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She didn’t answer. Didn’t open her eyes.

The eye of the storm had passed, and they were being battered by it again. Lightning crashed again and again in the fire-colored clouds above. He held Tacey close, bracing them both against the punishing wind. The ghosts and people around them were moving again. But the ghosts who had disappeared were back.

Flames of light swirled and spun in a tornado of fire, engulfing the rock, Mercury, Tacey, and the Forever Flame, closing in tighter with every revolution. It pulled at him, tugged hard, toward the crack in the rock.

Mercury ducked low, shielding Tacey. He fought against the pull of the blazing cyclone.

It twisted into a tight taper and sucked the Forever Flame in with it. Nearer and nearer the crack. Smaller and smaller. Until the twist of flames disappeared into the crack in the rock and pulled the Forever Flame in with it.

The ghost was gone. The swirl of fire was extinguished. The storm above disappeared. And everything was still. The rock they were sitting on no longer glowed. The bands of color had turned to ordinary stone. The crack that had once encompassed the entire depth of the solid rock had healed entirely.

Mercury kept one arm around Tacey and used the other to brush hair from her face. “Tacey. Open your eyes and look at me.”

She didn’t. But she was breathing. The weakness that had been tearing at her, the pallor that had grown worse by the moment, was gone.

He held her closer. “Tacey, I need you to wake up and look at me. I need you to tell me you’re whole.”

His ghosts began rushing over. All of them. All of them. Baby Blue was back. The Reluctant Recluse remained visible.

“Why won’t she wake up?” Zizzy’s voice quivered a little with worry.

“She will,” Mercury said. “I’m certain of it.”

Mercury looked at Mrs. Brand. Her shock was giving way to horror. Her ghostly attachment had just been sucked into the earth, and she no longer had him to punish those who posed a threat to her.

The Governor did not look at all repentant. The Bow Street Runner they’d brought with them was clearly confused. The Vanns had begun inching back toward the house.

“Hold them all in the house,” Mercury instructed the bevy of gathered ghosts. They’d become experts at keeping people captive as needed. He trusted they could do so again.

They managed to herd the intruders back along the path leading to the house.

“Are all the ghosts back?” Tacey’s small voice pulled his attention immediately to her.

Her eyes were open. She looked alert, if a little tired.

“All of them,” he said. “We have them all back.”

He helped her to her feet. She was not nearly as frail as she had been. He put an arm around her, and she placed one of hers around him. Together, they stepped off the rock and away from this place where so much had been broken and was now healed, and began the trek back to Aventine Manor.

Mercury stood in his library giving instructions to his ghosts within the hearing of their prisoners.

“Unfortunately, I cannot prove Mrs. Brand’s role in the tragedies of my childhood.” He looked over at her with a hard gaze. “Yet.” He addressed them all again. “She did, however, trespass on my property, cause significant damage, and threaten those living here.”

He looked toward the Bow Street Runner, who didn’t seem to entirely know what to do. He had, after all, been brought here to apprehend Mercury and was now being told that those he had worked with were the ones in need of being apprehended.

“The Vanns are guilty of having kidnapped Miss Wilde weeks ago,” Mercury said, “something she and I can both testify to. As can the Vanns’ ghost.”

“Your testimony and hers will be viewed with some suspicion,” the Runner said. “And the testimony of ghosts is not always taken seriously.”

“I know.”

“I can prove all I have said this man is guilty of.” The Governor pointed at Mercury. “He was an orphan, in my orphanage. He was not adopted before reaching adulthood. I am owed his fortune. And the law demands that he be taken into custody and held for trial.”

“You saw what he did tonight,” the Runner said, under his breath.

“I don’t care. Arrest him.”

Mercury looked over at Gary the Green and Rum Nicky, who had taken up position as guards. “Once they’ve decided how they mean to proceed, will you make absolutely certain they come to see me in the drawing room?”