“She’s still talking about the proper way to cut a diamond,” said Mysir de Archambeau.
I blinked, trying to focus my eyes, and in a very quavering voice said, “That’s because if you cut a diamond wrong, you ruin its brilliance.”
“Elinor!” That was Jacques. Dear Jacques. With my vision restored, I saw the two were sitting on either side of my bed. A hospital bed, it appeared to be. Jacques was sporting a black eye but was wearing ordinary clothes; Archambeau was still wearing the evening clothes from the Nightingale. They were very wrinkled, and the starch had long gone out of his cravat; now the ends lay untied, showing off his suntanned throat.
“Where is the tiara?” My hands flew up and located it still on my head. How funny. I removed it from the tangles of my hair and handed it to the duke. “His majesty can have it now. It’s curse-free.”
Archambeau took it gingerly. It did not seem that he wanted it, with or without a curse.
“The doctors wanted to remove it, but mysir de duke insisted they keep it on your head until you awoke,” said Jacques in a disapproving tone.
“That was probably wise.” I pulled myself up in my bed. Jacques quickly stepped behind me to reposition my pillows like a good boy. I folded my hands in my lap. “Where is my fur? You didn't leave it behind, did you?”
Jacques gave a huge laugh of relief. “The duke said you'd worry about it. I handed it off to Anne-Marie for cleaning.”
Archambeau informed me. “You've been here for two days, Madame Chalamet. Perhaps you can fill us in on what happened?”
“Gabrielle and Enzo?”
“Dead.”
“A dragon ghost spirit inhabited the tiara. It's been using people like puppets, possessing them, and draining their energy to keep its sense of self, of memory, alive inside the tiara.”
“I don't get it—” said Jacques.
Feeling stronger, I was enjoying the chance to explain.
“A ghost that ancient would have long ago fragmented. Because after death, memories decay over time. You see this phenomenon in old ghosts that appear but can’t communicate with us on the Earthly plan; all they can do is repeat actions, like walk a corridor or go down a staircase. But the tiara’s dragon used humans to feed it energy over hundreds of years, allowing it to keep most of its original identity and personality intact. Although its soul-sucking ways didn’t keep it sane.”
“How did you defeat it? I assume you did so?” asked Archambeau, nonchalantly studying his fingernails. What was that shadow on his jaw? Didn't he shave this morning?
“The creature brought me mentally into the Beyond, creating a space from my memories of your house, Your Grace. Whatever was imagined into that space acted as if it was real— the chairs, the glass— my gun. I’ve never heard of that being done! I can’t wait to write a paper and present it to the Morpheus Society— won’t Parnell Lafayette, he’s their current darling, have to eat crow? He said it couldn’t be done.”
“Chalamet, what happened?”
“Sorry, but you don’t realize how incredible this was. The Earthly plane repels ghosts as they don’t belong here, just as we don’t belong in the Beyond. While some close to death have described the sensation of being there, the Beyond rejects the living. Like how the wrong end of magnets won't connect. That ill-begotten thing was trying to keep me where I did not belong against the very forces of nature.”
I grimaced, thinking of Gabrielle and Enzo and not being able to save them.
“It drained the life force from Gabrielle and Enzo to hold me there. And it still remembered all the souls of the people it possessed and murdered across the centuries.”
“But how did you get away? Is it gone?” asked Jacques.
“I made it toss aside the human personalities that were keeping it sane. Being so old, I gambled it wouldn’t remember what it actually was anymore. While it was trying to remember, I shot it. Since everything in its created illusion in the Beyond acted as real, so did my gun.”
That was a lot to say, and it wore me out. I sunk back into the pillows.
“I doubt it was as easy as you make it out to be, Chalamet.”
I gave the duke a tired smile. “Now, tell me what happened at the Nightingale?”
“When I discovered you weren’t sitting at the table, I came to ask the duke where you had gone.” When Jacques stopped, Archambeau continued the story. “What your friend isn’t telling you, to spare my dignity, is that his solicitude earned him a punch to the face. Bastiaan Hagen didn't like being interrupted.”
“Who's Bastiaan Hagen?”
“My ghost,” said the duke, stone-faced. “He managed a few poorly thrown punches, tarnishing my reputation forever, before fading away. When I regained my senses, the girl at the table told us where you went. When we got backstage, we saw that Perino fellow running from a room and I guessed correctly he must have been fleeing some chaos you wrought.”
That seemed to explain everything. My stomach rumbled.
“Isn’t there anything in this place to eat?”
Not for the first time, Dr. LaRue apologized again to the mysir de duke for her attempt to stab him.
“Think nothing of it, doctor. You thought your friend was in danger and acted accordingly.”
“Enough, Charlotte!” I said. “Can’t you see you are embarrassing the man?”
It was two weeks since I awoke from the hospital bed and the three of us were in the duke’s carriage. The tiara had made it to His Majesty one day late, but the Perino government wouldn't admit to trying to grab it from behind King Guénard's back, so in the end, we diplomatically blamed the delay on the king's indigestion, a stratagem well-known to his subjects to avoid work. The Perino delegation agreed to the tariffs Sarnesse wanted, signed the treaty and sailed away with the tiara, to the relief of many.
Life had almost returned to normal, but there were a few loose ends, and one of them was the reason the three of us were sitting in a chilly coach, waiting for a stranger to enter the park. From Dr. LaRue’s information, Nicole Bakhuizen should arrive at any moment, as it was her habit to walk the park in the morning regardless of the weather.
“How do you feel?” I asked the duke.
“More embarrassed each time you ask me,” he replied coldly, causing Dr. LaRue to utter a snorting laugh that she quickly smothered. Before any of us could say anything more that would embarrass a titled gentleman, Dr. LaRue exclaimed excitedly, “There she is! She's the woman in the dark blue dress.”
“You didn’t tell me she'd have a baby carriage with her!” I replied to the doctor sitting beside me, but the duke paid us no attention. He was already stepping out of his coach and striding down the sidewalk towards the lady in question.
“You stay here!” I commanded the doctor and hastily climbed out, forced to trot to reach his side. “Remember, she doesn’t know the duke, or that Hagen is here.”
“I know her,” said the ghost possessing Archambeau.
“Let me make the introductions,” I begged. “We don’t want to frighten her.”
We were closing the distance quickly and now I could see that Nicole Bakhuizen had blond hair and brown eyes, was about the same height, with a figure very much like the Nightingale’s dance hall girl. Otherwise, she was nothing like the other. It really showed how little cognitive thought continued after death.
This woman had a faded elegance of an educated, well-bred woman. This close, I could see that the tragedy of her husband being hanged and her lover dying by his sword had marked her with grief. Her face was pale and strained, with shadows under her eyes and a dullness to her hair.
“Hello, Madame Bakhuizen,” I said before the duke’s ghost could speak. She startled and perhaps it was the intensity of our interest that made her say nervously, “I don’t know you. Are you reporters? If you follow me, I swear I’ll scream!”
She wheeled the baby carriage around and started walking rapidly in the opposite direction. Risking the scream, we followed. I said to her straight back, “We are representing Mysir Hagen.”
That made her turn around. “What do you mean?”
I wasn’t sure what to say, but Hagen did. “May I see the child?”
Madame Bakhuizen took a moment in weighing the risk of us being baby snatchers against having an honest reason for seeing her babe. I like to think it was my presence and my nice, comfortable face that convinced her.
She bent over and took out a child wrapped in a fuzzy yellow blanket. A fur-lined baby’s bonnet revealed an edge of dark, fluffy hair that framed a rosy complexion. It looked to be less than six months old.
“What is the child’s name?” asked the duke.
“Bastiaan.”
Named after her lover. Well, that explained the unfinished business.
“May I hold him?”
“Do you truly represent Mysir Hagen?”
“We mean you no harm,” I reassured her. “Truly, we are here to help.”
She reluctantly gave the duke her baby, but her eyes were watchful, ready to grab him back if Archambeau showed any sign of being a lunatic or a reporter, which was pretty much the same thing.
“He’s precious,” I said, knowing that all babies were to their mothers.
“He’s already pulling himself up,” she said proudly.
Archambeau or his ghost must have known something about babies, for the infant broke out in a gumless smile, a starfish hand reaching out for the duke’s nose. He bounced the baby gently against his shoulder.
We hadn’t discussed what we were going to do other than allow Hagen a chance to see his true love and, in return, he would move on to the Afterlife.
“We heard things got a little rough for you since— everything happened.”
“I don’t complain.”
The very public trial exposing her infidelity had ruined her reputation. In Alenbonné, we accept love outside marriage as long as the affair is discreet, but a duel in the streets and a murder trial didn’t have that distinction. Yes, her family had taken her back, but they used her as an unpaid servant, according to Dr. LaRue.
The baby gurgled, and the duke shielded his face behind the child’s bonnet, as he asked, “Nikki, why didn’t you come that day to the café?”
“Laurence found out I was running away, and locked me in my room,” she said, responding without thought.
After a sigh that warmed the foggy air, the ghost of Bastiaan Hagen faded away from the Earthly plane and crossed to the Afterlife. The duke’s body position changed: his posture became straighter, his shoulders widened. The baby started fussing and Archambeau handed him back to his mother, whose arms were eager for his return.
“As Madame Chalamet said, we are here as representatives of Mysir Hagen. He reached out to us before meeting your husband that fateful day. It is unfortunate that it has taken us almost a year to find you, but we have good news for you.”
She was patting the baby's back, and Bastiaan gave a loud burp at the end of the duke’s statement. Madame Bakhuizen asked warily, “What news would that be?”
“He put money back for your future, thinking the two of you would be together. Those funds are now yours to do with what you wish.” From his pocket, Archambeau handed her an envelope of folded papers. “Here is all the information you need to claim it at the Royal Bank of Alenbonné.”
Madame Bakhuizen slowly put the baby back into his carriage and hesitantly took the documents. She opened the bank book and as she read the numbers, tears started sliding down her cheek.
“Madame,” said mysir de duke and, after a curt bow, he took my arm and we turned away to make our way back to his carriage. When we were out of earshot, I asked Archambeau, “Hagen was a student and poor as a church mouse. You set this up, didn't you?”
“Having someone live in my body is an unsettling experience. This seemed the best way to insure he would not come back.”
I smiled. “Are you saying you paid off the ghost? Not because of any sentimental feeling about his lost love, but only so he would leave you alone?”
He asked me curiously, “Has a ghost ever possessed you, Chalamet? In your line of work?”
“For short periods of time, to deliver a message, but nothing like you experienced. I think my nature is anathema to being possessed. I wasn’t exactly a natural and the Morpheus Society almost gave up on me ever becoming a Ghost Talker, but I was determined.”
“Do you always get what you want?”
“Most times. If I really want it.”