FURY
EMMA
Harrietand I stumbled across the museum courtyard. Around us, gentlemen and ladies trotted awkwardly in their formal attire, or called out names, or stood dazed.
“We are safe here,” Mr. Knightley said, and our group stopped beside a pair of decorative torches, panting in the chill air.
Kitty was clinging to the arm of her officer. She did not cry, but her eyes were wide. The other officer supported Mrs. Bennet, who was shaky and frightened.
Kitty’s officer nodded to Mr. Knightley. “Thank you, sir. That was well done.”
We had been trapped between the surging crowd and the locked doors, a pressing mass that suffocated our breath until Mr. Knightley kicked loose a metal latch and the remaining lock broke under the mob’s weight.
“What happened in there?” Harriet asked. No one answered. None of us knew. When the shouts began, we fled. Then came metallic brays and bangs like knights battling in armor, and screams, and panic.
Through the crowd, I saw a distinctive black-and-crimson gown descend the museum steps. I called, “Mary! We are here,” and she turned. By moonlight, half her face was white as death, the other half stainedinky black.
She walked to us with quick steps. When the torchlight lit her, Kitty gasped, “Heavens, Mary.”
The light had reddened the stain on Mary’s face to blood. Her loose hair hung wetly. Sodden locks stuck to her forehead, temple, and neck.
Mary said in a grating tone, “Joane Rees is dead.” She gathered a thick handful of her skirt in one hand and wiped her other bloody palm, then scrubbed violently at each finger. Both her hands were drenched.
“I do not…” Kitty began, then tried again. “I am sorry. Who is that?” When Mary only shook her head, Kitty said, “How did it happen?”
“Fast,” Mary breathed. “Jane’s wyvern killed her.” Her head lifted to search the courtyard. “Where is Jane? I was looking for her. She is distraught.”
“Is Lizzy safe?” I asked.
“Yes,” Mary said flatly.
Mr. Knightley offered his handkerchief. “Your face, Mary.” She blinked at the white square, then took it and wiped her forehead. The cloth came away red-soaked. She stared as if amazed, then her shoulders hitched in a stifled sob.
“Look!” Harriet pointed at the sky.
“Where?” Kitty asked, then a huge wing eclipsed the moon.
“Yuánchi,” Mary said sharply.
“No,” I said. There was none of Yuánchi’s scarlet pull.
“Where did it go?” someone said. Heads turned, then the stars and moon blotted out. I shielded my eyes as freezing gusts slammed us. The torches extinguished and rolled away.
The earth shook as giant feet struck the ground. With a clamor like grating chains, the blotted dark folded away. Moonlight reached the gleaming, jet-black scales of a hulking dragon, her wings tucked close, her sinuous tail lifted taut and twitching. She was tremendous. Bigger than Yuánchi. Her huge head and long neck swung to survey the museum buildings. I could sense her presence like the impressions I felt from draca, but armored, icy, and vast.
At least a hundred people were throughout the courtyard. The guests began fleeing while gawking late-night Londoners swarmed in. The two waves collided in a crest of humanity.
The dragon’s head abandoned the building and turned to us—out of all those people, our tiny group. In four thudding steps, she crossed thirty yards, and her dark muzzle stopped ten feet up and a dozen feet away. Her faceted eyes shone with images of the silver moon, the blue lamps in the museum windows, and the yellow of fleeing lanterns.
“Do not run,” Mary advised tensely.
The jewel eyes rested on Mary for one heart-stopping eternity. Then they settled on me. The sense of presence deepened as I stared into her eyes, but it was jittering, flailing fragments.
Words came, halting and imperious as a mad queen:My wyfe of war is claimed by another. She is hidden. Drowned in your song.
Crazed images fluttered—women’s features blending one to another, a stutter of complexions, ochre and cream and ebony, then sweeping sheets of beaten gold and briny blue and swirling, inky clouds.
“Her mind is a ruin,” I said. “Mad.”
