Page 31 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
Perhaps the Frenchwoman was wrong, and it was not a flute. What else was hollow? Pots and buttonholes and frames flooded my brain like I had split open a peddler’s sack of irrelevance.
I dug my fingers into my hair and scrambled it into a mad mess. When I was a child and my brain was over-cluttered, I would scramble my hair then stumble through the house half-blind until Lizzy or Jane took pity and tidied me. Now, the ritual was more nostalgia than necessity, but when I combed my hair with my fingers, my mind was clear.
Follow the theme of the puzzle: music. Lizzy said the dragons’ true names were songs. The ancient calamity that broke Fènnù’s mind, the fracture, was a corruption of those songs. Music was not merely one of the great wyves’ callings. It was intrinsic to draca themselves.
The dagger Gramr, despite being an artifact of war, had been invoked bysong. At the London ball, Joane Rees wet the dagger’s blade with her own blood to reveal hidden notation. When she sang those notes, Fènnù rose.
I went to Mr. Darcy’s table and borrowed writing materials, then returned to Georgiana’s seat. On a sheet of thick notepaper, I drew the five lines of a musical staff. Joane had sung soprano, so I wrote the swirl of a treble clef, and the staff lines became tones in my mind, E – G – B – D – F.
When panic erupted at the ball, I had fought to reach Joane through the frightened, fleeing crowd. I heard only snatches of her singing. An isolated A-flat. An E-flat descending to C, a minor third. Not enough to establish a key, although Western keys were likely irrelevant. Georgiana’s power manifested through melody, and the modes of her song tended as Eastern as the dragons’ names.
But on the shores of Pemberley lake, I had shared Fènnù’s ancient memory of three great wyves’ attempting to heal the broken song. The stupendous power of their music tore my soul, but I had heard their song through Fènnù’s senses. I could not listen analytically as I would with my own ears.
Fènnù’s attention had fixed on one melody within the song. That I did recall, and it matched the fragments of Joane’s song, although those were so short they would match almost anything.
I dipped the pen and transcribed the melody onto the notepaper. It was largely pentatonic, usually called an Eastern style, but pentatonic scales appeared in the West as well. Gaelic music. Gregorian chant. It was an ancient form. Origin aside, I was certain of one thing: The complete song had been contrapuntal, three equally important parts combined in a harmonic whole.
Stuck and tired of thinking in circles, I unlatched the library window and whistled. After a minute, a lustrous song draca, the loyal one from London, winged to a nearby branch.
I drew a breath, held it—wondering if this was stupendously foolish—then sang the melody from Fènnù’s memory.
The song draca cocked his bejeweled head and whistled the notes back. Perfectly. An echo, as he could repeat any tune I gave him.
The earth did not shake. Wings did not eclipse the sky. The song draca, with studied indifference, watched a caterpillar inch along the branch. Even small draca preferred meat.
That was unexciting, but I was not the one with power. I let the ink dry, then set out briskly to find Georgiana.
I entered the grand music room to the sound of her playing Mozart. Twobars later, Mrs. Reynolds hurried in behind me, her elderly shoulders puffing. She gasped in relief and offered me an envelope. Apparently, she had been chasing me.
“A letter for you, madam.”
“Thank you,” I said and took the envelope. “How is Thomas?” He had been unconscious only a few minutes when struck by the Blackcoat, but his headaches had lingered.
Mrs. Reynolds permitted herself a smile. “Mr. Digweed said, ‘Right as rain today.’ He is greatly relieved. Even so, Lucy has asked to take a day off to care for him—for Thomas, that is, not the father.” Another amused crease joined her wrinkled cheeks.
Then she waited. Georgiana, in snow-white morning dress, had abandoned the Mozart. She arrived beside Mrs. Reynolds and watched me with equal interest.
I realized Mrs. Reynolds was asking permission for Lucy’s request.
“Do not askme,” I protested. “You know far more about it.” Lucy routinely vanished to attend school and, hopefully, to live her life. Embarrassingly, I had never inquired about the details.
“Yes, madam,” she said obediently.
The day before Lizzy rose, Mr. Darcy had informed the senior staff of my new status as an heiress. With him gone, the result was a raft of uncomfortably deferent questions. It did not help that this amused Georgiana. She had folded her hands and adopted an innocent expression, but I knew better.
Once again, Mrs. Reynolds was waiting. “Yes?” I said warily.
“The letter is from the master,” Mrs. Reynolds said pointedly.
I whipped the envelope up. Mr. Darcy’s handwriting. “Why did you notsayso?”
Georgiana pressed to my side, and I opened it for us both. The seal was intact but thick and layered; he had broken and resealed it.
“Miss Bennet,
I trust you and Georgiana are well.
In south Derbyshire, I have encountered a dangerous blight. Crops are infested with foul crawler grubs growing within pea pods and youngfruits. The numbers would be overwhelming, but we appear to have discovered it in time…”
