My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)(99)

“Oh.” Miss Eyre frowned. “I suppose that’s true.”

“Mr. Blackwood, I believe I was the one announcing the plan.” Miss Bront? stuck her hand on her hip.

“Go home, Miss Bront?.”

She rolled her eyes. “As I was saying, we’re definitely not storming the palace, since Jane can get us in the front door with a lot less mess. But we’re going to call it storming the palace, because that sounds far more exciting. And once we’ve stormed the palace, we get the ring off Mr. Mitten’s finger. Somehow. Possibly by magic.”

“And that’s it?” Rochester looked dubious. “We just walk in and take the ring from him. In front of his guards and all the court. I don’t see how this will work.”

Mrs. Rochester sat up straight. “Magic! Le Livre de l’esprit errance. We distract everyone with ghosts.”

Miss Eyre frowned.

“They’d have to be able to see ghosts first,” Branwell said, “and we can’t do that without briefly killing them, and what if we mess up? I don’t want to permanently kill someone.”

“We can make them see ghosts, though.” Mrs. Rochester clasped her hands together. “Miss Eyre and I can ask the ghosts of London to join us in the palace, and when the time is right, we make everyone see the dead. That’s when we seize the opportunity to remove the ring from the king’s finger. Voilà!”

“But how?” Miss Bront? glanced around the room, looking vaguely where Miss Burns sat. (She knew Miss Burns had been there, at least, because people kept looking there.) A longing filled her gaze. “How can non-seers see ghosts?”

“Le Livre de l’esprit errance,” said Mrs. Rochester. “With this, we could make everyone see ghosts. But it can be dangerous. People do not always react well to seeing the dead. There will be chaos.”

Miss Eyre lifted a hand. “I—”

“But we want a little chaos,” said Branwell. “To distract everyone while we wrest the ring from the king.” He paused a moment. “I’m a poet, Charlie.”

“Don’t call me Charlie.”

“But—”

“I do rather like this plan,” said Alexander. “Seeing all the ghosts of London—that’s certainly not something anyone would expect to see in the royal court.”

“Unless they’re also seers!” Miss Burns beamed.

“Then they’d be working for the Society,” Alexander said. “Wellington never met a seer he didn’t want to control.”

“Except me.” Branwell shrugged. “It’s all right, though. Really. I quite like being a parson. Blessing sermons and writing babies.”

“I—”

“So we need the Le Livre de l’esprit errance.” Rochester turned to his wife. “Do you know where Wellington keeps that, my love?”

Miss Eyre opened her mouth, but Mrs. Rochester was faster.

“I’m afraid the Le Livre de l’esprit errance is quite impossible to obtain, mon chéri.” Mrs. Rochester dropped her eyes. “He keeps it locked in a room guarded by a three-headed dog, which drops into a pit of strangling vines, followed by a life-or-death life-size game of chess, which opens into a room with a locked door and a hundred keys on wings, and then there’s a mirror. . . .”

Branwell gasped. “That’s horrible! That poor three-headed dog!”

“I bet he just keeps it in his desk,” Alexander said. “Are you sure that obstacle course of death isn’t something else?”

Mrs. Rochester tilted her head. “Oh, I think you’re right.”

Miss Eyre stood up. “I—”

“Even if the book is located in his desk,” Miss Bront? said, “it might as well be behind a hungry lion. How will we get into the Society?”

“Miss Eyre might be able to get it,” Alexander said.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” She put her hands on her hips. “I have the Book of the Dead with me.”

“What!” Alexander lurched to his feet. “Why didn’t you lead with that? The Book of the Dead is our biggest asset! This changes everything.”

Miss Eyre let out a huge sigh, then retreated to her crate room, and when she returned, she carried the Book of the Dead. “I took it to the castle—”

“Palace,” Miss Bront? muttered.

“—with me to make the king able to see the tree ghost and I didn’t have time to give it back before Helen told me you were all outside and that Wellington was evil.” Miss Eyre smiled and opened the book. “Here, we can practice. I’ll read this, and Charlotte, if you can see Helen, then it works!”

“All right.” Miss Bront? stood and straightened her dress. “I’m ready.”

Miss Burns stood, too—right in front of Miss Bront?.

Miss Eyre read the incantation aloud: “‘Ostende nobis quod est post mortem! Nos videre praestrigiae!’”

Miss Bront? jumped. Of course. Because Miss Burns was standing right in front of her, grinning widely.

“Helen?” Miss Bront?’s soft voice was filled with excitement as she looked right at the resident ghost. “You look just like Jane’s paintings.”