Chapter 29 The Museum #3
The perfumer took two steps closer, toes in line like a dancer. At the limit of our combined reach, she stretched out her hand. I passed the mouthpiece to her. She retreated and examined it, nose wrinkling when charcoal marked her glove.
She shook her head. “Non.”
“It is the flute,” I said. “All that remains. Il n’y en a plus.” There is no more.
She displayed the split end, the charring. “The Emperor will not accept this.” She shrugged and slipped the mouthpiece into a pocket of her gown. “That is sad. I need a proper gift. A gift that ensures victory. A great gift.”
She sank her hand in another pocket and tossed something on the ground—a handful of wriggling, finger-length crawlers. They scurried aimlessly. After so many monsters, common crawlers seemed a trifle, but that was foolish. The smallest crawler was lethal.
“The Emperor learned much from your Lydia’s books,” she continued. “He orders that the great wyves never unite. So, I see my great gift. The death of a Great Wyfe.”
The crawlers skittered forward.
The artificial calm of my medical training had held.
My fine muscles were relaxed, what Dr. Davenport called surgeon’s focus.
I pursed my lips and whistled the summoning song.
Beside me, Rebecca was desperately scraping the sealing wax from her syringe of draca essence—she must have had it ready in her hand—but faster yet, the song draca arrived, streaming between us and the perfumer like a sparkling brook, singing harmony to my melody while their blue fire snapped, burning the crawlers to smoldering crisps.
The song draca spiraled up, an airborne flock of shimmering aquamarine and sapphire. The loyal one assumed his perch on my shoulder.
The perfumer watched with professional interest and a certain grudging respect. “Les presages. Vous êtes devenue une grande sorcière.”
“I am no sorceress.”
“Then your songbirds will not save you.”
Rebecca shouted a grating, female battle cry and raised her syringe like a warrior’s crossbow. Draca essence squirted twelve feet, dousing the perfumer’s face and soaking the bodice of her gown.
The perfumer made a disgusted grimace. She wiped her face, smearing inky kohl and red lip paint, then looked at her luridly discolored gloves. “Merde.”
A discordant whine began around the courtyard. The French officer, who had sidled even farther away, turned and ran. His men followed.
The whine rose to a throb, and Rebecca took an uncertain step closer to me. An insectile shape blurred between us, and she clapped her fingers to her neck. She drew them away, puzzled, then showed me her bloody fingertips. “Mary?”
She could not see the twin stings on her neck. “It is nothing,” I said. Dr. Davenport also taught when to lie.
The whine crescendoed. The flock of song draca seemed to wilt, finding perches on the walls or settling on the ground. The loyal one on my shoulder tucked his wings and hunkered down.
Defend us, I thought, imagining Lizzy commanding draca. I stared at the perfumer, trying to push my thoughts into the flock of song draca. Swarm her. Immolate her.
Rebecca wobbled. Very carefully she knelt, hands fumbling unsteadily for the ground. Without a sound, she rolled onto her side.
Tears drowned my vision. My useless concentration broke.
I was no wyfe of war, no avenging Lizzy.
But as my anger hollowed to grief, my skidding, disjointed thoughts found a focus.
The summoning song, that first composition over which I toiled for months, became a trifle from a vaster whole, like the ditty of a child that shares harmonies with a grand symphony.
For the first time, for a moment, I glimpsed a path to the celestial music of Georgiana’s song.
A song draca fluttered. Another trilled. A few took to the air.
“Non,” the perfumer said and raised her hand.
Flying crawlers erupted, a storm that darkened the air.
Amid the howl, I saw one clearly, its ten-inch segmented body sheathed in gleaming olive shell, the pairs of translucent oval wings buzzing, twin stingers flexing as it sprayed.
The burned, sour citrus of crawler venom saturated the air, and the song draca tumbled from my shoulder.
Something grooved and hard clouted my temple, bending my spectacles and cutting my ear.
A sunburst of pain whitened my vision. Another smacked my shoulder, knocking me off balance.
Not stings—these were blows, hard as stones.
I cried out, arms shielding my face as they rained in.
I collapsed and huddled on the ground beside Rebecca.
The assault ended. The winged crawlers settled on the ground, seething over and under one another. Among them, song draca lay at stiff angles, unmoving.
The perfumer’s gown swayed as she threaded a path to me. Her shoes were as emerald as her gown. She removed her gloves and bent to examine me. “And so, the Great Wyfe dies.”
My belly spasmed—absurdly, I was laughing.
I huffed until I could speak. “You think a great wyfe dies like this? You have no concept of a great wyfe. I am an afterthought, a nobody. You will know when you meet a great wyfe, for you will be crushed.” I pried my bent spectacles straighter, wincing as the frame uncoupled from my bloody ear, but I wanted to see her one last time.
“My sister will hunt you, and she will burn you.”
The perfumer was still for a long time, one oily, anointed fingertip touching her lips as if preparing to share a secret.
Then she walked away. The huge, low-pitched buzz we heard inside the museum returned, and a monstrous crawler, stout as a bumblebee and longer than a horse, entered the courtyard.
It hovered on blurring wings, blasting a gale in every direction, then settled.
The perfumer climbed onto it—it was saddled—and they rose into the air.
The sea of flying crawlers around me flew after her like a swarm of locusts.
Beaten muscles shivering, I dragged myself across the rough paving stones.
Rebecca was unresponsive but alive, lungs snatching air in shuddering gasps, heart racing and weakening.
My fingers were too weak to break the wax on the final syringe, but my teeth stripped it.
I dripped draca essence into her mouth, stroked her throat until she swallowed, then gave her another dose, and another.
The final teaspoon I emptied into my palm and worked into the bloody stings on her neck.
Her eyelids fluttered. She groaned. Her fingers pushed my hand away from the swollen skin. Good. Excellent.
I lay back, sky spinning, and imagined I heard dragon wings.