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“From what my ghosts tell me,” Mercury said, “the Runner is stuck in the larder. I don’t know how much longer it’ll be before it reconnects to something that allows him to escape.”
“We can just hold you here until he finds us,” Mrs. Vann declared.
Several of Mercury’s ghosts floated inside in that moment, armed with ropes.
“They are very good at tying people up to put an end to mischief,” Mercury said. “They’ll do so again if they need to.” He shifted his gaze to the Governor. “I am certain you have gained these allies by promising them a portion of the fortune you expect to gain by dragging me before a judge. Do they know that I was not actually an orphan when I was kidnapped and taken to your orphanage and, thus, you have no claim on the money you have promised them?”
Every eye in the room, including the Forever Flame’s, turned to the Governor in surprise and shock. He paled but stopped short of actually sputtering.
“Even if that were true”—he looked around at all of them anxiously— “and I’m not saying it is”—he looked back at Mercury—“you couldn’t prove it.”
Mercury produced his most chillingly confident smile. Though the man was right about Mercury’s lack of proof, there was no reason the Governor needed to know that.
“I suspect they’ll have a lot of questions for you now, though I have but one more.” Mercury stood, keeping his gaze locked on the man who had made his early years such a nightmare. “Does the name Romulus Thorne mean anything to you?”
The shock and even worry that immediately filled the man’s face was extremely telling. Mercury dipped his head the tiniest bit, then turned toward the door. He motioned for his ghosts to slip out of the room before looking back at the interlopers.
“You’ll have plenty of time to discuss this among yourselves,” he said. “This room is the one that moves next.”
He stepped into the corridor and snapped the door shut. In the next moment, the eerie creaking that had sounded in various corners of the house ever since Mercury had turned the key in the tunnels sounded once more, this time just on the other side of the wall.
The sitting room would be cut off for a time.
“Keep at it,” Mercury said to the phantoms beside him in the corridor. “We’re starting to break them.”
9
The corridors themselves were shifting, making it difficult to find the entrances to the secret passageways. He wasn’t complaining, though. He’d be harder to catch up to with the house in physical chaos.
He had very nearly oriented himself when the tugging of a curtain in a window caught his attention. The Reluctant Recluse had communicated with him that way before. It was his way of guiding Mercury, directing him toward something that the unseen and unheard ghost needed him to do or notice.
“Lead the way,” he said.
His familiarity with the method made the effort smoother than it had been on previous attempts. Mercury moved in the direction various items pointed, course-correcting as needed when he misunderstood something. Throughout it all, the house shifted around him. But ghosts could see through walls and doors. The Reluctant Recluse would know where each door led even as the house moved behind it.
At last, the silent directions led Mercury to the door of the drawing room. He opened it. Beyond was not the drawing room, but the library. Those rooms had switched places, it seemed, though not in an exact way. This door led into the library, from a place on the wall that didn’t actually have a door.
It was difficult to predict how long the current configuration would last. The room might move again, trapping him inside. Whatever the Reluctant Recluse had brought him here for must have been important.
Mercury closed the door behind him.
“It’ll be a little more difficult to tell me what it is you want me to find in here,” Mercury said. “There are drapes in the window, but if we’re looking for a specific book, the curtains likely won’t be very helpful.” Mercury eyed the space. “I know you don’t have the ability to manipulate objects, Baby Blue.” He assumed the little ghost was there as well. “But if you think of any tricks to getting the Reluctant Recluse’s message across, feel free to pass them along to him.”
Mercury wandered over to one of the sets of shelves. He eyed the spines, but nothing jumped out at him.
“You’ve struggled to move anything heavier than fabric, or paper, or quills, but if you think it’s at all possible for you to move a book, even the tiniest bit, and you feel it’s worth the effort that would take, I promise to pay very close attention so I don’t miss it.”
If only the Violet Giant were there. The Reluctant Recluse could simply stand in front of whatever it was he wanted Mercury to see and gesture to it.
It was not the enormous specter who rushed inside the library the next moment; it was the Invisible Rain.
“The Forever Flame has managed to leave the sitting room,” he said. “He’s looking for you.”
Mercury took the warning fully to heart.
“I’m going to slowly make my way around the library,” Mercury said to the room at large, not knowing precisely where the Reluctant Recluse was. “Do your utmost to move whatever it is I’m looking for.”
“Don’t do it too slowly.” The Invisible Rain poked his head back out through the temporary door of the library, no doubt watching for the arrival of the enemy.
