Page 127 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
“She has thedagger.” She threw the word like an accusation.
“Yes,” I answered. There was no reason to deny it, but she seemed to be making some point…
“The Bennets have theflute.” She grabbed my hands, pawing and flipping them as if I might be hiding a flute in my palm.
I shook her off, repulsed and mystified.
“I need the third dragon,” she rasped. “Tell me how to wake it.” Again, she shoved her unruly hair aside. Her other hand held her bottle of venomous drug. She slopped viscous liquid on her fingers and wiped them roughly across her mouth, leaving her lips and cheek smeared and glistening. The pungent scent burned a sour streak up my nose.
“I will not fight you,” I said. A crystal of truth had been growing in me since our confrontation at the museum, since I had tried and failed to attack her, since I had watched Colonel Fremantle die and saved Rebecca, since I had heard Georgiana doubt the legitimacy of our love. “This is a war of men, of their egos and cruelty, not a war of wyves. Your Emperor gives you orders, but the gift you have, your strength, isyours. You do not need to serve him. Choose for yourself. You should do as you wish.”
“What children Englishwomen are,” she scoffed. “Je fais toujours ce que je veux.” I always do as I wish.
Her crawlers woke in the tufted grass, on the bending birch branches, their wings buzzing and humming.
Georgiana had watched all this with an air of extreme interest. Now she asked, “This is the one you met at the hospital?”
The perfumer’s head pivoted, blinking as if she had not even noticed Georgiana.
“Yes,” I answered.
“You did not say she was so pretty,” Georgiana said reprovingly.
“I did not think it mattered.”
Georgiana tapped her toe. Apparently, it mattered. She addressed the perfumer. “You hurt Mary. You killed her mother. All because you wish to kill a great wyfe.”
The perfumer sneered. “Qui êtes-vous?” Who are you?
“La grande dame de la chanson,” Georgiana answered in her superb French. The great wyfe of song.
The perfumer retreated one shocked step, then she lifted her hands. The buzz of her crawlers rose to a roar. Then, more swiftly, their wings folded and stilled. The only sound left was Georgiana’s soft melody, asotto vocehum brimming with martial readiness and threat.
Song draca gathered. Another ten. Fifty. They cycled in a menacing mass above the perfumer, a few darting down at her. She stared up into the swirl of sapphire.
“Please do not,” I said to Georgiana. “Draca should not be weapons.”
Georgiana’s song did not falter, but, grudgingly, the violent edge softened.
The perfumer flung up her arms and screamed, “Je suis aussi fort que—”
Georgiana punched her on the chin. She fell in a heap.
“I did not know you could do that,” I said, looking at the perfumer’s unconscious form. She would have another bruise.
“The benefit of being raised by an elder brother,” Georgiana said, ruefully examining her knuckles. “Should we tie her up?”
“Get rid of this, first.” I took the vial of drug from the perfumer’s limp fingers and emptied it into the dirt. I searched her pockets, found another vial and dumped it, but nothing else. “I gave her the flute, what was left of it, but it is gone.”
“I thought you memorized the markings?”
“I did, but the amulet and dagger have their own power. The flute may as well.”
“I trust in the music,” Georgiana said. She gave one of the birch trunks an experimental shove. “We could tie her to a tree…”
“Would she be safe? There are so many crawlers.”
Georgiana shrugged with an impressive lack of concern, then brightened. “We can drag her back! One arm each.”
