Lady Maccon looked at her husband curiously. “One of BUR’s?”
The Bureau of Unnatural Registry kept a number of mobile ghost agents—exhumed and preserved bodies with tethered specters that could be placed in select locales or near key public institutions for information-gathering purposes. They took pains to have a noncorporeal communication network in place, where each ghost’s tether crossed over the limits of at least one other’s. This stretched the length and breadth of London, although it was not able to cover the city in its entirety. Of course, it had to be updated as its members went insane, but such maintenance was practically second nature to BUR’s spectral custodians.
The werewolf shook his shaggy head. “Not that I know of, my dear. I’d have to look at the registry to be certain. I’ve met most of our noncorporeal recruits at least once. Don’t think this one is under contract at all, or someone would be taking far better care of the body.” He braced himself in front of the ghost, arms stiff by his side. “Hallo? Listen up. Where are you tethered? This house? Where is your corpse? It needs looking to. You are drifting, young lady. Drifting.”
The ghost looked at him in puzzled annoyance and floated up and down. “Not important. Not important at all. Message, that’s what’s important. What was it? Accents, accents, everywhere these days. London’s full of foreigners. And curry. Who let in the curry?”
“That’s the message?” Lady Maccon didn’t like to be out of the loop, even if the loop was inside some nonsensical ghost’s head.
The ghost whirled to face Alexia. “No, no, no. Now, no, what? Oh, yes. Are you Alexia Macaroon?”
Alexia didn’t know how to respond to that, so she nodded.
Conall, useless beast, started laughing. “Macaroon? I love it!”
Both Alexia and the ghost ignored him. All of the ghost’s wavering attention was now focused on Lady Maccon. “Tarabitty? Tarabotti. Daughter of? Dead. Soulless. Problem? Pudding!”
Alexia wondered whether all this verbal rigmarole was related to her father or to herself, but she supposed in either context it was accurate enough. “The same.”
The ghost twirled about in midair, pleased with herself. “Message for you.” She paused, worried and confused. “Custard. No. Conscription. No. Conspiracy. To kill, to kill?.?.?.”
“Me?” Alexia hazarded a guess. She thought it might be a safe bet: someone was usually trying to kill her.
The ghost became agitated, straining at her invisible tether and vibrating slightly. “No, no, no. Not you. But someone. Something?” She brightened suddenly. “The queen. Kill the queen.” The specter began to sing. “Kill the queen! Kill the queen! Kill the quee-een!”
Lord Maccon stopped smiling. “Ah, that’s torn it.”
“Good. Yes? That’s all. Bye-bye, living people.” The ghost then sank down through the floor of their new parlor and vanished, presumably back the way she had come.
Floote returned to the room at that juncture to find a silently shocked Lord and Lady Maccon staring at each other.
“No documented apparitions come tethered to this house, madam.”
“Thank you, Floote. I suppose we should see to?.?.?.??” Alexia did not need to continue. The ever-resourceful Floote was already tending to Felicity with a scented handkerchief.
Lady Maccon turned to her husband. “And you should—”
He was already clapping his top hat to his head. “On my way, wife. She has to be within tether radius of this house. There should be a record of her somewhere in BUR’s files. I’m taking Professor Lyall and Biffy with me.”
Alexia nodded. “Don’t be out too late. Someone needs to help get me back into Lord Akeldama’s house before morning, and you know all I seem to do these days is sleep.”
Her husband swept over in the manner of some Gothic hero, cloak flapping, and administered a loud kiss both to her and then, to her utter embarrassment, to her protruding stomach before dashing off. Luckily, Floote was still seeing to Felicity, so neither witnessed the excessive display of affection.
“I suppose that makes Felicity the least of our concerns.”
The sun had just set, and the Maccons were awake, across the temporary gangplank from Lord Akeldama’s house, and downstairs in their own dining room. The conversation had not changed from that of the night before; it had only paused for Conall to conduct some slapdash investigations and then catch half a day’s sleep.
Lord Maccon glanced up from his repast. “We must take any threat against the queen seriously, my dear. Even if my efforts so far have proved unproductive, that does not mean we can treat the ravings of a ghost with flippancy.”
“You believe I am not concerned? I’ve alerted the Shadow Council. We have a special meeting called for this very evening.”
Lord Maccon looked disgruntled. “Now, Alexia, should you be involving yourself in this matter at such a late stage?”
“What? The rumor has only just been reported! I understand you and Lyall got lengths ahead yesterday after I went to bed, but I hardly think—”
“No, wife. I mean to say, you are not exactly up to your usual galavanting about London with parasol at the ready, now, are you?”
Alexia glanced down at her overstuffed belly and then got that look on her face. “I am entirely capable.”
“Of what, waddling up to someone and ruthlessly bumping into them?”
Lady Maccon glared. “I assure you, husband, that while the rest of me may be moving more slowly than has previously been my custom, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with my mental capacities. I can manage!”