She sat up, reaching for her hairbrush where it lay on the nightstand. “What if I were to command you,” she said, “to brush out my hair? Jessamine does it sometimes—”
His smile was long and lazy. “I am yours to command.”
She handed him the brush and turned around, dangling her legs off the end of the bed. She felt him move behind her, kneeling, his hand lifting the heavy coil of her brown hair to loosen it over her shoulders.
“Long ago,” he said in a low voice, “when Grace first came to us, I used to brush her hair out at night. My mother had no interest in doing it, and otherwise it would tangle and snarl, and Grace would cry.”
Lucie leaned back as the heavy brush slid through her hair, followed by his fingers. It felt decadent, luxurious to be touched like this. His hand grazed the nape of her neck, sending shivers up her spine. Not at all like when Jessamine did it.
“Grace must have been just a child when she first came to you,” she said.
“She was a slip of a thing. Terrified. Remembered almost nothing about her parents. I think, if my mother had loved her, Grace would have devoted herself entirely to my mother’s wishes and goals. But—” She sensed him shaking his head. “I was all Grace had. Sometimes I think that’s why I came back as I did. I do not remember death itself, but I do remember waking out of it. I had heard Grace crying in her sleep and knew I must go to her. I have always been all she has. It is why I cannot bear to tell her—”
He broke off. Lucie turned; he was kneeling on the bedcovers, the brush in one hand, his expression frozen between guilt and alarm.
“That you are fading,” she said quietly. “That you have been, slowly, since you gave your last breath to save my brother.”
He set the brush aside. “You know?”
She thought of the way his hand had faded against hers in the carriage, the way he had gone part-transparent when he was angry, as if he lacked the energy to appear whole.
“I guessed it,” she whispered. “It is why I have been so desperate—I am afraid. Jesse, if you fade, will I ever see you again?”
“I don’t know.” His green gaze was stark. “I fear it as anyone would fear dying, and I know as little about what waits on the other side of the great gate.”
She laid her hand on his wrist. “Do you trust me?”
He managed a smile. “Most of the time.”
She turned fully, so that her hands were on his shoulders. “I want to command you to live.”
He jerked in surprise; she felt the movement under her hands. She was as close to him as she had been the night they danced. “Lucie. There are limits. I cannot be commanded to do what is impossible.”
“Let us forget, just for a moment, what is possible and impossible,” Lucie said. “It may do nothing; it may make you stronger. But I cannot live with myself if I do not try.”
She did not mention the animals she had tried this experiment on, or her unsuccessful attempts to call back Jesse himself while he slept in his coffin. But—unlike the animals—Jesse occupied a place between life and death and was therefore unpredictable; perhaps she needed him there, consciously alongside her, to raise him properly. She thought of the Regency ghost again, after she had commanded him to forget. There had been a look of peace on his face that had startled her.
There was a long pause. “All right,” Jesse said. There was uncertainty in his eyes, but his cheeks were flushed; she knew it was not real blood, real heat, but it made her spirits lift nevertheless. Other ghosts did not blush, or touch, or shiver. Jesse was already different. “Try.”
She settled back on her heels. She was quite a bit smaller than he was, and felt slight indeed as she laid her palms against his chest. She could feel the fabric of his shirt, the hard solidity of him.
“Jesse,” she said softly. “Jesse Rupert Blackthorn. I command you to breathe. To return to yourself. Live.”
He gasped. She had never heard a ghost gasp, or imagined it, and for a moment her heart soared. His green eyes widened, and he caught at her shoulder—his grip was hard, almost painful.
“Knit your soul with your body,” she said. “Live, Jesse. Live.”
His eyes went black. And suddenly she was falling, struggling in a complete, choking darkness. There was no light—no, there was light in the distance, flickering, the wan light of an illuminated doorway. She struggled to catch at something to arrest her fall.
Jesse. Where was Jesse? She could see nothing but darkness. She thought of James: Was this what it was like to fall into shadow? This terrible, alien, unmoored feeling?