1
PERFUME
MARY
The broken glassfrom the bookshop windows had been swept away. The few jutting shards left in the sills glistened like teeth. Inside, rows of neatly labeled bookshelves stood empty behind a sign that read:CLOSED DUE TO WAR.
“They moved,” I said. It was only a shop, but every vacant shelf was a hole in my heart. I had come here since I was a child. “The books were not ransacked. They are just gone.”
“I am sorry, Mary.” Georgiana slipped her arm through mine and rested her temple on my shoulder—a lover’s touch discreet enough for public display.
We had visited nine London bookshops in the last few days. Six were closed. The other three had no scholarly works on draca, only children’s fables or hastily printed melodramas where handsome colonels drew their sabers to challenge dragons.
Real dragons had fought in London’s skies. A shadow of this roofline was burned onto the street; the flash from Yuánchi’s fire had scorched the cobblestones. A half mile away, Westminster Palace lay in ruins, frozen by Fènnù’s black breath. Challenging a dragon with a saber was as far-fetched as any children’s fable, entertaining only if one had not beheld their power.
But sabers killed soldiers well enough. The Sussex front was twenty miles south of us. Wounded and dead arrived regularly.
“Shall we try another shop?” Georgiana asked. Her words were supportive. Her tone, somewhat less.
“You think I am foolish,” I said.
“I did not say that. We both want Lizzy back.”
An image of Pemberley lake filled my mind’s eye: a winter memory, gray waves and frosted shore. My sister and her scarlet dragon had battled Fènnù there and fallen, grievously wounded, into the water. Vanished and lost, but alive. Trapped in the strange, water-bound sleep of draca, which lasted for decades or centuries—a sleep I sought to interrupt.
“I need knowledge to save Lizzy,” I said. That sounded stubborn, so I mocked myself: “How hard can it be? I only seek to raise a dragon.”
Georgiana turned me from the broken window. Her irises were steady sapphire rings behind her long lashes. “Yuánchi and Lizzy fell together. They will rise together. What if all this was meant to be?”
Trust. Have faith. That frustrated me. Patience did not breach barriers. Georgiana, one of the three legendary great wyves, had fantastic power in the realm of draca—not to mention growing up wrapped in wealth. She inhabited a world that bent to her wishes. My world was stacks of dusty books.
But even a bookworm could miss a sister, and Lizzy’s absence was an endless pang. Stubbornness felt good. “I will not sit and wait. I do not care if this is beyond me.”
“I did not saythat, either!” Georgiana protested. “Your sister raised a dragon, and you share her blood. I am advising patience because youcouldsucceed. We must respect what nature intends.”
She was sincere, yet… “Why did you not argue while I dragged you around London yesterday?”
“I am practicing a speech to my brother,” she admitted. “At least you want to understand.Heis a bold Darcy. He only argues when I say we should wait.” She scowled, thinking. “My brother is why we can find no references. He emptied these bookshops of draca lore years ago…”
And then his books were stolen.
Her scowl became thoughtful. “What about the museum?”
“That is an idea.” They would not release documents, but they had an overeager scholar of Tudor queens and dragons. I added, “Thank you.”
Georgiana smiled triumphantly. Her dress was amber sarsenet silk, square-shouldered with brass buttons; the wartime fashions had mimicked militaryuniforms. She rose on her toes and whispered in my ear, “Iam a bold Darcy,” which left me heated and flustered.
Our driver called in his thick northern accent, “Miss Bennet. We should not linger.” He was seated atop our battered hackney coach, purchased second-hand four days ago. The coach was a disguise, chosen to be less conspicuous than one from Chathford House, the Darcys’ London home. The driver was a constable, an unlikely friendship I formed when we argued nose-to-nose during a sweltering street protest last August. Impressively burly, he satisfied Mr. Darcy’s insistence on security. London was dangerous, particularly for Darcys and Bennets.
I turned to go, but Georgiana caught my elbow.
A black-clad young woman was hurrying across the street. She arrived breathless and passed me a folded page. “Mary! Another crawler sting. They called for you.”
The front of St.George’s Hospital, groomed and pretty, faced the park. The alley behind it was for workers, and our coach followed that to stop by the wooden outbuildings: stables, stores, and the privy vats, thankfully covered until night collection. An entire yard was hung with wet cloth steaming in the morning air. Hospital laundry was a Sisyphean chore.
Between the cobblestones, bright blades of grass had sprung. Yellow dandelions stuffed every untrod corner. London, freed from the dragon Fènnù’s unnatural, punishing winter, reveled in spring.
Georgiana watched from the open coach door. “Shall I come in with you?”
