5
Behind a row of blue books on a shelf in the corner of the library sat a well-hidden door to a well-disguised safe.
Even if a person were to remove all the books and look directly at the space behind, it would appear to be nothing but a wall.
Aventine, indeed, had many secrets. Until the Scholar had told him of the history connected to this place “near Palatine Knoll,” Mercury had assumed he knew all of those secrets.
Mercury slid a decidedly odd-shaped key into what looked like a knot in the wood shelf the blue books usually sat on.
Turning it opened the safe. He’d discovered the key more than a year after arriving at Aventine Manor.
He’d needed another six months to sort out where the keyhole was.
He’d been both surprised and pleased to discover that it opened a safe.
Only now, though, was he actually putting something in it.
Other than the iron key to his one-time room, Mercury had nothing with him from his days at Moor Cross Home for Orphans. No other possession could tie him back there, so nothing else he owned required such extensive safeguarding.
Until now.
He set a tightly tied drawstring bag inside the safe.
Though he was careful, it still clanked heavily against the bottom.
Next to it, he very gently, very cautiously placed a small, seemingly unremarkable box.
Beside the box, he set a single, leather-bound book, with two ribbons marking pages inside.
Mercury carefully closed the safe once more. The click of the key turning was too faint to hear if one wasn’t listening very closely. He pulled the key from the knot. He hunched down and slipped it into the cleverly disguised notch on the shelf below that was created specifically for it.
Movement on the nearby desk pulled his attention that way.
A quill twitched. The Reluctant Recluse seemed unlikely to abandon his efforts to learn to write; that was what Mercury assumed his end goal was.
Hoped his end goal was. He desperately wanted to find a way to communicate with the invisible ghost.
“Of course, if you master the trick of the quill,” he said, “will you write Tacey a note explaining to her how to find this should anything happen to me?” He motioned to the now-disguised safe. “She’ll need it.”
The quill continued fluttering unhelpfully on the desk.
“If I’m dragged off, you’ll be too. I suppose that would make it difficult to leave a note.”
He put the blue books back on their shelf, making sure they didn’t look at all out of place or odd. It was safest if they didn’t draw any attention, even though it appeared there was nothing of consequence behind them.
Mercury did need to explain to Tacey how to find and open the safe, but he suspected she would object if he made it clear he was doing so to protect her in the event that they didn’t successfully keep him safe from the law. But she needed to know. There needed to be a plan.
He stepped away from the shelves. The quill had stopped moving.
Its stillness drew his attention to the stillness of the house.
Aventine Manor was never quiet. At least one of his ghosts was always speaking.
And his ghosts were always moving something somewhere.
He often heard arguments but also laughter.
But, in that moment, Aventine was completely silent.
Mercury didn’t think the ghosts were still down in the tunnels. They were quiet not because they were below ground but because they were weighed down by the worry that had followed them all back to Aventine.
He’d promised each of them when they’d joined the household that he would do what he could to make certain they were happy during their time with him.
He’d promised his three remaining Originaries the same, though long before Aventine had become their home.
Mercury didn’t like that he was breaking that promise.
He stepped out of the library and went in search of Smythe. The ghost wasn’t difficult to locate; he was in the entryway, manipulating a dusting rag over the top of the rosewood table.
“Smythe, spread word among the ghosts that we are going to have a game of croquet on the back lawn. We would all benefit from being out of the house for something enjoyable.”
Smythe dipped his head. “Very good, Mr. Jones.”
It was the false name they had decided upon for his current disguise as a servant at Aventine. He’d played a lot of parts over the years. But the role of “Mercury Raine, harmless man of means and endless contentment” was beginning to feel like the biggest lie of them all.
Mercury snipped off a bit of overgrowth on one of the shrubs, listening with relief to laughter floating over to him from the game of ghostly croquet being undertaken nearby. He’d been right to offer them all this respite.
It was Tacey’s laugh, though, that made him smile. Her proximity to him had placed her in danger, and continued to do so. She had every right to run as far from him as she could get. But she was choosing to stay. She seemed happy to be staying. With him.
He was an unwanted orphan, a man who intentionally kept to himself, hiding every bit of himself. He’d never mattered to another person. He’d never let himself need anyone.
Tacey had changed all of that.
It was unexpected and remarkable and offered tremendous motivation to keep them all safe.
“Allowing you to work in the garden was an act of faith, Mr. Jones.” Holly Hock’s tone of censure held a smile. “If, in your distraction, you leave that shrub misshapen, I will be very put out with you.”
He looked over at her. She was wearing green holly leaves in her ghostly hair today, having traded out her usual flowers. “My apologies for worrying you. I was, as you have rightly realized, distracted.”
Holly Hock’s eyes darted in the direction of the croquet game. “I am happy we were able to find her and bring her home.”
“Do you suppose she thinks of Aventine as home?” He hoped so.
“Aventine feels like home quickly. It has for all of us.”
Mercury carefully clipped an overgrown branch. “Aventine is special.”
“And mysterious,” Holly Hock said. “There isn’t an inch of the grounds that I don’t know perfectly. The place where the windows in the tunnels should be . . . they aren’t there.”
“I know.” He stepped a bit around the shrub, snipping off overgrown bits. “This estate is endlessly perplexing.”
“But happy,” she said.
The rake moved beside Holly Hock, her hand guiding it without touching it.
“I very much want it to be a happy place for every ghost who calls it home, for however long they are with me.” Mercury was proud that he had succeeded in that.
“And,” she said, “you have been happier here than you have been since before the orphanage.”
The rake grew suddenly entirely still. So did Holly Hock.
So did Mercury.
In a shocked whisper, Holly Hock said, “How do I know that?”
He lowered his arms, no longer interested in trimming shrubs.
“I remember that. But I shouldn’t.” Holly Hock looked a little worried. “What is happening?”
Mercury stepped closer, wishing he could set his hand reassuringly on hers. “They are called Phantomic Memories, when ghosts gain memories of things they have never known. It has been happening increasingly often around me.”
“You are an orphan?” she asked.
“I am.”
“There are laws about orphans and ghosts.” Not everyone—person or ghost—was aware of that. Holly Hock, apparently, was.
“Hence the reason hunting me has become profitable.”
Holly nodded slowly, the leaves in her hair fluttering a bit. “You really were happy before the orphanage, before something tore your family apart.”
“Family?” The word stuck in his lungs as emotion wrapped tightly around his chest. Family. He’d never let himself think too closely on the possibility. “Do you remember my family?”
“Almost.” Her translucent brow pulled tight and her eyes slid away.
Baby Blue rushed toward them, a frantic look on his beloved little face. Mercury forced back thoughts of families and long-forgotten memories and focused on the distressed little ghost.
“Is the Captain taking his head off again?” Mercury guessed.
But Baby shook his head. “I can feel his voice.”
There was only one ghost whose words shook inside Baby Blue.
Mercury froze for only a moment before firming his resolve once more.
“The Violet Giant.” Mercury set his shoulders. “That means the Vanns are somewhere nearby.” His other ghosts were moving toward him. He held his hand up to stop them. “You’ll give away who I really am if you gather around now. We’re about to capture our first prisoners.”
“Into the entrapment room?” Baby Blue asked, hovering nearby.
Mercury shook his head. “Their ghost doesn’t need to be contained. Let’s take them down the third tunnel and into the first room. You all know your assignments.”
They scattered, doing an impressive job of doing so casually enough to not draw too much notice. Tacey, dressed in the plain clothes of a servant, stood beside Mercury. Her doing so wouldn’t give anything away. They would appear, at a distance, to be a couple who were part of the staff.
Mercury snatched hold of Holly Hock’s abandoned rake and held it, along with his trimming shears, in one hand. He offered his other to Tacey.
They strolled toward the back of the house.
Their demeanors were outwardly unconcerned.
From his place at her side, though, Mercury could see the worry she was working hard to hide.
The Vanns were dangerous, not just because they were so directly tied to the threat hanging over Mercury’s head.
They knew Mercury and Tacey. They could recognize them if they came too close.
“Will you ask your Invisible to find the Violet Giant and give him a message?” Mercury whispered. “Tell him we need the Vanns to go in the southeast door, down the stairs, and through the dungeon. The ghosts will do all they can to nudge them that way, but the Violet Giant’s help would be welcome.”
Tacey’s focus was on Mercury’s other side. “He says I don’t need to repeat your request; he heard it all. And he says he is honored to be of service.”
Mercury set his focus where hers was. “Thank you.” He hoped he was doing a relatively good job looking at the ghost he could not see.
They turned the corner to the back of the house then stepped through the door. Now out of sight of anyone who might be watching, would Tacey let go of his hand? He held his breath, waiting, wanting her to not pull away, worried she would.
She didn’t.
He needed to be certain she fully understood the implications of what they were about to do. “If you help us imprison the Vanns, you’ll be complicit. I don’t know that any judge would be supportive of our cause.”
Tacey wove her fingers through his and turned with him toward the stairs. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
Lightness and teasing in the midst of danger and heaviness. He needed that.
“I would have left you in London if I’d wanted to be rid of you,” he said.
They began descending the stairs.
“Regretting your rescue of me, are you?” She looked up at him with one of her heart-tugging smiles.
The respite she offered him. The way she steadied him in the midst of the storm. What a wonder she was. “I think I’ll keep you.”
“Because otherwise you’d lose your invisible messenger?”
He shook his head and sighed. “You’ve seen right through me.”
As they reached the dungeon, she sputtered. “Invisible. See through you. Excellent wordplay. I almost missed it.”
He raised her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to it. An odd impulse for someone who was usually very reclusive, but he chose not to resist it.
Oh, yes. He definitely wanted to keep her with him. Always. Which required him to keep a few steps ahead of the enemies who were beginning to arrive on his doorstep.