“Indeed.” Alexia’s practical side was pleased at the two Alphas’ respective similarities, because constant exposure to her husband had given her the necessary skills for handling the dewan.

She and Lord Akeldama wafted—or, in Alexia’s case, toddled—in and took seats at the long mahogany table, leaving the dewan to continue his pacing unmolested.

Lady Maccon snapped open the lid of her dispatch case and extracted her harmonic auditory resonance disruptor. The spiky little apparatus looked like two tuning forks sticking out of a bit of crystal. While Alexia rummaged about for further necessities, Lord Akeldama tapped one fork with his finger, waited a moment, and then tapped the other. This resulted in a discordant, low-pitched humming, amplified by the crystal. It would prevent their conversation from being overheard.

“Serious, do you think? This threat? One to be taken seriously?”

The dewan ought to have been handsome with his dark hair and deep-set eyes, but his mouth was a little too full, the cleft in his chin a little too pronounced, and his mustache and muttonchops excessively aggressive. This facial hair had initially given Alexia much distress. Why? was the question. Most gentlemen went clean-shaven into immortality’s long night. Poor Biffy had had to wait in scruffy purgatory until Alexia returned home from her European tour and turned him mortal long enough to shave. Professor Lyall had reportedly been kind and sympathetic during that most trying of times.

Lady Maccon took out her notes on the ghostly event and closed her dispatch case. She had attempted to remember and transcribe everything the specter said to her. “The threat came to me via a ghost messenger. I think we must treat it with slightly greater significance than we would some blundering daylight opportunist with a taste to become the next darling of the anarchist press.”

Lord Akeldama added, “And, my sweetlings, if a supernatural told of the threat to a preternatural, it is likely that something or someone equally unnatural is involved.”

The dewan sucked at his teeth. “Very serious.”

Lord Akeldama sat back and rested the tips of his long white fingers on the table before him. It was a gesture oddly reminiscent of his predecessor.

Alexia continued. “Greatly mysterious as well. My husband says that BUR records show nothing on this ghost. We’ve been unable to locate either her or her corpse since she delivered the message.” Alexia had no compunction about involving the two disparate arms of Her Majesty’s supernatural supervisory operations, nor tapping into the advantages afforded by her position as wife to BUR’s chief officer. So far as she was concerned, bureaucratic restrictions were all very well in their place, but they couldn’t be allowed to limit efficiency. So while BUR was supposed to handle enforcement and the Shadow Council deal with legislative issues, Alexia was actively causing the two to become ever more entangled.

This was largely held to be one of the reasons Queen Victoria had appointed her muhjah in the first place.

The dewan was suspicious. “Why was the message delivered to you? And why use a ghost? Most are instinctively afraid of you because of what you are and what you can do.”