Chapter 10
With the knowledge of his expertly sorted swaps resting softly on his previously tumultuous mind, Mercury fell quickly and deeply asleep that night with every intention of not waking until after the sun rose the next morning.
But long before the first rays of light peeked over the horizon, an uncomfortably familiar feeling woke him. He was not alone in his bedchamber, though he was the only person there.
“I’m not certain which ghost is hovering at the foot of my bed,” he said, keeping his eyes closed in the hope that he wouldn’t awaken fully, “but I was very excited at the prospect of an uninterrupted night’s sleep, and I’d appreciate returning to it.”
“You weren’t born there.” That was the Cream Canary.
His eyes flew open. She was, indeed, hovering at the foot of his bed.
“You weren’t born there, though you don’t have any recollection of arriving.”
He swallowed thickly. “Arriving where?”
In a whisper, she said, “I don’t remember, but I’m beginning to.”
Mercury sat up. He wouldn’t be falling back asleep now. “What will you do when you do remember?”
The Cream Canary watched him for a moment, an intensity in her gaze that only further added to his discomfort. “Granny Grey says that I would like living at Aventine Manor.”
She had to be in agreement if she were to be swapped. Convincing her that doing so would be good for her increased the odds of a swap actually taking place.
“I think all of my ghosts like living here,” Mercury said. “I make every effort to ensure they are as happy as they can be.”
“And Granny Grey says that, once I am living here, this feeling of needing to whisper what I am remembering will ease. I won’t feel . . . I won’t feel like I’m bursting with a secret I don’t know how I know.”
Needing to whisper what I am remembering. Mercury didn’t like the sound of that at all. “You suspect you won’t be able to help speaking about what you are inexplicably remembering?”
“I feel as though the words are a breath away from being pulled from me.” She watched him, expression taught with distress. “I am exhausted from holding them back.”
How much longer could she continue doing so? Exhaustion was not a state one could generally endure for long without some relief. He was, it seemed, running dangerously short on time.
He took a quick breath, determined to keep himself calm. “Thank you for being willing to fight the impulse to spill what you are remembering.”
“There is something special about you, Mercury Raine. But also something . . . dangerous.”
There was danger in every hidden piece of his past, an entire tapestry of peril, held together thus far by a fragile combination of sheer determination and luck.
I feel as though the words are a breath away from being pulled from me.
He could not afford to let that luck run out.
And he could not afford to let the Cream Canary go.
“I assure you,” he told her, “I am not a danger to anyone—person or ghost.” He needed her to believe that.
“The secret you guard is powerful,” she said. “I do not even know what it is, yet it begs to be told. It relentlessly pushes itself to the edge of my thoughts and the tip of my tongue.” Her posture drooped. Weariness and worry tugged fiercely at her mouth.
“I confess, I am struggling to determine whether you are warning me or threatening me.” He didn’t at all like that he couldn’t be certain which it was.
The Cream Canary slipped around to the side of his bed, her posture somehow stiff despite her not being corporeal.
There was pleading in her expression and not a hint of malice or anger.
Indeed, she looked worried. “I want to stay. There is a storm building, and I don’t want to be out in it when it breaks. ”
Pearl, with her very reliable intuition, had told Mercury that Granny’s arrival had triggered a series of events that would change everything for him. A storm building. The Cream Canary sensed it as well.
Mercury’s eyes darted of their own accord to the iron key sitting on his bedside table. It was time to be as decisive and determined as he had been on the day he’d pilfered it. Everything he’d worked for since then was hanging in the balance.
“I believe the Padmores will choose to trade you for Professor Daskalov,” Mercury said, “which will allow you to remain here.”
“Would that not attach me to Mr. Sappington?” she asked.
“He will trade the Professor to me, likely for Signora Bellona,” Mercury explained. “Then I will trade the Professor for you.”
The shape of her grew a little longer, a little more fluid, as she relaxed. “Then I can make my home here.”
“For as long as you wish,” he said.
“And I will do all I can to keep your secret safe while we wait for the Transferals to be complete.” If ghosts could breathe, he suspected she would have taken a very deep breath in that moment.
“Granny says it will not be so difficult to prevent the whisper from escaping once I am attached to you.”
“She doesn’t seem to be struggling to keep the secrets she knows,” Mercury said. “But she is not attached to me.”
“I do not pretend to understand it all. I am simply grateful this anxiousness will ease.”
“That would be good for both of us.” He hoped his smile was both welcoming and reassuring.
She began floating toward the wall, but turned back before slipping through it. “The storm is coming. Whispers carry on the wind, Mercury, and there is no way of knowing to what ears that wind will carry them.”