After Ned died—very loudly and theatrically—Blake tried to teach him to walk like a ghostly cavalier. The lesson was not successful.
Ned might look like a ghost now, his skin a luminous white thanks to something Blake had called bismuth, but he was incapable of moving like either a cavalier or a ghost. Blake minced in high-heeled court shoes; Ned clomped in the cavalier’s high-heeled boots. Blake strolled elegantly; Ned clomped. Blake wafted; Ned clomped.
Dex held Eloïse’s hand and watched. Part of him wanted Ned gone, so that he and Eloïse could slip away and talk. The rest of him wanted the lesson to last forever, because he was afraid that an enchantment lay over the costume room and that when they stepped out into the corridor the spell would break and she would stop holding his hand
