Chapter 25 Fury
FURY
EMMA
Harriet and I stumbled across the museum courtyard. Around us, gentlemen and ladies trotted awkwardly in their formal attire, or called out names, or stood dazed.
“We are safe here,” Mr. Knightley said, and our group stopped beside a pair of decorative torches, panting in the chill air.
Kitty was clinging to the arm of her officer. She did not cry, but her eyes were wide. The other officer supported Mrs. Bennet, who was shaky and frightened.
Kitty’s officer nodded to Mr. Knightley. “Thank you, sir. That was well done.”
We had been trapped between the surging crowd and the locked doors, a pressing mass that suffocated our breath until Mr. Knightley kicked loose a metal latch and the remaining lock broke under the mob’s weight.
“What happened in there?” Harriet asked. No one answered. None of us knew. When the shouts began, we fled. Then came metallic brays and bangs like knights battling in armor, and screams, and panic.
Through the crowd, I saw a distinctive black-and-crimson gown descend the museum steps. I called, “Mary! We are here,” and she turned. By moonlight, half her face was white as death, the other half stained inky black.
She walked to us with quick steps. When the torchlight lit her, Kitty gasped, “Heavens, Mary.”
The light had reddened the stain on Mary’s face to blood. Her loose hair hung wetly. Sodden locks stuck to her forehead, temple, and neck.
Mary said in a grating tone, “Joane Rees is dead.” She gathered a thick handful of her skirt in one hand and wiped her other bloody palm, then scrubbed violently at each finger. Both her hands were drenched.
“I do not…” Kitty began, then tried again. “I am sorry. Who is that?” When Mary only shook her head, Kitty said, “How did it happen?”
“Fast,” Mary breathed. “Jane’s wyvern killed her.” Her head lifted to search the courtyard. “Where is Jane? I was looking for her. She is distraught.”
“Is Lizzy safe?” I asked.
“Yes,” Mary said flatly.
Mr. Knightley offered his handkerchief. “Your face, Mary.” She blinked at the white square, then took it and wiped her forehead. The cloth came away red-soaked. She stared as if amazed, then her shoulders hitched in a stifled sob.
“Look!” Harriet pointed at the sky.
“Where?” Kitty asked, then a huge wing eclipsed the moon.
“Yuánchi,” Mary said sharply.
“No,” I said. There was none of Yuánchi’s scarlet pull.
“Where did it go?” someone said. Heads turned, then the stars and moon blotted out. I shielded my eyes as freezing gusts slammed us. The torches extinguished and rolled away.
The earth shook as giant feet struck the ground.
With a clamor like grating chains, the blotted dark folded away.
Moonlight reached the gleaming, jet-black scales of a hulking dragon, her wings tucked close, her sinuous tail lifted taut and twitching.
She was tremendous. Bigger than Yuánchi.
Her huge head and long neck swung to survey the museum buildings.
I could sense her presence like the impressions I felt from draca, but armored, icy, and vast.
At least a hundred people were throughout the courtyard. The guests began fleeing while gawking late-night Londoners swarmed in. The two waves collided in a crest of humanity.
The dragon’s head abandoned the building and turned to us—out of all those people, our tiny group.
In four thudding steps, she crossed thirty yards, and her dark muzzle stopped ten feet up and a dozen feet away.
Her faceted eyes shone with images of the silver moon, the blue lamps in the museum windows, and the yellow of fleeing lanterns.
“Do not run,” Mary advised tensely.
The jewel eyes rested on Mary for one heart-stopping eternity. Then they settled on me. The sense of presence deepened as I stared into her eyes, but it was jittering, flailing fragments.
Words came, halting and imperious as a mad queen: My wyfe of war is claimed by another. She is hidden. Drowned in your song.
Crazed images fluttered—women’s features blending one to another, a stutter of complexions, ochre and cream and ebony, then sweeping sheets of beaten gold and briny blue and swirling, inky clouds.
“Her mind is a ruin,” I said. “Mad.”
The air was still, but a gale-like shriek was climbing.
A scarlet presence filled my mind, and I shouted, “Get down!” as a huge shape flashed out of the dark and slammed into the black dragon with a thundering thump.
The black dragon tumbled, her tail striking a carriage and spinning it crazily, the horses screaming in their traces while the wheels chattered over the stones.
Fast as a cat, the black dragon was crouched and hissing. Her wings opened and drove wind that forced me to my knees, then rolled me across the ground.
The rushing air settled. I pushed to my feet, a banged knee smarting. The others staggered up. Swaths of the crowd had been flattened like wheat in a storm. They clambered up, exclaiming and sobbing.
The dragons were gone.
Ten minutes later, we waited for Mr. Knightley and Mary to return from the museum building.
Harriet and I sat on a stone bench with Mrs. Bennet and Kitty, attended by the two naval officers.
A dozen constables were circulating through the clustered onlookers, taking statements and directing coaches.
Everywhere I heard the wondering, frightened word “dragon.”
Mr. Knightley emerged from the crowd. “The rest of our party is safe. The Darcys will depart soon, but Mary wishes to stay. She is helping another wyfe who was poisoned with crawler venom. We agreed that this group should proceed to Chathford.” His sweeping hand included Harriet and me.
“The sooner the crowd is cleared, the better.”
The officers offered to assist us in finding a carriage.
That prompted the rituals that conclude an evening, comforting and ridiculous in the chaotic scene.
Once Mrs. Bennet, Kitty, and Harriet finished thanking the officers, the conversation turned to Chathford House, and Harriet found herself an unexpected authority.
While she described the house in lively detail, Mr. Knightley squatted by me, his forearms on his knees. His neckcloth was missing, and his collar hung open. I stared at my dirtied gloves, not sure which was the greater risk to my sanity and wondering at my calm.
Softly, he said, “Mr. Darcy strongly suggests you stay at Chathford tonight. That creature was interested in you, and Chathford is more secure. Also, the wyverns are injured. Georgiana has soothed them, but I thought you could help.” I shot him a look, and he winced.
“I felt I must tell Mr. Darcy what happened at the physic garden.”
That gave Mr. Darcy more reasons to imagine I was his mythic healer. I sighed but nodded. “If we are admitting things, do you know what the Darcys bound?”
“I do,” he said simply.
“Is Yuánchi at Chathford?”
“Mrs. Darcy says no. That is the sole word she spoke in my presence. The crowd’s gossip is of a mad woman stealing the dagger and of rogue draca, but it was the Bingleys’ wyvern that killed that woman.
Both the Bingleys and the Darcys are shaken to the quick.
There is more to the story, but I could not ask. ”
That and the cold air drove a shiver through my body. A moment later, Mr. Knightley wrapped his still-warm coat around my shoulders. I gave him a grateful smile. “We missed our dance.”
He made a dismissive noise, then said earnestly, “You must abandon the inn and stay at Chathford. This is not a time for pride. I will settle the bill in the morning and have your things sent.”
“Pride is not what keeps me from Chathford. But for tonight, I will go.”
“If you will not stay at Chathford, let me arrange other accommodation for you.”
I smiled ruefully. “Would other accommodation be safer?”
“It would not cost you funds you do not have.” Mortified and a little frightened, I stared at the paving stones while he continued, “A musician walks all tiers of life. I notice when Miss Woodhouse forgets her beautiful pelisse on a frosty night.” When I said nothing, he added, “There is neither merit in wealth nor shame in want.”
“I do not require your support,” I said. Emma Woodhouse is rich.
“I know you do not. But you are welcome to my friendship. Now, let us try to find a coach.”