Page 31

By the time her fingers finally scraped against the side of a ceramic pot, she could have wept with relief. It took all her energy to pull herself up high enough to empty her mouth of its liquid burden. Her first full breath was a relief, but not enough; the grey fog was still too overwhelming to allow her to perform her final promised task.

First, she would have to rid herself of the potion she had drunk. It was the only option.

But for once, her body refused to obey her firm commands. Curse it! All she needed to do was rest her weight on one arm, to free her other hand to force herself to retch...but every time she tried, that weight-bearing arm collapsed pathetically beneath her, sending her sprawling.

It was absurd. It was appalling. She refused to stop trying, even as that unfamiliar perfume grew stronger and stronger, until it nearly filled her senses...

And then another arm closed firmly around her figure, holding her up over the pot. “I have you, Lady Riven,” murmured a low, familiar voice.

“...Amalie?” Margaret blinked, fighting through the grey fog that overwhelmed everything. “But—too early—you’re still meant to...?”

“Meant to be at the opera house, not taking any risks?” The lorelei’s tone was wry. “Surely you’re not such a hypocrite as to blame me for my choice tonight?”

“But...” Margaret shook her head in pained confusion. “But...no signs. Didn’t...even smell...”

“I may not be an internationally renowned scholar,” said Amalie, “but I have enough wits to learn from my mistakes. I bought a different type of perfume this morning, to avoid any recognition. Now, why don’t we see if you can rid yourself of your own mistake?”

Her hands were a gentle but firm support as Margaret leaned over the pot and endured the deep unpleasantness of the next few minutes. When Margaret finally emerged from that nightmare, she found herself sagging back against the lorelei’s soft figure, breathing hard as her vision gradually cleared.

“Good Lord, that was no ordinary sleeping powder. I had no idea just how bad it would be!”

“Then I’m glad I was here to help.”

“But why were you here?” Twisting around, Margaret stared into the empty air where the other woman knelt behind her, still hidden by the cloak. “You don’t know me well enough to risk your employment for my sake!”

“Perhaps not,” said the lorelei quietly. “But I do know exactly how it can feel to be left alone and helpless at the hands of an unscrupulous gentleman...and I am attempting to make my second life a more rewarding performance than my first.”

Margaret’s body still sagged with exhaustion, but with her vision once more clear and her aching head no longer spinning, she was able to muster enough of her remaining energy to reach out with one hand.

Invisible fingers closed around hers and held.

“Very well.” Margaret swallowed over the appalling taste in her mouth and gave a firm nod, ignoring the pain caused by that movement. “If you would please help me to my seat, I would deeply appreciate it—and then, if you can crack open the door at the back of the room, we may enjoy the rest of tonight’s production together.”

She was, of course, waiting for Metternich to return. Still, when the door closest to the ballroom suddenly crashed open, nearly an hour later, she gave an instinctive start, her drooping eyelids flying wide open.

“You!” Austria’s former Chancellor stalked into the room, furious red sheening across his eyes as he pointed an accusing finger at her. “What have you done?”

“Me?” It took no great acting skill to sound querulous and confused in her current state. That dreadful potion might be mostly out of her system, but her throat had been badly scraped by its expulsion. The whole process had left her aching in every inch and so deeply weary that she couldn’t bring herself to sit straight in her chair. Instead, she regarded him with open exasperation from her slumped and unladylike position. “I’ve done nothing. How could I, after you forced that drugged wine down my throat?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past you,” he spat. “I know you’ve been nosing around at every ball! Europe’s most notorious lady scholar of the supernatural arriving just when you did—why else would you have come?”

“You’ll have to tell me that yourself,” she said sourly, and tucked her reticule even closer to her chest as if for protection. “What’s gone wrong tonight while I was trapped here? Has that supernatural waltz played yet again?”

“It has not,” he snarled, “and I know you’re to blame. What have you done with the Wand of the Woods?”

So that was its name! Margaret had so many follow-up questions...but for once, she bit down on surging academic curiosity and restrained herself to the most important question now: “Whatever do you mean?”

He slashed one hand impatiently through the air. “That conductor should have been wielding it all along! I know it was waiting on his stand tonight. I put it there myself. I could not have been mistaken! It should have set off that waltz at least half an hour ago. But when I went to check just now, I found that someone had replaced it with an ordinary conductor’s baton! He thought it was another Imperial messenger who’d done it, but I knew you must have been behind the theft.”

“Good heavens.” Margaret fluttered her eyelashes like the kind of breathless débutante her aunt had always wished her to be. “Do you really mean to say that all this time, you were the one setting off that terrible waltz, purely to disrupt the peace conference?”

“To protect the empire,” he snapped. “And I know you’re behind this, so there’s no use in playing the part of a witless woman now. In fact...” His gaze landed on the reticule she still held cradled on her lap. “You have it now, don’t you? That’s why you were trying to hide that bag from me earlier! You must have squeezed it in there somehow!”

In response to his accusation, four separate things took place at once:

Metternich lunged forward with vampiric speed to snatch the reticule from her hands...

Behind Margaret, a deep inhalation sounded...