Mr. Darcy was kneeling by his wyfe. My bare hand landed on his collar, and scarlet threw the miasma back like a hissing animal. His head turned, astonished, as I pushed my bare fingers against the skin of his throat. Scarlet flooded me, unfettered by cloth. The miasma flickered, became ephemeral, andvanished.
The woman’s pain crystalized in my awareness, every horror revealed. Her back had been torn and re-torn, her throat crushed. Her mind was a wreck of terror and despair. But she could be saved.
“Let me help you,” I called. I began walking across the thickened ice toward her. My hand floated free of Mr. Darcy, leaving me brimming with strength.
The woman turned to me, wide-eyed, backing away. “The pain is gone.” She croaked a laugh. “You are too late. He has crept inside!” She thumped her skull with her fist. “I must drive him out.” Her hand tipped to her lips, then she flung a small object that skittered past my feet. A vial.
I sensed a darkness spread in her body, an evil.
“Emma!” Lizzy shouted. “Get away! She is corrupted. Addicted! She will kill you!”
The woman stretched her arms in the cold air, reaching for an unseen lover. “I free myself!”
Command hammered my consciousness, the same sensation I had felt at the salon before the draca fought for Lizzy.
With a wailing cry, the bronze firedrake swept past me, wingtips skimming the ice. His flaming blue breath roared out and enveloped the woman. Glowing, sky-like radiance wreathed her, then it blossomed ugly orange. The clean blue became a searing inferno.
Her pain swept through the bronze of her binding to envelop me in a fiery ocean, but the scarlet calm swathed us both in a blanket. It was the thought of pain, not pain itself. It sputtered, faded, vanished. Her form darkened to a flaming charcoal statue kneeling in a steaming pool of melted ice. The pendant was a splash of molten gold down the chest.
The drake soared upward with an endless mourning shriek. He rose high, high, then his wings furled, and he fell. Like a stone. Like a lance. He slammed into the ice beside the woman’s body, the elegant lines of his head and sinuous neck crushing like eggshell.
The melting ice cracked. Slow as an overloaded boat, a six-foot chunk tipped. The smoldering shape of the woman fell through with a sizzle and gout of steam. The drake’s body, limp and gleaming, slipped after her and vanished into the dark water.
9
ROYAL JEWELS
EMMA
“Miss Woodhouse.It is not safe here.” Mr. Knightley’s hand touched my forearm.
I did not want to look away from where the woman died. The sole remnant of her presence was a sheen of water on the ice, already vanishing as it froze. But his hand drew me, insistent, so I turned.
The shore was thirty yards distant. The river was abandoned. We stood alone, actors on a blue-white stage.
Ashore was chaos. People ran and fell. Arms flailed—men struck each other. Scattered cries reached me, filled with slurs of race. What had this to do with a dead woman?
Harriet was running with the Darcys. She waved frantically, and I raised my hand. They ducked around a squall of men in belted black coats and vanished in the confusion.
“We will meet them,” Mr. Knightley said. “I told them to take Miss Smith while I came for you. It is better that she does not wait among these louts.”
“Thank you,” I said. We began walking. The ice was so cold it felt gritty, not slick. By the time we reached the dock, the chill was biting through the soles of my boots.
Mr. Knightley pulled me to a half-run along the planks. One of the cropped-hair men rushed out of the crowd, his thin face dangling reddenedjowls. “Get the witch!” he shouted, his hand stretching for my face. Mr. Knightley stepped between us, grabbed a fistful of the man’s collar, and turned, bending so their hips collided hard. The man flew over Mr. Knightley and crashed to the dock, shaking the planks and sprawling onto the ice. Mr. Knightley’s arm had already retaken mine. In three steps, we were among the crowd, his touch leading me, ducking low and stepping fast, then waiting tall and firm while a knot of bodies swirled past.
We turned into a quieter alley. He asked, “Can you continue this pace?”
“Of course,” I said. “No, wait!” I lifted my hands between us, shocked by dissymmetry—one was gloved, one bare. My breath caught, braced for terrors, but Mr. Knightley’s face did not swell with pustules. Miasma did not flood the ground. I gritted my teeth, then pulled the lone glove off and dropped it behind me, out of sight. “I am ready.”
We hurried down one street, then a second. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“The school.”
The Martin School. Would Harriet still insist on her tour? Surely I could dissuade her after this.
I thought of the man rushing toward me. “Does your musical training include sending men flying head-over-heels?”
Mr. Knightley’s lips were a grim line. “I believe I mentioned that I have encountered horrible men.”
