Miss Trent favored him with a long-suffering look. “I was going to say,” she remarked, “that Lady Holmstead’s new orphan house might be a good place for Jem.”
“Not for such a streetwise brat,” Trey countered. “Believe me, Morgan will do Jem a sight more good than all of Lady Holmstead’s matrons.”
“And here I thought you agreed that her orphan house was a most noble endeavor. You listened to me prose on about it for fully a quarter of an hour at her supper!”
“Did I? I was probably thinking of something else.” Trey resumed walking Crescent Circle-wards and Miss Trent fell in beside him. She didn’t appear to notice—or mind if she had—that he hadn’t offered her his arm.
“I hope you have also not forgotten your promise to donate a hundred pounds to the charity.”
Trey frowned. “I have a vague recollection of vowing such a thing to stop the prosing.”
Her dimples peeped again. “Yes, I do have a knack for acquiring large sums of money from our donors,” she said complacently.
“What a conniving chit you are,” Trey remarked without heat. “Was this your revenge for my lack of enthusiasm in dancing with you?”
“I would never.” The twinkle in her eyes belied her statement.
Miss Trent kept up a bright stream of chatter, mostly centered around her delight at the spring festivities in Lumen, which culminated in the grand assembly at Merrimack’s tomorrow night, followed by a procession to the Keep the morning after.
Trey listened in silence, partly because he didn’t want to be seen talking to empty air and partly out of bemusement. Most of the apparitions he encountered were decidedly insane. They certainly didn’t hold conversations about social events while he tried not to notice their long lashes or slender hands.
Miss Trent didn’t attract the notice of any other seers, though he couldn’t say the same for stray elementals. An undine rose from a muddy puddle to stare at the ghost out of silvered eyes. A flock of sylphs, mere diaphanous glimmers, darted above their heads before flying off to torment a sleeping tabby cat.
“And I have always wanted to see the Mirror of Elsinore up close,” Miss Trent finished. The Mirror, the centerpiece of the Procession, was a national treasure guarded zealously by the government and removed from its hiding place only once a year.
“You can’t,” said Trey crushingly. “They call it the Viewing, but no one’s allowed into the solar save for the Guardians. Revitalizing a priceless magical object that protects our borders is not a public spectacle.”
“Another time then,” said Miss Trent, uncrushed.
They were in Bottleham, a quiet genteel neighborhood of terraced houses in red brick rather than the white-washed stucco and grey stone of more modern architecture. A milkman’s cart and horse rattled by, two maids beat rugs on a stair railing, and an elderly gentleman took the air, followed by his gnome servant. Trey received some curious looks; no one else appeared to notice Miss Trent.
“It’s the house just up ahead, with the yellow door. Uncle Henry grumbles about the color, but I think it’s sunny and cheerful.” Miss Trent paused, her attention on the hackney pulled up to the house in question.
A tall, thin man, black bag in hand, sprang up the steps and was admitted inside.
“That’s Dr. Barkley, my aunt’s physician.” Miss Trent’s brows drew together.
A pair of girls, arms around each other, emerged from the house. Both looked pale and shaken, their heads bowed, not paying attention to anything else.
Which was good because Trey, with an inward sigh, recognized one of the two. Charlotte Blake—known to all her family as Charlie—was the younger sister of a college friend. The large, rambunctious Blake family had somewhat adopted him during those years; he’d spent many of his holidays in their rather ramshackle, but always lively, household.
And now he felt beholden to help the friend of a girl he fondly considered a younger sister.
“And those are my friends! Why, what has happened?” cried Miss Trent. She started forward, her feet rising a few inches from the ground.
“Miss Trent!” Trey added a compulsion to his command; Miss Trent turned to him, her feet settling back onto the ground.
“Is someone ill, my lord?” she whispered. In the stronger light, she looked more insubstantial than ever. “Or… or… is it…?”
Trey wished again he could hand this off to Hilda, who’d mothered everyone and had always known the right thing to say. But it was Trevelyan Shield who stood here now. He ran his hand through his already tousled hair. And it was still only Thursday.
Best get it over with.
“Miss Trent, raise your hand and look at it.”
“What?” She stared at him as she lifted her arm. “What’s wrong with—?”
Miss Trent glanced at her hand and froze. Her eyes grew wide. Her mouth rounded.
“You’ll have to forgive me, Miss Trent. I’m not at all good at breaking things gently.” Trey made a complicated gesture as she started to scream.
Miss Trent’s form glowed blue, collapsed into itself, and winked out.
Trey stared at the Elliots’ sunshine-yellow door.
It was, he knew, going to be another long day.
Chapter Two
Arabella Trent was trapped in a pentagram five paces across from side to side.
She knew this because she had traversed its shape multiple times, testing the pentagram’s strength. After being thrown back by the wards every single instance, she had to concede defeat.
Besides, the buzz of angry magic hurt.
Even though I’m a ghost, I can still feel pain.
The thought was like an open pit in a stomach she didn’t have.
If she was a ghost, it meant that she—
—was dead.
“How can I be dead?” she demanded out loud to the empty chamber. “I don’t even remember how I got this way. There must be some mistake.”
No response.
A knot tightened in Arabella’s middle. Dead or not, she couldn’t bear being trapped. She had to get free.
Think.
She couldn’t get through the wards. Could she perhaps get under or over them? But the stone floor below her feet refused to allow her incorporeal body
