Page 31 of Written in Red

Mercury shook his head. He didn’t know. For the first time in his entire life, Mercury didn’t know how to find the tiny little ghost, his dearest little friend, the ghost he felt the most protective of. Mercury had lost him. Well and truly lost him.

A spark of ash popped in the fireplace at their feet. More embers moved. Farther. Faster. The movement sparked a flame. Red and angry. Then another. And another.

A flame. The Reluctant Recluse had managed a message, written in the red-hot embers of fire.

The Forever Flame.

13

Anger, as white-hot as the searing pain he’d felt moments earlier, surged through Mercury. The Forever Flame had somehow taken Baby Blue away. In so doing, he’d made an enemy in Mercury.

“Find Zizzy,” Mercury said to Tacey. “Keep her with you and gather with the other ghosts in the tunnels where you’ll be safe. I’ll meet you there.”

“You should be going directly there. If the Forever Flame is at Aventine, then you’re in danger.”

“I’ve been in danger my entire life.” Danger had been dogging his heels longer than he could even remember. “I promised Baby Blue that we would be together and that I would keep him safe. I am not going to break that promise.”

“You’ll be careful?” Tacey pressed.

“The Forever Flame has taken Baby,” Mercury said. “The only thing I am right now is angry.”

“Mercury.”

He looked over at her. “I won’t take any unnecessary risks. Getting myself captured won’t get Baby Blue back.”

Tacey didn’t look entirely convinced, but she didn’t argue further. She hurried from the room. He stepped out as well, determined despite the crushing grief of his missing connection to Baby Blue. He was aware of it with every breath, every step, every beat of his heart.

How was this even possible? Ghosts could be swapped; they couldn’t be taken. A person always had to maintain the same number of attachments. That couldn’t change. So how did he have one fewer than he’d always had? And how could one of his ghosts be taken without his agreement or the ghost’s? It was an unbreakable rule of brokering.

A place of rending. A place where things are broken.

As Mercury turned a corner, moving with swift and determined steps toward the guest wing, a curtain in one window rustled despite there being no draft and no breeze. It “pointed” in the same way Tacey’s nightdress had the night the Reluctant Recluse had led her into Mercury’s room.

He changed paths, moving instead in the direction the curtain indicated.

The same pattern repeated a few more times, eventually leading Mercury to the library. The gap at the bottom of the closed door revealed an amber light flickering inside in precisely the way that he’d seen in an upper-story window in London the night he had rescued Tacey from the Forever Flame’s tavern. He’d seen it then, and it was here now. And so was the Forever Flame.

He knew what that meant.

That dangerous, universally feared ghost had been watching him that night. So he knew what Mercury looked like. He would have recognized him in the corridor earlier that night, hiding the discovery behind his pretended innocent wonder. It had all been a ruse.

Mercury flung the door open and stormed inside. “What have you done to Baby Blue?”

The diminutive ghost hovered in the middle of the room. His look of awe and wonderment had been replaced by one of haughtiness. “I thought that might bring you around.”

“Ghosts cannot be forcibly detached from someone,” Mercury said.

“It’s a useful ability.” The Forever Flame’s white hair turned a searing amber, glowing and flickering like a flame. “It gets people to do what I need them to. And it’s terrifying, which is helpful as well.”

This ghost had the ability to cleave inseverable attachments. Ghosts weren’t supposed to be able to be punished. But the Forever Flame knew how to do precisely that.

“Give him back to me.” Anger rendered Mercury’s voice tense.

“I don’t think I will.” The smallest of sinister smiles tugged at the Forever Flame’s impish face.

Mercury hadn’t expected him to agree. He’d asked the question in order to discover if the Forever Flame had possession of Baby Blue somehow. And it seemed that he did.

The Forever Flame’s eyes darted to a space just to Mercury’s side. Mrs. Brand stood there. Her husband was a bit behind her, more in the shadows.