Danny didn't know what to do for Vivian. Not being able to really touch her took away a lot of options, and she didn't seem to be listening to him. She kept trying to say something - or maybe a lot of things - but Danny couldn't hear her, and–
His cousin was dead. She'd been twenty-five.
She was dead, and she was here, a ghost, having a breakdown. Danny sat down on the floor in front of where she was kneeling, hoping he could at least remind her that he was here that way.
The ghosts were watching, their eyes bright pinpricks as the sun went down and the dining room was cast into shadow. They kept a respectful distance.
"Vivian," tried Danny again, once it seemed that Vivian wasn't shaking quite so much. "Vivian, I know this is- this is scary, and you probably don't understand what's going on. I don't either, all that much, but… Can you try to tell me what… Tell me how you got here? What happened?"
Slowly, Vivian looked up. When she had been alive, her eyes had been that soft, almost violet blue that was common in the royal family (which, yes, was because of inbreeding; just because it was true didn't mean Danny liked to think about it). Now, they were a watery, faded, but somehow still cutting magenta. Their weak glow glittered on the tears she'd shed.
She hugged herself.
"I'm sorry," said Danny. "I'm so sorry. If I had–" If he had what? He'd only just gotten here. Vivian might have been dead since she went missing. "I'm sorry you're dead."
Vivian flinched.
"I'm sorry," whispered Danny, miserable. "But, maybe, if I can figure out what happened, we can stop whoever it was from doing it again."
Vivian chewed her lip, then nodded. She held out her right hand, the one with the bracelet. Vivian was in the direct line to the throne. Prince Theodore, her grandfather, had been the heir. In the normal course of things, Vivian would have eventually taken the throne. She'd even been preparing for the trials.
Her position came with certain traditional roles. One of those roles was keeping track of the Lesser Seal of Avlynys and one of the Great Gate Keys. William had kept them on a necklace, when it was his turn. Vivian tended to switch them between a necklace and her bracelet.
Spectral copies of both hung from Vivian's wrist. The usually-emerald gem on the key - the central element to an eye design - had gone as pink as Vivian's eyes, the pond-and-tree design on the seal wavered as Danny looked at it, and both items looked as pale and washed out as Vivian, but they were recognizable.
More importantly, Vivian's wrist was torn and bleeding under the bracelet. Her skin was bruised, a sickly greenish color. As Danny watched, the damage swept up her arm and over her whole body. Her clothing was torn. One of her eyes was swollen shut. Her jacket and shoes were missing. Her skirt was–
Danny returned his eyes to her face, then her hand.
Despite all her other injuries, Vivian's hand and wrist showed the most damage. It looked like someone had been trying to rip the bracelet off of her, and had been willing to break her arm to do it.
"They wanted the seal?" asked Danny. "Or the key?"
Vivian nodded, and the signs of her death bled away. Did Vivian even know she'd done that? Danny wasn't exactly an expert on ghost formation, but it seemed a bit early for shapeshifting, even with something minor.
"And then you came here?" asked Danny. "Or did you form here?"
Vivian sucked her lips in. She looked like she was trying not to start crying again.
"Sorry," said Danny, quickly. "Sorry, was that insensitive? That was insensitive, I won't–"
Vivian shook her head and looked away for a moment, seeming to survey the other ghosts. Some of them waved at her, others tapped their own wrists or pointed at Danny. The woman with braids pointed at her eye, then Danny, then her wrist.
There was something else. Why wouldn't Vivian show Danny?
Vivian turned back to him, shoulders slumped. She mouthed something at him. The only words Danny could make out were don't and you. And he could only figure out that last one because Vivian reached out to him when she said it.
"I'll be okay," said Danny. "Promise." And then, because Vivian was family, not a stranger, and she wasn't going to rat him out to his parents or the GIW, he transformed.
The ghosts went completely and utterly still for a moment, then exploded into motion, some of them grabbing onto and shaking each other. They seemed excited.
Danny still couldn't hear them.
Vivian stared, eyes wide and stunned.
"See?" said Danny. "I've– It's like I have super powers, right? I'll be okay. Really."
Vivian nodded slowly. She raised her hand again and flipped over the key, to face the decorative gem away from Danny. A simple compass was engraved on the head. Vivian then adjusted her grip on the key until it was horizontal.
The spoke of the compass nearest Danny lit up.
Danny had seen more impressive ghost powers before, but he was still curious. "So, does it show you where you need to go, or…?" Despite himself, despite knowing that he wouldn't be able to touch, he reached for the key. His fingers brushed against it, and the key dropped to the floor with a clatter.
"What?" hissed Danny. He'd been pretty sure he'd been figuring out the rules to this, but what?
He picked up the key. It felt solid. It looked real, not immaterial like it had been on Vivian's bracelet, and the gem was green again.
Vivian tried to take it, but while her fingers stopped against it, she couldn't get any purchase, and when Danny tried to put it in her hand, it fell through her palm and onto the ground again.
"That's… weird," said Danny. He held the key horizontally. The compass didn't light up. "Great. I'm sorry for breaking… I don't know. I don't know what's going on." He ran his hand through his hair. Maybe if he knew more about Avlynys, he'd at least have some context. "Is this the original? Did we teleport this here? Is it a copy?"
Vivian shrugged at him. She didn't seem any happier… of course, she wouldn't be happy anyway. Dying was… bad.
The sound of a door opening startled Danny, and he snapped back to his human form, suddenly paranoid about being seen, and shoved the key into his pocket. The ghosts must have heard it too, because, except for Vivian and the woman with braids, they all flitted through the walls, towards the front of the manor.
"I'm going to see who that is," said Danny, quietly. He backtracked through the kitchen, not wanting to use his powers in an unfamiliar environment unless he had to. He didn't know where the bathrooms were, for one.
Yeah. Better safe than sorry.
"-can't just decide things unilaterally!" A pause. "Of course I still support you, I've always supported you in this, you know that, but we need to do things the right way, and that hasn't. Changed."
Danny peered around the doorframe into the entryway. Matthew was standing there, in a long coat and rather rumpled suit. There was a pin on his lapel with the same eye design as Vivian's Great Gate Key, but it was cracked clean through, part of the enamel falling out. His hair looked like it had been slicked back with product sometime in the last few days, then not cared for since then. A series of pimples lurked in the stubbly beginnings of a beard. At least one of them had been scratched through and was still sluggishly bleeding. He was speaking into a phone, trying to get his shoes off one-handed.
"Yes, we do need stability, but upending our rules isn't the way to go about it– We need to modernize, not turn ourselves into another tax haven for– If you haven't noticed, I'm not king. And even if I were, I wouldn't make upending– You do realize my position as a prince is different from that of a common business owner– No, I'm not calling you common, I'm talking about my own business interests. I'm well aware that you have a ti– Ancestors watch me, Skyppa, are you really going to take offense over thinking I called you a commoner? Which one of us is living in the fifteen hundreds now?"
A movement caught his eye, and Danny watched one of the ghosts double over in laughter. Maybe it was funnier in-context.
"Do you actually have any relevant Assembly business to talk about, or are you just trying to use a national and personal tragedy to promote your own interests? Which is something I wouldn't appreciate even if I did agree with you wholeheartedly. Which I don't."
Danny could hear someone, presumably Skyppa, shout, "I'll remember this!" on the other side of the line. Then there was a protracted moment of silence, and then Matthew pulled his phone away from his face, looking at it with clear disgust.
"I'll remember this, too," he muttered.
"Matthew?" Danny called, stepping into the room. "Are you okay?"
Matthew stared blankly at him for a moment. "Oh," he said, blinking. "Danny. Does that mean your branch of the family is here?"
"Not Aunt Alicia, yet," said Danny.
"She would be hard to get a hold of," said Matthew.
Danny nodded. Spitoon wasn't an easy place to get to. "What was that?" he asked. "With the phone."
Matthew grimaced, the motion putting on the dark circles under his eyes. "Julius Skippa. Member of the Assembly. Wants me to change the throne's requirements for foreign businesses so we can 'start fixing things.' Usually I'm sympathetic - I want more international business - but it isn't as if this happened because we don't have Walmarts…" He rubbed a hand over his face. "I'm sorry you had to see that. Have you seen Iris and George?"
"No," said Danny. "I've only seen Joanna." And Vivian. And dozens of ghosts.
Oh, god, no one else knew Vivian was dead. How was he supposed to let everyone know? He had to let everyone know. They still thought she was just missing.
"Have you heard anything about Vivian?" he asked, timidly.
"No," said Matthew. "We– It'll be best to get the whole family together to explain. Can you help me find everyone?"
"I think they're mostly asleep. In the bedrooms," he added.
"Alright," said Matthew. "Could you get them? And then… I think the dining room would be best." He forced a smile. "I need a… moment. And I don't think I'd survive waking Madelin up like this."
"Sure," said Danny.
When he looked away from Matthew, it was to see all the ghosts, except Vivian, pointing at their eyes and their hearts. That was incredibly ominous and also incomprehensible.
"Is something wrong?" asked Matthew.
"No," said Danny. He walked through the ghosts. He'd have to figure out what was going on there eventually… But first he wanted to hear what Matthew had to say.
