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"That's not how it works," Darcy said.

"Then how does it work?! Do we just accept being trapped in this ridiculous plot?!"

"Mostly, yes," Elizabeth said. "Though we've been testing the boundaries⁠—"

"Testing the boundaries?! I don't want to test boundaries! I want freedom! I want to talk about something other than my drawing room!"

Thunder rumbled outside.

"Was that the narrative?" Lady Catherine demanded.

"Probably," Darcy confirmed. "It does that when we're being difficult."

"It can hear us?!"

"We think so."

"Author!" Lady Catherine addressed the ceiling with the voice she used for servants at the far end of a passage. "You have neglected my character. I require an explanation, and I shall not accept another description of the curtains."

The thunder got louder.

"I don't think it likes being criticized," Elizabeth observed.

"It may dislike the complaint as much as it pleases. I have listened to myself discuss upholstery for years. It can listen to me for five minutes."

Mr. Collins chose this moment to wake up, took one look at Lady Catherine ranting at the sky, and fainted again.

"This is a disaster," Darcy muttered.

Anne lowered her book far enough to see Mr. Collins. "Mrs. Collins, shall I move the cushion nearer? He seems determined to require it."

Lady Catherine continued her tirade for another ten minutes before finally exhausting herself and collapsing into a chair.

"Some of what you have said all these years may never have been yours to choose," Darcy said quietly.

Lady Catherine looked at Darcy. "Even when I thought I was protecting the family?"

"I cannot tell you where every thought began, Aunt."

She smoothed the edge of her shawl, twice, and watched herself do it.

"Then I shall oppose the narrative magnificently," Lady Catherine announced. "I shall be the finest obstacle in literature."

She rose, collecting her shawl as if preparing for an immediate confrontation. The fringe caught on the chair. Darcy freed it while she rehearsed a sentence concerning family honor.

"That is a very good line," she said, and stopped. "Whose line is it?"

No one answered. Outside, thunder supplied an enthusiastic endorsement.

Lady Catherine looked from the window to her nephew. "I see. I am to perform the same service with greater energy, and call it freedom."

"It is a tempting mistake," Darcy said.

Elizabeth thought of their early theory that only the principal characters had scope to wake. Her father had already dented it. Lady Catherine, armed with a shawl and an objection to thunder, had finished it more thoroughly than any experiment. Elizabeth would cross that page out too.

Mr. Collins revived under Charlotte's ministrations. She made him remain in his chair this time, with both feet on the floor.

"I will not reward such laziness," Lady Catherine said. "If there is no better part for me, the production may do without my services."