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“I have already added it to my list.”

Sorting out how to undo the damage that the Transferal had done to Tacey was firmly on that list as well.

He wrapped his arm around her and tucked her close to him. “You’re shivering.”

“I know,” she said. “But I’m not actually cold.”

Mercury pressed a kiss to her temple. It was not an impulse that he ever remembered having before she had come into his life.

“Do you think the ghost broker who sold Aventine to you did so because he was torn apart every time he made a trade?” Zizzy asked.

“If so, he didn’t tell me as much.”

Tacey leaned a little more heavily against him. “Did he still have Guile Fox with him?”

Guile Fox was one of Mercury’s Originary ghosts, the first one he ever traded, in fact. Well, the first one he remembered trading.

“Why would he have had Guile Fox?” Mercury asked.

“In your book, you traded Guile Fox to Romulus Thorne. And, years later, according to the deed”—she motioned weakly to the box sitting on the floor by her cot that had the Aventine Manor deed inside—“you purchased Aventine from Romulus Thorne. The surname is common, but that given name is not.”

“I remember the man I traded Guile Fox to, and I remember the man who showed me around Aventine. They were not the same person.” Mercury knew they weren’t. “But that doesn’t mean Aventine wasn’t owned by someone other than the person who presented it to me.”

“The Reluctant Recluse is desperately trying to get your attention,” the Violet Giant said. “His words are silent, though, so I’d wager it’s something he’s prevented from actually saying out loud.”

“That means we’ve stumbled on something significant.” Mercury looked in the same direction the Violet Giant was. “This is connected to me and to the secrets of my past?”

“He is nodding,” the Violet Giant said.

“To my past before the orphanage?” Mercury pressed.

The Violet Giant focused on the same spot he had before. “He has stopped nodding, but it appears that he cannot move at all. There is a certain emphasis in his eyes, though.”

“That is answer enough for me.”

Mercury knew enough of the pattern to predict that his favorite sitting room would be the next of Aventine’s spaces to rearrange itself. He was also well aware that most of the other public rooms had been twisted about already. Thus, he sat in a chair behind the door inside the sitting room waiting patiently.

And that patience soon paid off.

“Absolute chaos,” Mrs. Vann grumbled as she stepped inside.

Her husband, Mrs. Brand, and the Governor entered as well, all looking entirely disgruntled. The Forever Flame was last to enter. He mostly looked annoyed.

“I cannot even find my bedchamber, let alone reach it,” Mrs. Brand said. “And I’ve not slept more than a few minutes at a time since our arrival because of these blasted ghosts.”

The group settled themselves at the far end of the room.

Mr. Vann looked out the window. “This room is at least still where it’s supposed to be.”

For now, Mercury thought with a satisfied smile.

“Waiting for Mercury to give up was clearly the wrong choice,” Mrs. Brand said. “We need a new strategy.”

Still sitting languidly in his chair, Mercury drawled, “You could always leave.”

They spun around in perfect unison.

“Where is that blasted Bow Street Runner?” The Governor’s frantic declaration rang with a bit of panic.