I stopped in front of a multistranded, turquoise necklace. Amenit. “This is like my vision in the boathouse. I was a bound wyfe. A queen.”
Darcy frowned. “I do not question what you saw. But there is no record of Egyptians binding draca.”
“We cannot read their hieroglyphics.”
“True. But the Romans wrote histories of Egypt.”
“Mary regularly points out that rulers erase the achievements of those they rule.” I was reading an explanatory panel titledEgyptian Death and Afterlife. “This describes what I believed. What Ifelt.”
A modern painting hung with the exhibit: a beautiful young woman slumped in a chair surrounded by a half-dozen grieving maids. Inexplicably, they had chosen to grieve while mostly undressed. A small snake curled around the dead woman’s arm.
The painting was labeledThe Death of Cleopatra, Guido Cagnacci, 1658. There was an explanation of her despair over the loss of Mark Antony.
For a few seconds, I was fooled by the milky skin and light hair. Then I saw the truth. “What were the names of Cleopatra’s advisors? The ones who died with her.” Darcy would know. Shakespeare had written a play.
“Charmion and Iras,” he said.
The image of loyal Charmion, ebony haired and dark skinned, leaped into my mind. “I journeyed. I found the god. I hadthe strength to defeat Rome!” I reached out and pried at the sign below the painting. The thin wood splintered, and it broke from the wall. I waved it at Darcy like a blade. “This islies. I drove poison into my arm with a dead asp’s fangs. I dared the underworld for vengeance. But Imhotep drove the god mad. If he had not, I would have crushed Rome.” I thought of Yuánchi. “I still can!”
“Rome fell a thousand years ago,” Darcy said quietly but firmly. “This is England, and you are Elizabeth.”
I blinked up at him, untangling memory from reality. My anger faded. “Yes. That… I am sorry. The vision was intense. Dying is intense.” I took a settling breath and looked again at that ridiculous painting of pink-cheeked maids. “Cleopatra was a bound queen who summoned a dragon. Imhotep promised she would return from the underworld. He lied.”
I dropped the broken sign on the table and turned away. That denigration of history revolted me.
Beyond the strolling crowd, I glimpsed Lord Wellington speaking urgently to a guard. Darcy had begun an involved observation about Cleopatra, so I plucked his sleeve to get his attention, and we hurried over.
Lord Wellington saw me and skipped niceties. “We baited our trap with the dagger, but I did not intend the Prince to be present as well. What do you see?”
I closed my eyes. The perspectives of draca throughout the building filled me—all of them at once. That was unexpected, a peculiar synthesis less direct than sight, more like the unconscious awareness of a familiar room where sounds and shadows can reveal even a person out of view. There were colors, though, spanning the vibrant spectrum of draca vision, and hyper-detailed textures. The guests’ strolling steps and motioning hands appeared slowed and clumsy.
“It is more crowded. More excited. People are heated with emotion. There is passion.” I saw the gold aura of great wyves among the surge of people, but…. My eyes snapped open in shock. “There arefourgreat wyves.”
Lord Wellington’s urgency sharpened to a steel edge. “Who?”
“I… do not know. Individuals are difficult to recognize through draca eyes. And I was aware ofeverything. They were scattered through the rooms.”
“Impossible,” Darcy said. “There are only three great wyves.”
“Three?” Lord Wellington exclaimed. “I understood there weretwo.” He did not know about Emma. His eyes swung between Darcy and me, and his jaw corded. “You have withheld information.”
“I will address that later,” Darcy said. “Elizabeth, there cannot be a fourth wyfe.”
“I know what I saw.”
Lord Wellington made his decisions. “I will move the Prince to safety.You”—his gaze pinned me—“guard the dagger.” He vanished into the crowd.
“I can find her,” I said to Darcy as we returned to the room with the dagger exhibit. “If we go room by room.”
“You are supposed to guard the dagger.”
“With what, my wit? This is why I brought draca.”
I had already called for help, and the result was apparent as the crowd made way. Jane’s golden wyvern stalked from a widening corridor of amazed faces on our right, and a lindworm and tykeworm from the left.
The tyke scrambled excitedly to nuzzle my hems. I knelt, closed my eyes, and flicked into his perspective. I saw myself, stooped and shining golden bright, but the rest was a forest of trousers and skirts. I scooped him into myarms and stood—a marginal improvement—then placed my hands under his chest, hoisted him over my head, and turned a circle to scan the room. No shining auras.
I placed him back on the floor and opened my eyes to see a thin-shouldered, academic man bouncing toward me waving a handful of handwritten papers—the museum researcher who first showed us the dagger. “Mrs. Darcy!”
