Chapter 12
Just as Mercury turned the handle, Tacey laid her hand on his, stopping him from leaving the room.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
He didn’t look at her. “I’m giving you privacy in which to decide where you are going.”
Tacey’s hand stayed on his. She stood near enough that he could hear her breathe, could feel her warmth. Only ghosts ever stood that close, but there was no breath nor warmth when they did. And they couldn’t actually touch him.
“The first place I am going,” Tacey said, “is to whatever bedchamber is unclaimed so I can get a good night’s sleep. The second place is wherever you need to go to begin sorting out who has placed a bounty on your head.”
That pulled his eyes to her. “You’re staying?”
She offered a small smile and an equally small nod. “If you don’t mind.”
He turned his hand enough to hold hers. “I don’t mind.”
“And I suspect your ghosts won’t mind, either.”
He felt himself smile, truly and fully smile. “I am all but certain they like you better than they like me.”
She laughed as she opened the door. “I happen to know that is not true.”
Mercury followed her out of the drawing room, his hand in hers. He was in danger, his life’s work under threat, his future entirely uncertain. Yet, in that moment, he felt unexpectedly content. More than content, though he couldn’t identify the primary emotion.
She was staying because she wanted to stay with him and help him navigate the danger he’d pulled them both into. She was staying. With him.
“This house is considerably smaller than Aventine,” he said. “You’ll be tripping over ghosts all day and night.”
As if to prove his point, Baby Blue stood at the base of the stairs on the other side of the entryway, watching them, and Zizzy hovered near him.
Captain Capitate was at the top of the stairs, adjusting the lay of his head.
Gary the Green appeared for a fraction of a moment in the sitting room doorway.
“Is she staying?” Baby asked, his little brow pulled in worried concentration. “Please say she’s staying.”
“I’m staying,” Tacey said.
Zizzy spun around in a show of elation.
From the top of the stairs, the Captain asked, “Will she be safe if she does? The Vanns are likely already looking for her again.”
Gary the Green slipped into the entryway. “And whoever they are working for will, undoubtedly, send others to find you.”
“This house cannot be traced to me,” Mercury told them all. “We’ll be safe here while we decide what to do next.”
“And Tacey will stay here, too?” Baby was, apparently, still unconvinced.
Tacey slipped her hand from Mercury’s and crossed to the stairs. He hoped she would hold his hand again; he missed her touch already.
“I am staying with all of you,” Tacey said as she climbed the stairs toward him. “And Mercury said there is a room I can use as my own.”
Baby Blue nodded eagerly. “I know which one.”
She followed the little ghost up and out of sight. The other ghosts dispersed as well, other than Gary the Green.
“Are the others going to start ‘remembering’ things?” he asked Mercury.
“I don’t know. It is a possibility.” According to the Scholar and Granny Grey’s earliest warnings, it was extremely possible.
“And if they do, will that make you easier to find?”
“It might.”
Tacey’s laughter echoed above their heads, pulling both their attention upward.
“How do we keep everyone here safe?” Gary the Green asked. “Especially her? Especially you?”
“We keep quiet and out of sight.” That seemed a given. “And we learn all we can about the person who ran that advertisement.”
“Are the ghosts in danger?” Gary the Green’s concern sat heavy in his voice and posture.
“Can ghosts be in danger?” He felt more uncertain about the answer than he would have been even a few weeks earlier. “Ghosts cannot be injured or killed. They cannot be forcibly taken from someone who does not wish to trade them.”
“Where you go, we all have to go as well,” Gary the Green said. “Testy, the Captain, the Queen . . . there are many of us who would not be frightened to tiptoe through the seedier areas of Town or languish in a prison. But Baby Blue and Zizzy—”
“Would suffer.” Mercury didn’t like that thought at all.
What could he do about it, though? Finding the person or people looking for him would almost certainly require him to spend time in dangerous corners of London.
But not stopping that threat would likely see him in prison eventually.
No matter what he did, he ran the risk of ghosts he deeply cared about being rendered miserable by the choices he made.
“You need to talk with Granny Grey and the Cream Canary,” Mercury said. “They have also ‘remembered’ things. The three of you might be able to help me formulate a strategy.”
Gary the Green dipped his head before floating upward and through the ceiling.
A rustling near the drawing room door caught Mercury’s attention. A page of the newspaper fluttered through the doorway, coming to a stop a few inches into the entryway. An instant later, it lifted the tiniest bit off the floor once more, drifting closer before dropping to the floor again.
There was no draft that could explain it. Mercury moved enough to look inside the drawing room. But none of his ghosts were inside.
The bit of newspaper flitted backwards, coming to a stop at his feet. Feathers left behind in Tacey’s room had moved in much the same way the night Tacey had been abducted. Then, as now, he felt certain he knew who was responsible.
He didn’t know where the Reluctant Recluse was, but the Invisible was somewhere nearby.
“What are you trying to tell me?” Mercury whispered.
The newspaper moved again, so Mercury bent down and picked it up. It was the page with the advertisement calling for his capture. He stepped into the drawing room, closing the door behind him.
“I’ve already seen this,” he said quietly. “What am I missing?”
There was no answer, not one he could hear at least. And nothing else in the room moved.
“Are you able to use a quill? You moved feathers before.” He looked over at the quill, lying perfectly still on the writing desk across the room. “You could use it to write me a message.”
It didn’t move.
Nothing in the room did.
If Mercury had managed to trade for the Violet Giant, the enormous specter could have translated, since he could see and hear Invisibles. But that would mean one of Mercury’s ghosts would now be tied to the Vanns, and he wouldn’t wish that on any of them.
We will meet again, Mercury Raine. The Violet Giant had spoken with conviction. Their paths would cross, which couldn’t happen unless the Vanns were nearby as well.
He held up the newspaper page to the only-seemingly empty room. “I’ll try to sort out what it is you’re attempting to tell me with this.” He folded it. “And I haven’t given up hope of finding a way to communicate with you.” He slipped the folded page in his jacket pocket. “We’ll find a way.”
How many words were actually spoken in the silence? He wished he knew. That seemed to be the theme for the night: the countless things Mercury wished he knew.