A Midwinter Fantasy - Leanna Renee Hieber [10]
Michael picked up his tankard and followed her. As they both set their cups down upon a side table near the washbasin, the two turned to look at each other. “Truly, how are you?” they both asked at once. Percy smiled. Michael chuckled.
“You first,” Michael prompted. “As I’m not sure I want to know what those spirits said, do tell me of your recent life. Be honest.”
Percy’s moonbeam eyes sparkled. “I’m very well . . . though I’m often reminding Alexi that he’s just as impressive as he’s always been, that he’s just as important. The world needs mathematicians as much as it needs ghost hunters. More perhaps.” She chuckled. “My, how he does like being in charge.”
“Just think, my dear Percy, how long he’s been in relative control of everything. He was tasked with directing our little group from the start. That control first slipped when we fumbled over Prophecy, when we met you, and it’s been sorely tried ever since. He’s had little opportunity to impress you, to show you our work when it was humming with maximum efficiency under his leadership. There was a time we were like machines in a divine factory,” Michael promised her with a smile. “And he does so love to impress you.”
Percy blushed. “But he already did, long before I ever knew about the Grand Work or The Guard. I’m waiting for him to trust me that I fell in love with him as a professor, not leader of a force against the supernatural.”
“It will take time for him to adjust,” Michael said. “In the meantime, I assume he’d like to orchestrate your every move? Though I must say, you handle him brilliantly.”
Percy shared his half smirk. “Alexi’s restrained himself from giving me direct orders, but takes great care to make sure I’m always comfortable, always provided for and always supported. I cannot say I mind. It’s rather sweet to have a man like him doting. Especially in my condition,” she said, brushing her abdomen. “Now, your turn. You’ll not play the counselor and avoid being counseled.”
Michael clenched his jaw, not wanting to speak of it. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
Percy knowingly shook her head. “But you two have already begun.” She’d been the one to encourage him to confess his feelings to Rebecca in the first place, there in that darkened Athens foyer. Percy had been directly invested in this matter since she was first aware of it.
“Have we? Begun, I mean? It was a desperate time. We’ve not seen one another since we laid Jane to rest, all of us fiddling and making uncomfortable small talk, stifled by grief . . . It’s been like none of us knows each other anymore.”
“Alexi and Elijah were at each other again. I’d say life’s returning to normal.”
Michael bit his lip and gave in to temptation. “All right, I can’t bear it. What did the spirits say about me?”
Percy smiled. “Are you a fan of Dickens?”
Michael blinked. “Of course. I’d have liked to have recruited him for The Guard, were we around forty-odd years ago. Who isn’t a fan of Dickens?”
“Oh, Alexi, for one,” Percy laughed. “He claims the man a consummate fraud in ghostly matters, but I think dear Charles is rather to the point. I suppose the poor man could have used a Guard to relieve him of his three plaguing spirits, but then we’d never have such a wonderful story.”
Michael nodded, then paused, eyeing her. “But wait . . . What are you aiming at?” Dickens? Christmas? Ghosts? His uneasiness mounted.
Percy continued. “It would seem that spirits are interested in turning the tide. Reversing the roles. Rather than corralling spirits, as you used to do, they’ll corral you. For a time.”
Michael furrowed his brow. “Turn the tide? Whose tide?”
“Why, yours of course. They want to see you happy.”
“Do they?”
“Oh, yes. My friend, Constance, she understands this situation all too well. I’ve missed her desperately.” Percy offered a tiny, sad laugh. “The danger of having spirits for friends. You wish them peace but then, when they find it, you’re terribly lonely without them.”
Michael’s heart swelled. It wasn’t the first time he’d wondered