That scale was his only connection to Elizabeth and to England. She would assume the worst if he suddenly stopped answering. She would worry terribly. But he could not flee from the soldiers again, not with this wound.
Could he steal one last chance to contact her? Elizabeth had begged him to do whatever would keep him safe, even if it meant hiding for months.
She would want him to get rid of the scale that was endangering him. Even if his chest ached at the thought of losing that moment of connection to her, leaving him completely alone among his enemies.
Using his left hand, he slowly lifted the chain over his head and balanced the pouch in his hand. “I must hide this somewhere, then. Or better yet, put it on adiligencethat will carry it far away and lead the soldiers to hunt somewhere else.” But if he had this much trouble sitting up, how could he sneak into town, much less disguise himself to get close to thediligence?
“Clever, for a mortal. If you wish it, it shall be done.”
“By whom?”
“I, or one of my kin,” the fae said obligingly. Too obligingly.
Darcy weighed his words. “I do not understand why you would wish to aid me with no expectation of return.”
A cackle of laughter. “Oh, how it pains me to explain myself to a mortal! The payment has already been made. You placed us under an obligation to you, and by this service, I lessen that debt.”
He struggled to understand. “Because I tried to stop Napoleon?”
The spitting sound again. “Nothing so trifling.”
It had not felt trifling to him.
A softer, gentler voice spoke. “You created an obligation by your kindness to her whom you call your sister.”
Cold washed over him. How did these French fae know about Georgiana? “She is my sister in every way that matters,” he said stiffly.
“Ah, they said you were proud, and so you are, even with a bullet in your shoulder! We cannot fix that, since it is iron, but a mortal healer will be here soon to remove it.”
His mind seized on the least important part of his words. “Bullets are made of lead, not iron.”
“Not this one.” The kind fae sounded amused. “They use iron bullets when they are hunting fae. Likely they were unsure of your mortality and took no chances.”
It made sense, but… “A human healer will betray me to Napoleon.”
“This one shall not. But first we must take that bit of dragon far from here. Thediligenceis a good thought, but better to have someone take it even farther and throw into the sea. Then they will believe you gone.”
His hand closed over the pouch. It had saved his life on the smugglers’ boat. He had hoped it would help him find a sailor willing to take him back across the Channel. And it tied him to Elizabeth.
Now it was a target on his back.
He still hesitated. Elizabeth would be frantic. “Would it be possible for you to get a message to my sister, telling her that I gave this up? And perhaps even about the dragon lodestone?” Georgiana would know to tell Elizabeth.
A deep sigh. “I suppose so.”
Slowly he opened his fingers and held it out. “Take it.”
The slight weight lifted from his palm. Now he was completely on his own.
The healer proved to be a lady perhaps a few years younger than Darcy. She arrived the following day, just as his invisibility from the dragon Artifact was wearing off, and just in time. His shoulder might be no worse, buthe could not say the same thing for his mind. According to the kind fae, Elizabeth had in fact not been by his bedside throughout the night. Nor had Star, the faithful spaniel whom he had been given as a pup when he was six. Since the fae did not lie, he had to believe her. Then again, he was talking to an invisible fae, which was at least as unlikely as Elizabeth mysteriously appearing and disappearing here when she was far away in England.
He would ask her when she came back, if she did. Or perhaps Star would know.
The woman kneeled beside him. “What is the matter?” she asked, her French accented with some other harsher sounding tongue. Flemish, perhaps, or German? Elizabeth’s French always sounded accented to him, too, although in a different manner.
Her dark hair, pulled back in an intricate style which suggested a degree of wealth, or at least the services of a lady’s maid, reminded him of Elizabeth, too, though this woman’s curls were… His mind failed him in finding the words.
“I need you to pay attention,” she said. “Tell me what happened.”
