Chapter 26 Raving
RAVING
LIZZY
For an hour, I waited. When Darcy took my elbow, I followed him, docile, until I could wait again.
Where were the pointing fingers? The accusations?
Finally, Darcy assisted Lady Catherine, Georgiana, and me up the stair of our coach, and my daze began to break.
Despite it being the middle of the night, Darcy had found a wagon for hire, and it followed us carrying the wyverns, too hurt to fly. Jane refused to be separated from her golden wyvern, so she and Charles rode with them.
As we clattered through the streets, Lady Catherine was ashen, her jowls sagging as if she had aged a dozen years. Somehow, her ostrich feather still floated above her head. I watched it sway with our motion. It was better than meeting anyone’s eyes.
“The wyverns will recover,” Georgiana said. “I saw worse injuries when the army tried to apply draca in war. Draca are immensely tough.”
Lady Catherine cleared her throat with a rattle. “What are you people?” She turned to Georgiana. “My niece sings, and wounded, crazed draca lie down like sheep. And you!” Her pale blue eyes pinned me. “You challenge a madwoman like some sorceress—”
“For once, hold your tongue!” Darcy snapped. “You criticized my mother through her entire life. Do not criticize my sister or my wyfe. You have no idea of what you speak.”
A rough laugh split my lips. “Criticize me? Better to condemn me outright. I deserve it.”
Georgiana squeezed my hand. “That is not true! It was frantic. You cannot manage every draca.”
“I killed that woman. I condemned her because she touched the dagger.” My memory of those moments was unforgivingly clear, but my reasoning was lost. Incomprehensible. Why command Jane’s wyvern to attack?
“Mr. Knightley saw another dragon,” Georgiana said to Darcy. “A black dragon. Is that what the dagger summoned? When that woman sang, it was like the bedrock of London awoke. Something sang an answer.”
“She raised Fury,” I muttered. “The dragon’s name is Fènnù. It means Fury.”
“The dagger is gone,” Darcy said.
That penetrated my murk of self-despair. “What? Gone where?”
“Missing. Wellington’s guards searched the area, then the buildings. Even amongst Miss Rees’s… remains. Someone took it.”
I closed my eyes and again tried to reach out with my mind. Yuánchi. Where are you? But my awareness was crammed within my own head—locked in by Yuánchi’s strength, like a lunatic locked in an attic. Presumably so I would not murder more innocents. All I could sense was that he was far away.
“I assure you that I shall not offer my museum for future balls,” Lady Catherine announced.
The horses reined in. We were at Chathford.
Lady Catherine disembarked and spied our servants with a hair-thin smile, finally having someone to order about.
I trusted Mrs. Reynolds would keep her in check and walked to meet the wagon.
It was little more than a wheeled box of planks pulled by a single horse, the sort that delivered cheap goods to back doors throughout London.
Two pairs of scintillating wyvern eyes met mine as I arrived, astonishingly beautiful but as opaque to my mind as real gems. What had Yuánchi done to me?
Charles helped Jane down, and she pulled me into an embrace. “Dear Lizzy.” I clutched her like a scared toddler and found I was leaking tears onto the shoulder of her gown.
I swallowed my sobs. “How is your wyvern?”
“They have both stopped bleeding. I do not have your gift to hear her thoughts, but”—she gazed at her crouched, tense wyvern—“she is not yet herself. She is withdrawn. Or… frightened.”
“What have I done?” I whispered.
“Oh, Lizzy.” She pulled me tight again. “You are my beloved sister. I wish you did not face such trials.”
Here I was, unharmed, being comforted by Jane, who had almost died twice in the last year.
“You are too good. But I seized your wyvern’s mind savagely.
You cannot imagine the power I had. I was euphoric.
Intoxicated.” Two disparate facts linked in my mind.
“I have felt that before. It is what I sense in wyves who are dosed with crawler venom. But it flowed from the black dragon. From… Fury.” I whispered her name, afraid that the sound would summon her. Or change me.
Emma and Georgiana ran up, breathing hard. Georgiana must have searched the house to find her.
“Oh.” Emma’s gloved fingers caught at her lips, her eyes wide at the wyverns’ gashes and scrapes glistening with golden ichor.
“Help me,” Georgiana said.
Emma shook her head. “I cannot.”
“You can.” Fearlessly, Georgiana cradled the bronze wyvern’s jaw in one hand, then she took Emma’s hand with her other, fingers meshing tight, and began to sing. Her voice was beautiful, the tones strange and foreign, but that was all. I did not sense the power she unleashed.
“Is something happening?” I asked uncertainly.
“Can you not feel it?” Jane asked breathlessly. Rapturously.
I turned away, digging my teeth into my lip until I tasted blood. The front door stood wide open. I went through. Lady Catherine’s strident tones echoed from one direction. I turned the other way.
After two rooms, I found Darcy in quiet conversation with Charles. I did not even wait for privacy. “I killed that woman.”
Darcy caught my arms, his grip firm. “That is unjust. Remember my self-recrimination after the death of Lydia. You helped me then, so apply your own counsel. You had an instant to choose—”
I shook my head. “No. Whatever madness drove Miss Rees had ended. She was harmless. I knew she was harmless. And Mary was holding her hand! She will never forgive me.” I leaned into his body.
“Miss Rees had claimed that dragon, but I… coveted him. And the black dragon seeks me. She called me her wyfe of war. Do not let me become that! Stop it!”
I stuck on that, crying Stop it over and over until his hands stroked my face. Darcy was always warm, but his fingers felt cold as freezing spring water. Simple surprise silenced me.
“You are burning up,” he exclaimed. His icy palm pressed my forehead.
“I do not feel well.” My gorge fluttered. My knees wobbled. Unconnected thoughts blurred together. I had planned to tell Jane my secret tonight—that I was with child. Had I told her? Not yet. The clash between happy anticipation and violent reality made my head spin.
The candle flames sprouted strange, round glows. The room rocked.
“I think I am tired.” My knees gave way.
I woke in bed. The window showed day. Blue sky, even.
There was a note in Darcy’s fine hand on his pillow:
“Dear Elizabeth,
I am meeting the Council to discuss urgent events. Do not worry. Rest.
Yours in love, Fitzwilliam.”
I sat up in bed. My body felt vastly better.
My mind… the terror and guilt sprang to life, savage and accusing, but an obstinate, rational part woke as well, buzzing like an irritating fly and trying to impose order.
To set priorities and fix problems. But a killed woman could not be fixed.
I shoved my fingers into my tangled hair and pulled until my scalp ached.
What happened to me last night? A black dragon burst from the frozen Thames, and I lost my mind.
There was a soft knock, then the door opened, and Lucy stuck her head through. “I thought I heard you. Mr. Darcy asked me to check on you, but I would have, anyhow. You were raving last night! Also, he says you are to have Miss Bennet examine you.”
“I see.” Raving was not an encouraging report.
She helped me put on a morning dress and tidied my hair, then I went downstairs, not sure what I would find.
The answer was breakfast, attended with ferocious normalcy by almost everyone—Charles and Jane, Lady Catherine, Georgiana, Emma and Harriet, Mr. Knightley, Mamma and Kitty. Only Darcy and Mary were missing.
The gentlemen rose when I entered. I greeted them and Lady Catherine, from whom I received a scowl, and then Emma and Harriet.
“Where is Mary?” I asked. I had no intention of being examined by anyone, but I was desperate to speak with her. To… apologize? Atone? I had no idea.
Kitty shrugged to my question, but Georgiana said, “Mary is not back yet. She sent a note. She is helping an injured wyfe.”
“Will you find me when she comes in, please?” Georgiana nodded, her blue eyes dark and serious. Had she seen the wyvern’s attack? I could not remember.
“The wyverns are much better today,” Jane said to me. I nodded, feeling relief, then guilt for the pleasure of relief.
A maid entered. “Pardon me, ma’am. Lord Wellington is here.” Mamma clucked and turned to fuss at Kitty’s lopsided hair bun.
“Were we expecting him?” I asked the room. Heads shook, so I went with the maid.
He was waiting at the doorstep and greeted me with a nod. “Mrs. Darcy.” He still wore his gray evening wear from the ball. It was wrinkled and soiled, and his eyes were bloodshot.
“Have you slept?” I asked. He shook his head. “Please come in. Breakfast is set, if you have not eaten.”
“I cannot. I am to escort you to the Council.”
“Did Darcy send for me?”
“Is he with the Council?” When I nodded, Lord Wellington’s tired eyes narrowed. “I was with the naval command. Then I received this.” He lifted an opened, official envelope. “It says I am to escort you to the Council.”
“So you said.” The government coach behind him had two armed soldiers perched on the back. “Am I being invited, or arrested?” The latter had a black appeal.
“We are both summoned. I choose to treat it as an invitation.” For the first time, his wry smile twisted his mouth. “Perhaps my judgment should not be trusted. But I have grim news and wished to speak with you. We can talk while we ride.”
When the coach door latched, I decided to preempt his news. “I know the dagger is missing. That was my error. I have been a total fool.”