You were not asleep.
His tone was suspicious. Wonderful. But this was not the time to discuss my health.
We will search the city from the air, I thought.You must fly as low as you can, so people see only a glimpse. And fly slowly until I am sure how far I can sense a wyfe who has taken venom.
I could have detected dosed Lydia across all of London, but her strength was incredible. Still, the dosed wyves at the ball were hardly subtle. A half-mile should be possible. So, passes a mile apart. How sure was I, though?
We were descending in a broad spiral west of the city proper, wings unmoving except for adjustments at the tips. I turned my head and shouted to Mary, “We will try one pass. An experiment,” and projected the same thought to Yuánchi. Mary nodded.
Slow flight felt much faster when the ground was close. In a blink, we were skimming the Thames. In flight, Yuánchi tucked his legs close and stretched his flexible body like a spear, so I found myself staring over his shoulder at chunky, broken ice and dark water roaring past no more than fifteen feet below. I looked ahead and saw a stone bridge approaching. Were we going over? Surely not beneath. The spans would never fit his wings.
You have not opened your mind, Yuánchi thought reprovingly.
I had forgotten the whole point. I closed my eyes, struggling for the required calm but distracted by every jog and tilt. Abruptly, our motion changed—the sound of wind over wing ceased, and we became weightless and fell. A hard shadow flashed over my closed eyelids, then wings caught air with a powerful snap and weight surged back. Beneath the bridge, then.
Trust Yuánchi to fly. My thoughts settled, and my senses expanded.
Yuánchi came first, a shining cloud of brilliance below and around me. Then sparks of bound draca’s awareness passed on each side. I could pick them out even at this speed. Lindworm. Ferretworm. I exhaled, falling into the mindset, willing my mind farther, and then there were too many to name, each a beautiful, flickering being. They flowed past like a storm of fireflies. But no oily dark. No corrupted wyfe.
Too soon, the sparks became few. We swerved and soared upward. Mary whooped delightedly, which was far nicer than shrieking. I opened my eyes and saw the sparse settlements of outer London, though I was not sure where.
“This will work!” I shouted. “But I found nothing yet.”
“Try the docks,” Mary shouted back. “Search near fishers.” She must have clues from Miss Bathurst.
We turned a tight, tipped half-circle that drove me into my seat and made the wind over Yuánchi’s wings hiss and moan. The jagged skyline of London came into view, palled with coal smoke. I braced my hands on one of the red knobs on Yuánchi’s neck and leaned forward, peering to choose a path.
36
THE WINDOW
EMMA
I woketo a soft rattle from our guest room door. It came again, a tiny but insistent bump.
Harriet was sound asleep, but the window showed the night-dark ridges of Pemberley valley against a faint blue glow. Sunrise was near. My slippers lay precisely side-by-side with my dressing gown folded and fanned on the dressing table above them. Lucy had learned my bedtime ritual as well as any maid at Highbury.
Wrapped against the chill, I stood motionless until I was able to accept the scrabble of disarranged hair on my neck and back, then I eased the door ajar. A little tykeworm turned up her nutmeg muzzle and ink-black eyes, then sat on her haunches. Not the tyke bound to Lizzy’s aunt. This one had dark brown paws, as if she had scampered through coffee grounds.
I crouched and whispered, “Good morning.” Only closely bound wyves dared touch draca, but, feeling bold after the firedrake in the physic garden, I stroked a finger down her back. The tyke arched happily, so I petted her with my whole hand. Her scales were warm as a cat lazing in the sun. Her skin was supple, but each scale was hard. It was like stroking close-set, smooth jewels.
Like the firedrake at the garden, this draca was not bound—the brightness of binding was curled up within her. Bemused, I asked, “How did you get into Pemberley House?”
She grinned inscrutably, revealing impressive fangs for such a small creature, then padded a few yards along the hall before looking back expectantly. I pulled the door closed and padded after her.
We wandered a hallway of polished wood floors. Windowpanes framed squares of magenta twilight. I passed beneath unlit wrought iron chandeliers and down a wide, curving stairway, the tyke’s paws silenced by luxurious carpet. The notes of a pianoforte became audible, and the tykeworm bounded ahead.
Candlelight and music poured from open, elaborately carved wooden doors. I entered and was surrounded by a collection of pianofortes in gleaming walnut, red cherry, and black ebony. One was square, a few were stubby triangles, the rest had modern serpentine curves on their treble side. Most were pushed by the walls as if out of favor, but in the middle of the room, the largest two instruments faced each other, their nestled curves very feminine. I had never seen such large instruments, seven feet long at least.
One instrument was closed. At the other, Georgiana, wrapped in a blue velvet robe with her black hair messily pinned, was playing a baroque composition filled with tinkling trills and ornaments. Without interrupting her music, she smiled a greeting at me, then concentrated on her playing. The mysterious tyke sat at her feet for a few bars, then began exploring the other instruments.
Not wanting to distract her, I walked to the far side of the room—a towering wall of glass. I had never seen anything like it, not even in London. Behind pinpoint reflections of candles, vague shadows of mossy oaks slumbered.
The precise meter of Georgiana’s playing relaxed. Skipping the traditional baroque close, the music dissolved into melodic, lingering chords. This was not the composer’s work, but a wandering improvisation.
“What do you see outside?” she asked. Her music changed, as curious as her words.
“It is too dark to see much,” I answered. That was a dull reply for someone serenaded and facing a tower of glass, so I added, “I am sure it is beautiful by daylight.”
