“Miss Woodhouse, I must insist you are careful,” Mr. Knightley said. “A wounded animal is dangerous.”
“She is more than an animal,” I said. Those black eyes sparked with intelligence.
“She likes you,” Nessy whispered.
I offered my gloved hand, palm up as one greets a strange dog. She ignored my fingers, so I leaned closer. Her eyes, polished as dark mirrors, stayed fixed on mine. The silhouette of my face and bonnet reflected in the opal surfaces like a pair of distorted miniatures. They rippled gold. My hair, I suppose.
The silver head darted forward, quick as a striking snake, and touched my cheek. I said “Oh!” and sat back, but she had only brushed me.
The touch tingled. When I touched wyves, I sensed their bindings. This draca was not bound, but a similar brilliance was curled up within her.
The colors around me grew vivid with hidden hues—striations of rust and violet on leaves, jade in the feathery spines on the green stalks, and a pattern on each draca scale like copper filigree embedded in silver pearl. I became aware of the sharp heat of injury in her wing. An image of violent struggle filled my mind, a fight beneath towering forest trees against a writhing, armored, wormlike creature a yard long. Then a flailing, pained flight by night to reach this spot.
“She fought a foul crawler,” I said. “A huge one. Several feet long. That is how her wing was injured.”
My gloves dangled in my left hand. I looked at them, not remembering removing them. I tucked them in my reticule and studied the broken wing again. The drake’s swan-like gaze finally left me and swung to study it as well. She gave a concerned chirp.
“It must not heal crooked,” I said. That much was obvious. I touched my fingertip to the drake’s sprawled wing. She jerked, rather like my father haddone when I bandaged the sores on his feet. I clucked disapprovingly. “That makes it no easier.” I reached out again, and this time the drake stayed still. My fingers traced the front of her wing, crossed the joint, and neared the break. Awareness of crushed hollow bone and torn muscle filled me.
Quickly, I closed my fingers around the ribbed front, then grabbed below the break with my other hand and pulled the wing straight. Mr. Knightley exclaimed “Good gracious!” and a stridentsquawkrang in my left ear—I had leaned past the drake’s head to see properly—but I held the wing firm.
I sensed the drake’s heart pounding. Golden ichor swirled through her veins. The crushed ends of bone seized each other and mended impossibly fast, like sealing wax pressed by a cool signet. The heat of injury faded.
I let go and sat back on my heels. The drake scrambled to her feet, sinewy and birdlike, then spread her wings. They spanned six feet, the bones armored by silver scales, the flight membranes thin and translucent as sheer muslin. She flapped experimentally—I blinked in the gust—then she launched and was gone.
Nessy laughed and clapped her hands. Mr. Knightley said, “That was extraordinary.”
I plucked a leaf from the plant the drake had eaten. It was green, an inch long, and had serrated edges. I crushed it in my fingers. A minty scent filled the air.
“The herbs do notspeak, exactly,” I said, “but I think we should try this one.”
22
THE BALL
LIZZY
Darcyand I stood arm-in-arm under a night sky and a soaring full moon—the ball had fallen on the first clear night in weeks. We were in the museum courtyard, fifty yards from the main building where we could admire its breadth. Each towering eight-pane-high window framed lamps decorated with blue glass shades to mimic draca fire. The museum’s two smaller wings had the same decor, so the courtyard surrounded us with a hundred glimmering blue flames.
We had arrived early, but carriages were already queued, their coach lights casting yellow ovals gridded with thin shadows from the paving stones. Under the silvery moonlight, it looked like a stupendous, cross-hatched drawing splashed with blue watercolor.
“Shall we?” Darcy said, snugging my arm tight.
“You sound peculiar,” I said in a worried tone. “It cannot be… do I detect enthusiasm for aball?”
I expected a dry response. Instead, he drew me to face him. “Every ball I have attended with you has thrilled me.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “I rather thought I irritated you the first time.”
“You transfixed me, and I am sincere. My life is transformed in the year we have known each other.” He recited, “My love is a smoke kindled in your eyes.”
I stifled an amused snort, which rather ruined the moment. “Shakespeare would turn in his grave if he heard how you butcher his prose.”
Darcy was unfazed. “It is verse, not prose. I have tailored it to your beauty.”
A blush climbed my cheekbones. “If we are beingthatromantic, I wish to be Juliet, not Rosaline.” He laughed with easy affection, and we set out across the stone-paved yard.
The entrance had a row of flaming torches. The glare made the back of my eyes ache. I shaded my gaze until we had passed, then I heard a familiar man’s voice outside the open doors.
