“Oh, surely not! You cannot be so confident you have excess soul.” Alexia would have offered to ensure exorcism, but Genevieve had been so angry when she performed the service for Angelique.

“No, you are correct. I have been traveling, researching, studying, trying to find a way to extend my aunt’s afterlife. But there is nothing.” Her tone was anguished, that of a scientist who sees a problem but no solution.

“Oh, but you have done your level best! You have given her years, far longer than any ghost has a right to expect.”

“Years for what? Humiliation and madness?” Genevieve took a breath, then placed her hand over Alexia’s where it stroked her arm, stilling the movement. “I do apologize, my lovely Alexia. This is not your burden. You still wish to speak to her?”

“Would she talk to me, do you think?”

“We can but try.”

Lady Maccon nodded and attempted to shrug herself out of her normally regal posture, trying to be less overbearing and physically threatening. She didn’t want to scare the ghost. Not that a woman in her corpulent condition boasted so fearsome a visage.

Madame Lefoux yelled, her normally melodious voice sharp, “Aunt, where are you? Aunt!”

Several moments later, a ghostly form shimmered into existence out of the side of a conveyer belt spool, looking grumpy.

“Yes, Niece, you summoned me?” Formerly Beatrice Lefoux had been in life an angular spinster of severe attitude and limited affection. She might once have been pretty but obviously never allowed herself, nor others, to enjoy that fact. There was much of her in Madame Lefoux, tempered by a level of good humor and mischief that the aunt had never bothered to cultivate. The specter was beginning to go fuzzy, not so badly as Alexia’s ghostly messenger but enough for it to be clear she wasn’t long for this world.

As soon as she spotted Lady Maccon, the ghost drew herself inward, appearing to wrap the drifting threads of her noncorporeal self closer, as a werewolf wraps his cloak around after shifting.

“Why, you have the soulless visiting you, Niece. Honestly, I don’t know why you persist in such an association.” The ghost’s voice was bitter, but more out of habit than any real offense. Then she seemed to lose track of what she was saying. “Where? What? Where am I? Genevieve, why, you are so old. Where is my little girl?” She swirled in a circle. “You have built an octomaton? I said never again. What could possibly be so dire?” As she spoke, the ghost shifted between French and heavily accented English. Luckily, Alexia was tolerably competent in both.

Madame Lefoux, her expression stiff in an attempt to hide distress, snapped her fingers in front of her deceased aunt’s face. “Now, Aunt, please pay attention. Lady Maccon here has something very serious to ask of you. Go on, Alexia.”

“Formerly Lefoux, are you familiar with the attempt on Queen Victoria’s life that took place in the winter of 1853? A Scottish werewolf pack was implicated. It was a matter of poison.”