”
    “If it’s any consolation,” she says matter-of-factly, “they don’t see me as sweet, either.”
    Ah. She chooses to ignore my second question. “Why Mary,” I ask, “were you not a good girl in your book?”
    “I was a wretched bitch when I was younger,” she says cheerfully. “And I can still be so as an adult. My filter is close to none. But, let us not be fully defined by what some people scribbled down centuries before, right? Books don’t tell every detail, nor can they fully represent us as living, breathing individuals.”
    She doesn’t sound the least bit bitter about her representation, and I respect her for that. “Do you know my story well?”
    “I think everyone knows your story well.”
    “How was I portrayed?”
    Her shrewd eyes study for me a long moment, but I do not cower under their weight. “Does it really matter? Would it change how you see yourself or your experiences? It’s not as if you could go back and alter those words or memories,