Page 20 of With the Key in the Office

Vanderflit exhaled and some tired muscle in his jaw relaxed. “Not everyone who looks suspicious is your enemy,” he said. “Sometimes they’re the only thing keeping you safe.” He cast a sharp glance toward the window where the glass showed us our own reflections and refused to show us anything else. “The thief is still out there. Whoever used Cendi’s face knew what they were doing. Keep your lists. Keep your heads. Let the right people do their jobs.”

“We will,” Jessie said, and the steadiness in her tone made the promise ring.

“Good,” he answered. He looked back at Maple. “Send me an email when you do the spell again and I’ll be here to make sure you are not disturbed."

Maple nodded. “I can do that.”

11

CENDI

The followingmorning in the library was peaceful. Light streamed through the windows, painting everything in a gentle glow. The hum from last night’s lattice spell settled into a steady hush that felt more like breathing than noise. If I were to guess, I’d say that Maple had set everything back to the way it was supposed to. It felt nice.

It also felt nice that we were wrong about Maple.

Jessie spread our notes across a corner table. Notes that would have to be reworked now that Maple wasn’t a suspect. Robbie brought tea because he thinks best with a warm cup. Jaylyn lined up the spectral primers we had checked out and kept the one on mimicry close by.

We had just started arguing over whether glamour residue leaves a trace you can swab when the doors swung open, and Drew and Ava stepped in together with the kind of focus that changes a room. I was beginning to realize that hunters usually did that. Drew lifted a hand in greeting and headed straight for us. Ava paused long enough to trade a quiet word with Maple, who relaxed a fraction, before joining our table.

“Good,” Drew said, dropping into the chair beside Jessie as if he had been assigned there. “You’re all here already. Saves us a sweep. We need to move the case forward.”

“Yes please,” Jessie said, actually sounding relieved by the offer of help from a hunter. “We would love a break from guessing.”

Ava set a thin folder on the table and flipped it open with two fingers. “We ran a reconstruction on the office where the theft started,” she said. “The echo reads humanoid, which we knew. It does not read as dead.” She looked straight at me. “Whatever wore your face did not belong to the ghost register.”

We had kind of already come to that conclusion, but it was nice to at least completely rule out the presence of a ghost, even if we were still left with more questions than answers. Why in the world would anyone pretend to be a ghost, look like me, and steal the key? It didn’t make any sense.

Jessie threaded her fingers together. “So if it is not a ghost, we are left with what?”

I stared, feeling helpless. “I have no idea.”

Robbie glanced at me and then back to the file. “Too bad we don’t know a ghost we could ask.”

Ava looked more pleased than surprised. “I brought one,” she said. She turned toward the shadowed high corner where the stacks met the east wall and softened her tone as if speaking to an old friend. “Granddad, if you can spare a moment, I could use your wisdom.”

A moment later, a man formed where no one had been standing a second before, as if stepping through a curtain we couldn’t see. He wore a suit that had been new the year cars got tailfins, hairparted by habit and pomade, eyes bright and amused. He looked at the chalk remnant near Maple’s desk and nodded to himself, then turned to Ava with a fondness that could have lit a different room without help.

“Ava,really, calling me to the library?” he said, then caught himself and added with a wry glance at our faces, “which is not an insult, Miss Maple, I swear it. My granddaughter knows I’m weak for good bindings.”

“Mr. Lynn,” Maple said, hand to her pendant out of reflex, not fear. “You may haunt wherever you please.”

He winked and drifted closer, no dramatic float, only the absence of footfall. “Call me Lynn.”

Ava tilted a chair and he sat, or pretended to, and the chair humored him. She rested a hand on the back like a tether. “Granddad, this is Cendi, Jessie, Robbie, and Jaylyn,” she said. “Can you explain to them what it’s like being a ghost and the rules, for lack of a better term.”

Lynn folded phantom hands on the table and considered us. ““Happy to oblige.”

Jessie nodded. “Will you start with the limits? What you can and cannot do?”

“Of course. I can touch objects and carry them, move them. I am bound to the castle for it was my home before I died. I cannot shapeshift at all. No ghost can.”

“So my double who took the key,” I said, trying to keep my tone more curious than raw, “could not have been you or anyone like you.”

“Not without help. Changes are possible with magic,” he said. “And also it won’t work without an agreement with the ghost you’re working with. We have pride.” He looked at Ava and softened. “I also wouldn’t help because I have a granddaughter who would kick me down the stairs if I did something so foolish.”

Ava snorted. “Accurate.”

Jaylyn skimmed her notes without dropping her attention. “If a witch worked with a ghost,” she asked, “what could they change?”