Our plan was easier to put into action than I had feared. As soon as the sun touched the horizon over the western hills, a tingle in my wrist announced a paranormal visitor, and Sir Guillaume lowered himself through the ceiling into the room. This mode of emergence offered us an interesting view of his bottom side, including his chain mail chausses and the padded underpants he wore beneath. They could have done with a washing, but I refrained from telling him—I didn't want to offend our potential saviour. Besides, I did not know if a ghost's garments were washable at all.

The knight bowed with his usual flourish but didn't lose time on flattery today. "Lady Sandrine, may I enquire after your encounter with the Roman ghost?"

"Well, we met her, and she's quite a beautiful young ghost lady." I had to suppress a laugh when his eyes lit up. Guillaume was an incorrigible ladies' man. "Unfortunately, she was not very communicative. Although Lou pointed out this might be because she only speaks Latin. None of us do, just to make things clear."

"Latin?" The knight threw out his breast and spread his arms. "A most fascinating language, I dare say. Alea iacta est and in vino veritas."

While even I understood these rather banal phrases, I doubted they would help much in our situation. "Well, yes, I'm sure the dice has rolled and that there's always truth in wine, but we will need more than a few proverbs to learn why young Cinna, if that's her name, haunts the depot of the Avenches museum two thousand years after her death."

Guillaume's eyes glowed, and I was sure I had his attention now. "You want me to translate? It will be my honour—but what if I cease to exist as soon as I leave the castle?" He crossed his arms and slumped into an armchair, his lips pressed tight and his forehead creased.

"I can't imagine you stop to exist because of talking to a Roman girl ghost." I tried to reason with him. "As long as you stay with the object you're bound to and don't finish whatever business you still have open in this world, your ghostly self should be safe and sound. The problem is that you have to help us find the thing that keeps you anchored among the living and bound to this place."

"What if I'm bound to the castle itself? You cannot move the walls."

"I doubt it's the entire castle. But you tell me. We could bring a brick or even a block of masonry to Avenches, but it would get more complicated if it's a something heavy like or part of the masonry. I hope it's not the arch stone of the main entrance."

The ghost grinned while the glow of his eyes intensified. But soon it faded, and he became earnest again and lowered his head, his voice a mere mumble. "It's embarrassing."

Lou stepped closer to the knight, fixing him with his gaze. "Well, do you want to help the White Lady or not? Right now, I don't care if you're bound to a historical chamber pot as long as it is something we can bring with us."

Guillaume's head jerked up, and his usually pale cheeks blushed pink. "How did you know?"

"What?" Lou frowned while Matt fought a burst of laughter.

I couldn't help but join. "You're bound to a chamber pot? Wow, beats the castle's walls or the hearthstone of the knight's hall. Where can we find the precious piece?"

"I'd prefer if you kept your mirth in check, my lady. This is not what you think, far from it." To go by his sparkling eyes, our resident ghost was miffed.

I did my best to gain a serious expression, although I longed to hear the full story. "I'd never dare to make fun of you and the circumstances of your death, Sir Guillaume. But please imagine the possibilities this opens for you. A chamber pot is small enough to carry with you almost everywhere. You'll be able to accompany us not only to Aventicum but to everywhere you crave to go." I wondered if I had made a mistake the moments the words left my tongue. The knight might take me up on this offer.

The folds on Sir Guillaume's forehead evened out while he stroked his beard. "Well, seen like this, I should, perhaps, guide you to the most dreaded instrument of my demise."

And that's what he did. It took a while to convince him we wouldn't be able to follow him if he kept drifting through walls. In the end, Lou fetched his collection of castle keys, and Sir Guillaume complied to use doors and stairways, but not without uttering his dissent. "This is far too complicated. If would have to take such circuitous routes for all my errands, I'd worn through my sabatons before the reformation."

Lou opened the door to the former stables with his master key. "You can't wear out your shoes. And may I remind you it was you who handled the construction of this castle? You might have planned for easier communication ways."

"Ha, back then, I was inexperienced and naïve. I went by the rule and custom that suggested building a castle easy to defend, which equals difficult to walk around in. Corbières had even a high entrance in my time."

"Then we should be grateful for whoever gifted us with the current main entrance." Lou turned to the ghost. "Where next?"

"Up here."

We followed Sir Guillaume as he drifted up a creaky wooden staircase and through two antechambers to a small panel door. He stopped in front of it. "It's in here, but the door has been locked for decades. I don't even know if the key still exists."

Lou sorted through dozens of keys hanging from an iron ring while Matt studied the lock. "It must be an old but quite large one, hand-forged."

"Like this one?" Lou handed him an impressive masterwork of wrought iron.

Guillaume shook his head. "No, that was the key to the master bedroom in my time. You should gift it as a token to Lady Sandrine. It hasn't been in use for ages and the lock suffered a violent destruction in a matrimonial disagreement centuries ago."

I wondered what kind of disagreement included the breaking of a door's lock, but Lou's smile as he held out the key melted my heart. "Take it as a gift, Lady San—the key to my heart."

While the blood shot hot into my cheeks, I ran my fingers over the cool iron and closed them around the shaft. "Thank yo so much, Lou. Sir Guillaume."

Matt had taken up the key ring in the meantime and tried several of the smaller keys in the lock, hiding his grin in vain. "Bingo. Here we go. Sir Guillaume, do you wish to be the first to enter this abandoned kingdom?"

The knight only snorted and drifted through the wall beside the door. Matt pushed it open and Lou ducked behind him into a dusty attic. I stowed the key in the back pocket of my jeans before I followed them. The gift still sent a fuzzy feeling through my body.

The room we entered must have been unused for ages. It contained broken furniture wrapped in cobwebs and a few cases whose contents I longed to explore. The knight almost disappeared in the dust motes as he drifted to the back of the place and stopped in front of an old overseas chest. Atop of it sat a sturdy if ugly tin chamber pot. It was covered in cobwebs, but otherwise well-preserved. I picked it up and turned it in my hands. "At least it's not pottery, so we don't have to fear breaking the thing."

"Don't dare to damage my pot." Sir Guillaume reached out for it, and I stepped back, alarmed. "Wait, I don't want to get electrocuted."

I set the ancient piece down on the attic floor and moved away. Matt and Lou joined me at a safe distance. "Now you can show us, Sir Guillaume."

With glowing eyes and a wide grin, he bowed and picked up the pot. "Ha. That feels nice. Better than trying to snatch up a cookie and almost as good as the bubbles in the whirlpool."

I wondered if the knight had come here during the past centuries to just indulge himself in the pleasure of touch, even if the object was related to his death. I didn't dare to ask, though. Matt walked around the ghost, filming Sir Guillaume and his chamber pot with his phone.

"Don't publish this on social media, or we the visitors will overrun us." Lou was right, a few rumours about a ghost helped the hostel, but this scene would attract the wrong type of crowd.

Matt saved the clip and smiled. "I won't. I'll just keep it for the Ghost Guard archives."

Guillaume was still distracted by studying his pot from all sides. He ran his finger around the rim. "My problem is, the pot is solid in your world, too. I remember a resolute lady using it as a flower pot and then stowing it here, when the flowers kept withering despite her best efforts." He winked. "That might have been your grandmother, Master Lou."

I didn't understand why my partner blushed a dark red. Matt had seen it too and raised his brows. "What did you do to grandma's flowers, Lou?"

"Sir Guillaume, that's unfair. I was seven or eight at most, maybe younger. My room was on the second floor and I was afraid to go down to the toilet at night. The floor tiles were always so cold in winter and the noises in the stairwell creeped me out."

Guillaume chuckled while Matt and I laughed, picturing young Louis in his despair. "You peed into your grandma's flower pot?"

"It stood on the balcony. I couldn't pee down into the courtyard, right?"

I fought the tears and Matt wasn't much better off.

The knight chuckled. "Don't blame him. This beautiful piece was a piss pot before it became anything else. Call it destiny."

Now, even Lou smiled. "You could have told me back then. I would have felt better about it instead of carrying the guilt for nana's failed gardening attempts."

"Believe me, you wouldn't have appreciated my intervention back then. Remember your reaction when we were introduced?" Lou had fainted and hit his head—hard. Sir Guillaume made a point here. "Well, this doesn't solve my problem with the pot. It remains solid, so I can't move through walls with it. You'll have to open the doors for me."

"Opening doors is not our problem, and if you help us with the Latin, we will provide transport for you, too. Don't want you to scare half the district." Matt stowed his phone. "Shall we go?"

Guillaume's face brightened. "I get to ride in one of your fancy horseless carriages? May I pick which one?"

I exchanged glances with Matt and Lou. "Sure, as long as you don't insist on riding on the pillion seat of my bike or decide you need to pee into your pot on the way."