Chapter 8
Mercury knocked at the door of Larissa Lodge and held his breath. Tacey opened it almost immediately. And she didn’t look the least surprised that he was the one on the other side of the door.
She motioned him inside.
A sense of calm washed over him as he followed her across her entryway. How was it her company had so quickly become a refuge for him?
“Did you see me walking over?” he asked. “You seemed to know I was at the door.”
She motioned with her head to the seemingly empty space on her other side. “He saw you.”
Ah. Her Invisible attachment.
“You deploy him as a spy?” He pretended to be disapproving but knew she would see through it immediately.
“By accident!” She laughed through the answer.
It was difficult to believe that he had once been perfectly content without any people in his life. He couldn’t imagine how he’d get through the day without her smile or laugh, without talking with her.
They stepped into the sitting room. A book sat open on the seat of a chair near the fireplace, no doubt how she’d been spending her time before he’d interrupted.
“I heard you won’t be coming back to Aventine for dinner tonight,” he said. “I hope that’s not true.”
“I decided to treat myself to a quiet night here.” While she didn’t seem insincere, he could tell there was something more to her decision.
“Have I been monopolizing your time these past few weeks?” He hadn’t thought she was spending so much time at Aventine Manor because she felt forced to.
That worry ebbed when she smiled at him. “I fear I have been monopolizing yours. Wasting yours, truth be told.”
“Wasting?” She had become surprisingly important to him. Nothing about the time they’d spent together felt like waste. Not to him, at least.
She sighed, her look one of weariness and frustration. “After all of our lessons, I still can’t even begin a ghost swap.”
It seemed their interactions were not as personal to her as they were to him. Years of perfecting the art of hiding his thoughts and feelings came to the rescue as he pushed down his disappointment.
He motioned her over to the sofa. “Have you thought more about the connection you discovered to scents you associate with your ghosts?”
She sat, and he sat beside her. “I’ve been trying, but I think Granny Grey is too far away at the moment.”
“Whenever I undertake a ghost swap, the ghosts are in the room with me when I begin,” he acknowledged. “That does seem to be important. It may very well be a necessity.”
“Then I will simply have to wait until Granny Grey decides to return to Larissa Lodge.” But no sooner had she made the declaration than she sat up a bit straighter, a look of realization on her face. “I could practice with my Invisible, though. He is here.”
She seemed more excited at her Invisible’s presence than she was at Mercury’s. That was a lowering realization.
“Have you identified a scent associated with him yet?” Mercury asked.
“I haven’t, but at least I have an idea of what I’m searching for.” Tacey turned a little on the sofa, looking at a seemingly empty corner of the room. “Do you mind?” After a moment, she looked to Mercury again. “He is concerned that if I do find the connection, I might accidentally sever it.”
Mercury turned in the direction she had been facing. “The attachment can only be transferred, and that takes a great many steps. It isn’t possible to trade a ghost accidentally.”
“He looks relieved,” Tacey said. “And, I admit, I feel relieved. I would be devastated to lose either of my ghosts accidentally.”
“I completely understand.” Mercury shifted to face her once more. “While they are attached to us, they are, in an almost inexplicable way, part of us.”
“Do you miss the ghosts who aren’t connected to you any longer?” she asked.
“Some of them I miss quite a lot. Many of those have returned, though, either visiting or, sometimes, traded back to me. There is comfort in that.”
“Do you think, once I’ve learned to trade, that Granny Grey will come visit me again?”
“I don’t doubt it in the least.”
That seemed to comfort her. It might, in the end, prove too much for her to let go of the ghost she was so fond of.
If so, Mercury would have to think of a new plan.
He would let her stay at Larissa Lodge forever if she wished.
And would make certain she had all she needed.
But that might seem like charity to her if she didn’t feel she was contributing.
“All the Aventine guests would be here, so I would hardly want for company, even if Granny Grey did leave me,” she said.
“Though you would likely need more ‘quiet nights here’ like you are claiming for yourself this evening.” He offered her a quick smile. “A house full of ghosts can be overwhelming at times.”
“You are welcome to hide here now and then if you need to.”
Tacey set her hand on his. Mercury couldn’t remember the last time someone touched him.
Ghosts couldn’t, and he was seldom in company with anyone living.
He shifted his hand so his fingers threaded lightly through hers.
She might not have felt a personal connection to him, but he most certainly felt that for her.
He missed her when she wasn’t at Aventine Manor.
And holding her hand felt like . . . coming home.
Tacey took a slow breath, then closed her eyes. He recognized her look of concentration. She was searching for that elusive place in her soul where her ghostly attachments resided. Back to business.
He slipped his hand from hers, telling himself to focus on her tutoring just as she was. His growing attachment to her was not a mutual one. He needed to bear that in mind.
“I cannot think of a scent I associate with him,” Tacey whispered, a bit of frustration in the admission.
“Ask him if he has a favorite scent, or one he associates with you.”
She kept her eyes closed, though she turned her head a little. “Do you?”
Mercury kept quiet, not wishing to interrupt the conversation he could only hear one side of.
With almost no sound, Tacey said, “The air after rain. That is a nice smell.”
Her mouth twisted in thought. Her brow creased a little. There was something mesmerizing about her in that moment. He found himself perfectly content just watching her. Well, perhaps not perfectly.
“The air after rain.” She took a slow breath. “The air after—” Tacey was suddenly rigidly still. “Mercury?”
“You found it?” he whispered.
“I think I did.”
“It feels as if he is standing very close to you, somehow touching you, even though that’s not possible.”
She nodded.
“And you can inexplicably feel every emotion you’ve had when interacting with him?”
“Yes.”
He set his hand on hers, telling himself it was merely an effort to encourage her. “That is the attachment. That is where he resides in your . . . soul or mind or whatever it is. No one seems able to quite describe it.”
“But this is it.” She sounded relieved and excited all at once.
“Yes.”
She opened her eyes and looked up at him, amazed and excited. But, immediately, confusion replaced that exhilaration. “Oh.”
“You lost the thread?”
She nodded.
“It is hard to keep hold of. Doing so will take practice and a great deal of focus.”
“Is that why you’re so tired during and after a Transferal?”
“Yes, and there is an emotional component to letting go of the attachment. That is also wearying.”
“But worth doing?” she pressed.
“It has been so far.”
“What if— What if it is too much for me?”
He leaned the tiniest bit closer. His heart picked up pace, no matter that he silently and firmly told it not to. “We will cross that bridge when and if we need to.”
“You won’t be disappointed in me?”
“Impossible.”
A hint of color stole up her cheeks, which he found utterly enchanting. “Please come back to Aventine for dinner tonight, Tacey.”
She shook her head immediately and adamantly. “Perhaps tomorrow or— once Aventine is quieter again.”
“Are you avoiding the Vanns?”
She stood and stepped away. “I don’t know why, Mercury, but they make me uncomfortable. There is something about them that—” She shook her head. “I feel uneasy around them.”
“The Vanns themselves and not the Violet Giant?” He’d been focused on the ghost who knew too much, but she, it seemed, had sensed the other possible threat even before he had. That did not bode well.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “Mr. Vann asks very pointed questions. I’ve tried brushing them off, answering vaguely, changing topics. None of it convinces him to stop prying.”
“You think he knows you are hiding here?”
She shrugged. “I think he is looking for something he can use for his benefit. I can’t even say precisely why it feels that way, only that it does. And Mrs. Vann feels insincere. Something is not right with them, Mercury. And that makes me very uneasy.”
“They made an effort today to convince me to go to London so they could introduce me to potential clients and, perhaps, make a swap with me themselves.”
Tacey grew very still, watching him closely from a few paces away. “Are you going to London with them?”
He shook his head. “I never go to London.”
“But you seem to very much want the Violet Giant to be one of your ghosts.”
“I do.”
It wasn’t mere discomfort that tiptoed over her, but what appeared to be very real worry.
“Does the Violet Giant make you uneasy as well?” he asked.
She shook her head. “To make that swap, you would have to follow them or keep them here.”
“I would.”
“Well, then, it seems I am destined to be rather lonely here at Larissa Lodge for a time.”
He stood and crossed to her. He set his hands on her arms. “I will sort something out, Tacey Wilde. I always do.”
A hint of her smile returned, and his heart warmed to see it. “Promise me you will let me know when they are gone so I can come out of hiding.”
“I will.”
He wouldn't try to convince her to come back to Aventine while the Vanns were there, knowing now how uncomfortable they made her. But neither could he simply toss them out. And he couldn’t justify making the Violet Giant one of his ghosts when doing so would cause distress to his entire household.
Yet, the enormous specter was dangerous if left to wander about knowing things.
For the first time in memory, Mercury had absolutely no answers.