Chapter 7
The next morning, Mercury donned his coachman’s disguise once more and, with Baby Blue at his side again, made his way back to Marylebone.
Their rescue of Tacey wouldn’t happen until the Vanns left that evening for the Forever Flame, but Mercury had enough experience with clandestine undertakings to know he needed to do a bit of pre-rescue planning.
A look around the house and a quick gab with the coachman would help him create a good strategy.
Talking with Tacey would get him invaluable information about what he would find inside and what role she could play.
“Tacey will be back with us tonight, won’t she?” Baby Blue asked.
“She will be.”
Baby’s sweet smile made an appearance, a rare thing lately. “I hope she’ll stay with us forever.”
Forever was an interesting concept when talking with a ghost. For a person, “forever” was more symbolic than literal. Yet ghosts, as far as Mercury knew, never stopped existing.
“You, Zizzy, and Smythe have been with me my whole life,” Mercury said, keeping his voice low as they walked along the street. “How is it none of you knows anything about me before Moor Cross?”
Moor Cross was the orphanage where he’d lived until running away at thirteen. But he’d learned recently that he hadn’t lived there until he was almost three years old. His life before that was a complete mystery. Even to his Originary ghosts.
“We should remember, but we don’t.” Baby’s expression pulled in worry. “And we don’t know why.”
Ghosts who shouldn’t know anything about his past were remembering it. They were remembering things even he didn’t remember. And the ghosts who should know every aspect of his life from infancy couldn’t remember the most crucial parts of his past. Life had seemed so simple a few short months ago.
“Smythe says that an orphan’s ghosts aren’t his, no matter how old the orphan is.”
Mercury nodded. “That’s true, in a way.”
Baby Blue floated alongside him, yet somehow seemed to keep entirely still. After a heavy moment, he spoke almost soundlessly. “Could I be taken away from you?”
“Ghost swaps cannot happen unless everyone agrees,” Mercury reminded him.
“Ghosts have been forced into swaps before.” Baby bounced nervously in place, wringing his hands and watching Mercury with a pulled expression.
“I would never agree and cannot be strongarmed into changing my mind about that. Not ever.”
Mercury had spent all of the years he’d been actively brokering ghost swaps reassuring the little boy that he would not be traded away.
But this was the first time Baby Blue had expressed his concern that Mercury might be forced to do so.
Zizzy also worried a lot about being traded against her wishes.
Even Smythe hinted at it, though with far less of the distress the other two displayed.
All Mercury’s years of reassurances didn’t completely assuage their concern.
Yet, he felt certain they actually did trust him.
What was it that led to such specific and identical fretting?
They didn’t remember their time before Moor Cross, but what if something about that time lingered in the back of their thoughts?
What if there was some experience tied to those years that caused them to worry in the way they did?
They turned the corner of the street the Vanns’ rented home sat on. With a posture and presence that would draw no notice, Mercury slipped down the gap between the homes and back to the very window where he’d seen Tacey.
He hunched down beside it, his back against the wall. If her Invisible attachment was paying attention, he would realize Mercury was nearby and would alert Tacey. It was the most unobtrusive way he could think of to get her attention.
Baby Blue looked at him from the other side of the window, also standing as close to the wall as possible without passing through it. “I can’t hear the Violet Giant. His voice rumbled in me when we were here before.” Baby’s eyes darted around. “It’s very quiet.”
It was, actually. Now that he was truly paying attention, the silence of the house was striking. There was no sound of servants moving about. No one was working in the back garden. No clanking of pans or coal scuttles echoed up from the belowstairs windows.
If only the Reluctant Recluse could actually talk with Mercury. He could send the Invisible inside to ascertain the situation without giving anything away. If the Vanns were inside, they would recognize Baby Blue.
Mercury slipped to the back of the house.
The garden was, in fact, empty. But he wasn’t looking for the house’s staff; he needed to spot one of his ghosts if possible.
The Winged Monk was atop the neighboring house.
That particular specter had come down off the roof of Aventine Manor at one point during the Vanns’ visit, and Mercury couldn’t be certain that they hadn’t seen him.
Luck, however, proved to be on his side. He glimpsed the Scholar, sitting more or less inside a nearby hedgerow, only the edge of his academic gown and the tips of his shoes visible.
“Baby Blue, will you go ask the Scholar if he will come over here? He’s in the hedgerow.”
Mercury returned to Tacey’s window while he waited. Not a single flicker of light shone inside. There were no signs of movement. And the house remained utterly silent. Worry sat heavy in the pit of his stomach.
“What can I do for you?” the Scholar asked, arriving beside him.
“Will you slip inside and see if Tacey is in this room?” he motioned to the window.
Doing so took a matter of seconds. The Scholar reemerged and shook his head. “Empty.”
Tacey had said she wasn’t permitted to leave the room, and she was kept there under guard. It seemed unlikely she would have simply been moved to a different room, and yet that was precisely what he hoped had occurred.
“Would you be wanting me to ascertain the state of things elsewhere in the house?” the Scholar asked.
“Yes, please. I’m going to slip around the back and see if I can spot the mews. A quick jaw with the coachman might get us a bit of information.”
But the mews proved empty as well. There were no carriages or horses inside. Even the tack was gone.
A silent house.
Dark windows.
Empty mews.
Mercury didn’t like what all the clues were pointing to.
The Scholar floated through the open door to the mews, a book in his ghostly hands. “The house is closed up. All the furniture is under cloth.”
The Vanns were gone, and they’d taken Tacey with them.
“Tacey is gone?” Emotion clogged Baby Blue’s question.
“She is,” he said through a tight jaw. “They’ve taken her away again, farther from us, attempting to keep me from finding her.”
“Are you scared?” Baby asked.
Mercury spun to face the door. “I’m not scared.” He set his shoulders. “But someone should probably warn the Vanns.”
“Warn them of what?” the Scholar asked.
“That what I am is angry.”