Page 11 of Written in Red

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.”