And as she watched her sister rise, her shoulders squared with a newfound purpose, Elizabeth began to wonder.
That evening, the subdued atmosphere lingered over the dinner table. It was a muted, distracted meal, each member of their small party lost in their own anxieties.
It was Georgiana who broke the tension. “Do you remember, Fitzwilliam,” she said, her gaze fixed on her brother’s drawn face, “that summer at Pemberley when you two decided the nursery must be turned into a dragon’s lair?”
A flicker of something — a distant, less complicated memory — crossed Darcy’s face. He said nothing, but the stern line of his jaw softened.
Wickham, however, chuckled, a genuine, unforced sound that dispelled some of the oppressive gloom. “Good Lord, Ana, I had forgotten that! You were only four, yet you were so taken with that book of Welsh myths. And Darcy,” he looked at his old rival, an almost boyish grin spreading across his features, “you spent the entire afternoon meticulously trying to coat the walls in a layer of frost, trying to make it look like a crystal cave.”
“My design was faithful to the established lore,” Darcy said, in the manner of one defending a treatise, “According to the tales, the great ice-wyrms of the north made their lairs in glacial caverns and froze their treasure into the walls. He shot apointed look at Wickham. “Your method, Wickham, as I recall, was to forgo accuracy entirely and attempt to make stalagmites erupt from the floor. It resulted in a series of muddy, lopsided pillars that looked more like unfortunate fungal growths than anything a self-respecting dragon would choose to hoard its gold amongst.”
“A dragon’s lair needs a proper earthy feel. Your fancy ice patterns were flawlessly executed, I grant you, but entirely without character,” said Wickham.
“But you must allow that Fitzwilliam’s was just as the old tales described it,” said Georgiana.
“I am afraid you credit me with a scholarly diligence I have never possessed,” Wickham replied with a lazy grin.
Colonel Fitzwilliam let out a bark of laughter. “The real trouble began when Darcy’s frost started to freeze Wickham’s mud. Georgiana’s nurse declared the room a bog of frozen sludge and said the only way to clean it was to wait for the spring thaw.”
“I had forgotten she called it that,” Darcy said, his voice holding a note of nostalgic amusement. “It was Mrs Hall’s formal complaint that finally brought Father to our door.”
“And then he ordered us to clean it up without magic,” Wickham said, with a grimace. “Five days in that freezing, muddy room with buckets and scrubbing brushes. My hands were raw for a week. Actually, I do not think they have ever been the same since.”
The colonel snorted. “Oh come now, Wickham. To hear you tell it, one would think you were a delicate flower. Such a milksop.”
“I recall that particular punishment quite vividly,” Darcy said, as the corner of his mouth twitched upwards. “It was also the sole occasion on which Wickham’s pillars demonstrated any structural integrity. They were frozen solid.”
And just like that, with a shared childhood memory, something changed in the room entirely. Spurred on by the Georgiana’s curiosity and encouragement, the colonel, Wickham, and Darcy spoke of other elemental escapades: of Darcy and Wickham playing pall mall, and Wickham attempting to conjure helpful ripples in the earth, only to send a jarring shudder through the lawn. The colonel then recounted the time Darcy had spent an entire week meticulously encouraging the rose garden to bloom out of season, only for Wickham to decide that they needed more life. He had then sent a pulse through the soil, causing every single dormant weed, root, and wild vine in a fifty-foot radius to erupt from the ground in a tangled and entirely impenetrable thicket that choked out the roses and took the gardeners a month to clear.
A smile touched Elizabeth’s lips. It was a story she knew by heart, though she had never heard this telling of it. Wickham’s disastrous magical flourishes were so reminiscent of her own younger sisters’ mischief, whose thoughtlessness could aggravate her beyond measure, but whom she loved fiercely regardless. To see that same dynamic playing out here, in this tale of two boys and a ruined rose garden, made the bitter history between the two men feel achingly familiar and deeply human.
“I always envied your control, Darcy,” Wickham said, his tone tinged with a wistful note as he swirled the dregs of his wine. “Your seemingly effortless, innate command of the elements. My own magic was nothing like that. It was always…raw. Un-nurtured. Overwhelming.”
The amusement vanished from Darcy’s expression. A slight rigidity settled in his shoulders, the posture not of anger, but of a man girding himself against an unwelcome memory.
“But I thought Father had arranged for your instruction?” Georgiana said, a line of confusion creasing her brow.
“Oh, he did,” the colonel said, his voice dropping slightly as he turned his full, undivided attention to Wickham. “Do go on.”
Wickham gave a pained laugh. “I suppose you could say so. Your father saw some potential in me. He arranged for me to study alongside Darcy for a time. Until I misplaced a small section of the east lawn’s topography and accidentally rerouted the garden stream into the cellars. I suppose that was one too many mishaps. The lessons stopped.”
Elizabeth braced for the inevitable sharp retort, the cutting dismissal of Wickham’s excuses. But what came was something entirely different. Darcy’s next words sounded almost defeated, a catalogue of old disasters delivered not as an accusation, but as a plain and painful statement of fact. “A tremor that nearly cracked the foundation of the east wing, Wickham. A redirected stream that flooded the lower cellars.”
“I always held a suspicion that you had a hand in the decision to end my tutelage,” Wickham stated, his manner one of old curiosity rather than accusation.
Darcy said quietly, “My father offered you the opportunity to study your magic elsewhere.”
“In exile,” Wickham muttered.
“Regardless, it was an opportunity you refused.”
“And why should I have accepted?” Wickham demanded, his voice tight with the memory of his own wounded pride. “To be deemed second-rate? To have my magic declared deficient and be cast off?”
“Your magic was never deficient. It was, however, profoundly dangerous. A distinction you seemed to ignore when you wielded it with so little thought for the repercussions.”
“A power I myself did not understand,” Wickham countered, his gaze dropping to the dregs in his wine glass. His voice, for the first time, held a note of loss that felt entirely unfeigned. “You could never comprehend that, Darcy. For you, discipline is asnatural as drawing breath. You don’t know what it is like for us mere mortals.”
At those words, Darcy’s gaze sought hers, and in that brief, charged instant, Elizabeth understood. He was not hearing the complaint of his old rival; he was remembering the echo of her own frustrations. The memory seemed to settle in the air between them.
