Of Fate and Phantoms (Ministry of Curiosities Book 7)

by C. J. Archer

  "You learned nothing," Lincoln told him. "The record of my birth has been lost, if it ever existed."

  The prince confirmed this with a nod. "I find that odd, don't you?"

  "Not at all. Perhaps Leisl failed to register me. Perhaps she recorded my birth under a Romany name."

  "Why didn't the general do it?" the queen asked.

  "I don't know. You would have to ask him that."

  "You said yourself that he's dead."

  Lincoln didn't tell her that I could summon him. Either he wasn't ready to mention my necromancy or he knew I never wanted to see the general again, even in spirit form.

  The prince opened his mouth to speak but the queen lifted her hand and he closed it again. "This meeting is to discuss the gypsy's vision, not Mr. Fitzroy's family."

  "Very well," the prince said. "The matter of his family can wait." Wait, but not dropped altogether. "I believe Leisl genuinely saw something in her visions that worried her," he went on. "And I would like you, Mr. Fitzroy, to discover what it is and then disarm the danger. Can you do that?"

  "I believe so."

  "How?" The queen leaned forward, no mean feat considering her size and the deep sofa. "How can you? What qualifies you?"

  "I am the head of an organization that monitors people in possession of supernatural powers."

  I lifted my brows, but they didn't rise as high as either the queen's or prince's.

  "Is this a joke?" the prince bellowed.

  "We're an ancient organization now known as the Ministry of Curiosities, but we've had other titles in the past."

  "A ministry?" The queen looked to her son. "Why haven't I been informed of it?"

  "Not an official ministry," Lincoln said. "We are not under the parliamentary umbrella. Making us official would make us public, and I don't think the public are ready to hear about the supernatural."

  "Oh, I don't know," the queen said idly. "Spiritual matters are all the rage now. One of my ladies claims to have attended a séance several years ago where a real medium spoke to the ghost haunting his widow. Apparently this woman was very convincing."

  The prince closed his eyes and heaved a sigh. "Mediums aren't real."

  "They are," Lincoln said. "As are a great many people with interesting abilities whom you would dismiss as frauds or tricksters. The ministry catalogs them and their families to insure we know where they are and what their talent is. It's important to trace lines of ancestry, since paranormal traits are inherited. It protects them, as well as the nation."

  The queen gave her son a triumphant look, then turned her attention to Lincoln. "Do you have a list of true mediums? Will you send it to me?"

  He shook his head. "I won't be releasing that information to anyone. Not even to you. It's far too dangerous—"

  "I am your queen! I command you."

  "There's no need for a list," I said before Lincoln got himself into more trouble. "I can summon your husband for you. Indeed, I think it's an excellent idea to ask him if he has any knowledge of Leisl's vision since she named him. It seems like the next logical step."

  The queen and prince both stared at me, mouths ajar in a most un-regal manner. "But you're such a little thing," the queen said. "And so young."

  I simply shrugged. "Age has nothing to do with one's supernatural ability. It's something I was born with."

  Beside me, Lincoln's fingers curled into a fist on the chair arm, but he didn't try to silence me.

  "You can talk to the dead?" the queen asked.

  "I can, and I see them too."

  "What do they look like?"

  "Mist shaped like their living self."

  "Remarkable," she said on a breath.

  "What other supernatural abilities is your so-called ministry aware of?" the prince asked.

  The queen flapped a black lace handkerchief, produced from the depths of her silk skirts. "You must summon the Prince Consort, Miss Holloway. Immediately. What do you need to begin? A drum? Cymbals? Bertie, close the curtains."

  The prince didn't rise. "We ought to learn more about this ministry first. I'm not prepared to accept Mr. Fitzroy's claims yet. Not without proof."

  "Miss Holloway is my proof," Lincoln shot back.

  "You believe Leisl," I said gently. "And Lincoln is her son. He wishes you no disrespect, nor does he want anything from you in return. We're not asking for money or a royal seal of approval. We simply want to know what Leisl meant, too. There's no harm in doing this, I promise." To the queen, I said, "I don't require darkness or any paraphernalia. I can summon him anywhere at any time."

  "What if he won't come?"

  "He will come for me." As a necromancer, spirits had no choice but to appear when summoned, even those that had crossed to their afterlife. For a medium, the spirit could only come if they hadn't yet crossed. The difference made my power so much more frightening. That, and the fact necromancers could force the spirit to occupy a dead body. "Are you prepared for this, ma'am?"

  "Yes. Oh, yes, I have waited a long time." She seemed taller all of a sudden, younger, and a gleam lit up her eyes. "Do not disappoint me, Miss Holloway."

  "We will expect proof that you speak to my father," the prince said. "If you're lying to us…"

  I swallowed. "What is his full name?"

  "Francis Albert Augustus Charles Emmanuel of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha," the queen rattled off.

  I had to call him twice because I missed one of his names the first time. The second time, however, I breathed a sigh of relief as the mist coalesced in the corner of the room then floated toward me, slowly forming the shape of a distinguished looking man with a high forehead and impressive side whiskers. He looked around, first at me, then at the others in the room. He settled on the sofa near his widow and laid a hand over hers. She didn't respond.

  "Are you Albert, the Prince Consort?" I asked.

  The queen pressed her handkerchief to her chest and her gaze flicked around the room. "He's here? Where? Where?"

  "Sitting next to you." I nodded at the ghost.

  The queen tentatively put out a hand. It went right through him. "I can't feel him."

  The Prince of Wales rose. Hands behind his back, he bent toward the spirit, a deep frown on his brow. "Proof, Miss Holloway."

  Sir?" I prompted. "Are you the Prince Consort?"

  "I am he." The ghost had a faint German accent but a clear voice. He waved a hand in front of his widow's face. "Who are you?"

  "My name is Miss Holloway and this is Mr. Fitzroy. I'm a…I can summon spirits."

  "Clearly." He nodded at his widow. "Can she hear me?"

  "They can't see, hear or sense you. Only me. Sir, I must ask for some sign that you are indeed who you claim to be. For your loved ones."

  "I understand." I don't know what the prince died of, but he sported no obvious wounds that I could see. He rose and swirled before settling once more on the sofa. "I used to call her my sweet petal because she was a rose in a thorny garden. Parliament," he clarified. "It was a name for her ears only."

  "The spirit tells me that he called you sweet petal, ma'am," I said. "Does that—"

  The queen caught a single loud sob in her handkerchief. "Dear heart." She reached for him and for a moment I thought she could see his shape because she stroked his cheek. But as the prince moved, her hand passed through him. "I miss you terribly, my love. It's unbearable without you by my side."

  Both the Prince of Wales and the spirit glanced at me and then Lincoln. I understood their concern. It was awkward enough hearing the words of an unhappy widow to her dead husband, but hearing them from the monarch's lips made me feel like I'd committed treason. She looked vulnerable, sitting on the sofa in her widow's weeds, her eyes full.

  "Tell her…" The prince consort looked to the corner of the ceiling where I'd first seen him. "Tell her that my soul aches for her." He nodded at me when I hesitated.

  I repeated his words. The queen's sob filled the room.

  "She has grown rather fat," he sai
d. "Do not tell her that," he hastily added.

  "It has been some years since your death," I told him.

  "Twenty-eight years," his son said.

  "Twenty-eight long years," the queen added, her voice warbling.

  "That long?" Prince Albert's spirit stood and circled his son. "He looks older than me when I died. A fine looking fellow, though. Tell him that."

  I repeated his words for the Prince of Wales who seemed momentarily taken aback by the praise. "Er, thank you."

  "There is so much I must tell you," the queen said, pushing herself forward on the sofa. Gone was the regal bearing, the haughty tilt of her chin. She looked like any other elderly widow meeting a long lost loved one again. "Where to start? We have…" She counted on her fingers then shook her head. "I'm not entirely sure how many grandchildren. More than thirty. But our dearest Alice and Leo have both passed on. Oh! But you must know that! How are they?"

  "Er…" The ghost looked to me.

  "They're happy," I said for him. I didn't know if he communicated with other deceased persons, but I did know that it was important to the queen to think of them meeting their father in a better place. "Sir, we've summoned you here for a specific reason."

  "Not yet," the queen said. "I'm not ready. There's more news I must impart."

  Her son laid a hand on her shoulder. "Very little of it will be for Miss Holloway's and Mr. Fitzroy's ears."

  Her lips pinched, as if she suddenly remembered who she was and that we were nobodies. "You're right, Bertie. Go on, Miss Holloway. Let's get to the bottom of this mystery."

  "A seer known as Leisl approached the Prince of Wales last night," I began. "She claimed to have had a vision where you endangered his life."

  "Me?" The spirit shimmered. "How can that be when I have no physical form?"

  "We don't know," I said. "Do you have any ideas?"

  "Perhaps she's a crackpot."

  "She's not," I said. "She is a genuine seer."

  "How do you know?"

  "We know her to be truthful."

  Prince Albert grunted. "Very well, I shall take your word for it, Miss Holloway, but the truth is, she must be wrong on this score. I have no reason or desire to harm any one of my family. The very notion is absurd and abhorrent. Your seer must have misinterpreted what she saw."

  I repeated his words for the others.

  "There." The queen shot her son a speaking glance. "I knew it. The gypsy was wrong or mischief-making."

  "Wrong, perhaps," Lincoln said, "but not mischief-making. If she wanted to cause problems, she could have done so before now and in far more dramatic ways."

  The Prince of Wales stiffened and his eyes narrowed as he once again searched Lincoln's face. "What do you mean?"

  Lincoln calmly rose. He was taller than the prince, his shoulders broader, his frame leaner. Yet the prince didn't shy away. "Do you wish me to elaborate?" Lincoln asked. "Here?"

  The prince's jaw worked and he lowered his head. "It would seem we are no better off than when we started. The meaning behind Leisl's vision is still a mystery."

  "Your lady mentioned a break-in," Lincoln said. "What happened?"

  "Is that important?" the queen asked.

  "It may be."

  The Prince of Wales strode to the fireplace and rested his elbow on the mantel. "Not exactly a break-in. The palace is a hive of activity at all hours. Servants come and go. No one needs to break windows to get in, they simply need to act as if they ought to be here."

  The spirit strode to the window and looked out to the garden. "It never would have happened in my time."

  "Was anything taken?" Lincoln asked.

  "A portrait of the two of us taken shortly before…" The queen's lower lip quivered. "Before you became ill, my love," she said to the empty space beside her. I didn't have the heart to tell her he was no longer there.

  "I remember it," he said, coming to sit beside her again.

  "I kept it on the side table in the small music room."

  "Was anything else taken?" Lincoln asked.

  "Not that we noticed." The Prince of Wales glanced around the rather cluttered room. There were so many things—how would they even know if one little picture went missing?

  "My private letters were disturbed," the queen said.

  "What?" her son bellowed. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "That is no way to address your queen," the ghost said at the same time his widow said, "Do not speak to me in such a manner, Bertie."

  "Apologies," the Prince of Wales said tightly.

  "I didn't think it important until now." She dabbed her handkerchief to her nose. "Nothing was taken, you see."

  "You mentioned a genuine medium earlier," Lincoln said. "Were you never tempted to commission her to contact your husband?"

  "The queen is above that sort of thing," the Prince of Wales said.

  "I did make inquiries, as it happens." The queen's short, blunt hands screwed up her handkerchief. "I never told you, Bertie, because I knew you wouldn't approve. In fact, I've consulted no less than five mediums. The first four were all frauds. I knew that almost immediately. The fifth, the one recommended by my friend, was different. First of all, she was reluctant to come here. When I insisted, she obliged, but refused payment. We wandered the palace and gardens for hours, but she sensed no spirits. She explained that she can only communicate with spirits who have not crossed to their afterlife. Spirits who linger here usually have something they need to do before they move on, a score to settle. Since she couldn't see my husband's spirit, she said that meant he had died a contented man and departed this realm."

  Two sets of living eyes and a pair of dead ones fixed on me.

  "If that's the case," the Prince of Wales said slowly, "how can you speak to my father, Miss Holloway?"

  It would seem I had to admit it after all. I glanced at Lincoln, but he offered no guidance. He was leaving the decision to me. "I am not a medium," I told them. "I am something rarer, known as a necromancer. I can summon a spirit no matter where they are."

  "Remarkable," both princes murmured.

  "The name of this medium?" Lincoln asked the queen.

  She tore her stunned gaze away from me. "Why do you need to know it when she wasn't able to see my husband's spirit?"

  "I like to know things," he said simply.

  She pressed her fingers to her temple and closed her eyes. "I don't recall her name but she's married to the heir of the Preston viscountcy."

  "I know the current viscount," the Prince of Wales said. "Beaufort is the family name."

  "That's it! Mrs. Emily Beaufort."

  "There was some scandal a few years back where the heir married a common girl whose coloring was, shall we say, not typically English."

  "I found her to be quite charming," the queen said.

  I knew her too. Or, at least, knew of her. She was listed in our archives. While I didn't have a memory as good as Lincoln's, her name had stuck with me because of her link to the Preston viscountcy. There were very few peers of the realm with supernatural abilities.

  "Is there anything else we ought to know about the break-in?" Lincoln asked. "Or any other unusual events at the palace that may have a bearing on Leisl's vision?"

  "Not that I can think of," the queen said. "Bertie?"

  He shook his head, but did not meet her gaze.

  "Miss Holloway and I will take our leave." Lincoln nodded at me. "Send His Highness's spirit back, Charlie."

  "No!" the queen cried, attempting to push herself out of the sofa only to fail and give up. "No, you mustn't. I'm not ready. We have so much to discuss."

  "He can't stay," the Prince of Wales said.

  "Why not?"

  "Tell her we will be together again one day," Prince Albert's ghost said to me. "Tell her I cannot stay but I'll hear her if she speaks to my spirit when she's alone. That ought to curb her grief somewhat."

  I repeated his words then ordered him to return to his afterlife. His mist swirled o
nce around the room then disappeared through the ceiling. The queen's eyes watered and her chin trembled. Her son made no move to comfort her.

  "Allow me to escort you out," he said to us.

  I bobbed a curtsy at the queen but she simply turned her shoulder to me and poured silent tears into her handkerchief. We left with the Prince of Wales.

  A footman stood by the door, his face bland. The prince dismissed him and walked with us back through the palace.

  "You held something back," Lincoln said. "What was it?"

  The prince regarded him levelly. "You're used to making demands, aren't you? And having them carried out?"

  Lincoln's steady gaze faltered. He hadn't expected the prince to get his measure so quickly. "My men prefer to remain in my good graces."

  "And Miss Holloway? Does she do as you order?"

  Lincoln's shoulders went rigid. "She has a mind that is not easily swayed when it's made up."

  I huffed out a laugh then bit my tongue. I'd found myself in the middle of a battle of wills between father and son, and it might be best to be as insignificant as possible to allow them to get on with it.

  "Good for you, Miss Holloway," the prince said. "A fellow should always have at least one person who can stand up to him, otherwise he becomes too arrogant."

  "Yes, sir," I said, sounding utterly stupid.

  "As to your question, Fitzroy." The prince lowered his voice. "You are correct. There is something else, and I didn't want to upset Her Majesty more. Only a few days ago, a man came here and demanded to see her. Her lady in waiting—can't recall which one now—thought it best that she not be troubled so summoned me in the queen's stead. It was obvious to the lady that Her Majesty would be disturbed by the visitor." The prince's pace slowed, and he once again checked behind us. He stopped altogether, and so did we. "You see," the prince said quietly, "the man claimed to be my father."

  Chapter 4

  "Good lord," I said. "Did you have him arrested?"

  The prince shook his head. "I told him to go away and never return. I…I couldn't bring myself to summon the police."