Chapter 9
Mercury waited, his back against an iron fence, on a corner not far from where the Quiet Queen indicated the Forever Flame had stood when she knew it. She would meet him there once she had discovered if it yet stood.
An interested party is searching for one Sidney Beckett.
The advertisement had refused to entirely leave his thoughts from the moment he’d read it.
Someone was searching for the runaway orphan.
Granny Grey had warned him of that when she’d first arrived at Aventine Manor.
Somehow he’d managed to convince himself that it was only ghosts with growing memories, a threat he could keep under control.
But underneath his facade of calm, this was precisely the scenario he’d worried about.
An interested party.
But which one?
From the other side of the fence he leaned against, the Quiet Queen whispered. “The Forever Flame is still there. A Tudor-style building. The shape of a flame carved on the lintel above the door.”
Mercury stepped unhurriedly away from the fence and around the corner.
In the waning light of approaching sunset, he spotted a building matching the Quiet Queen’s description.
It was shorter and more crooked than the buildings on either side, and its dark lumber and light plaster marked it as older than either by likely centuries.
Without a single one of his ghosts in view, he stepped up to the door.
A carving of a flame sat precisely where the Quiet Queen said it would.
He pulled open the heavy wooden door. The unmistakable smell of soot and smoke, stale beer, and a room too often a bit too full of people met him immediately, telling the tale of a pub with centuries of history.
And the mixture of humanity currently occupying the public room was varied enough to indicate this particular establishment didn’t have any set type of clientele. That would make blending in easier.
Mercury crossed to the serving hatch where pints of ale were distributed. He clanked a coin on the lip of the opening and was handed a tankard. His hat low and his drink in hand, he turned back toward the room.
Ghosts and people mingled and mixed, something that didn’t always happen in places like this. That would help Wallaby’s presence elsewhere in the building draw less notice.
The other side of the room had another serving hatch, but no drinks were passing through it. A curtain was pulled across the opening. Lantern light on the other side gave the fabric a glow. At a table directly beside it sat the Vanns.
Mercury, with the appearance of casual disinterest, took a seat at a small table for one, near enough to overhear the Vanns but not near enough to catch their notice. He slumped forward over his tankard, his face shadowed by his hat.
“You weren’t able to lure him to Town?” a low, articulate voice said from the other side of the curtained hatch.
“We cannot explain why he has not arrived yet,” Mrs. Vann said. “His partiality for her was obvious.”
The hidden speaker said, “Perhaps this ghost broker is not the one we seek.”
We.
Mr. Vann was quick to speak. “My wife and I do think it is very possible he is. Give us a chance to further motivate him. He’ll come to London, then we can bring him to you. All we are asking for is a chance.”
“You have already been given a chance,” the voice answered. “We are not in the habit of offering more than that.”
Another “we.” Mercury, then, was not facing only one foe.
Mr. Vann’s posture stiffened as he sat up taller, leaning toward the hatch. “But we have found him. We simply need time to—”
“Found him? If you have found him, where is he?”
Mercury focused on that voice. Though it had been many years since he’d heard the orphanage governor speak, he was certain the person on the other side of the curtain was not that horrible, vicious man.
“If we can bring him to you,” Mrs. Vann said, facing the curtain as if willing the unidentified person beyond to sense her desperation, “and he proves to be the one you are looking for, would we still receive the reward?”
There was no immediate answer. The Vanns appeared to be holding their breath.
And then, “We will consider it.”
Across the room, Wallaby hovered in a corner. He subtly motioned for Mercury to cross to him.
Mercury pushed his tankard away, quite as if he’d finished all he wished. He stood, stretched a little, then walked toward a back door that sat the smallest bit ajar. He pushed it open and slipped outside.
A small courtyard sat beyond. A wall ran on either side, and the back of another building enclosed it fully, other than an alleyway to the side of that building.
The cast of light had shifted into the deep salmon of sunset while he’d been inside.
A few more minutes and it would grow noticeably darker.
Wallaby hovered near a set of stairs leading down to what was likely the cellar. Mercury made his way there, picking up his pace now that he was alone.
“Through the door below, a short corridor, another door. She’s in there.”
They’d found Tacey. Only with effort did Mercury keep himself from simply running in that direction. He needed to not draw attention.
Perfectly calm, he asked, “The door is locked?”
Wallaby nodded. “Testy Tolver is waiting for you. He can unlock it.”
Ghosts who could move physical objects were excellent lockpicks.
“A guard inside?”
Another nod. Wallaby motioned to the stairs. “Quickly. Her captors could return any moment.”
That was true enough.
Mercury swiftly descended the stairs. The air grew colder with each step, which he hoped was not an omen. The outer door was unlocked. Mercury stepped inside. A few candles in sconces lit the corridor, all the way to another door where several of Mercury’s ghosts waited.
They floated over to him, putting distance between them all and the interior door. A myriad of emotions filled their spectral faces: concern, hope, determination.
“She’s in there?” he asked with only a hint of sound emerging.
They nodded.
“I haven’t seen the inside of the room,” Mercury said. “So I don’t know what we’re facing.”
“We do.” The Cream Canary spoke from the front of the group. “And we have a plan.”