I applied the tincture and bandage, then measured the oral dose. The doctoradministered it in trickles, stroking the woman’s throat to encourage swallowing.
“What is this tincture?” he asked.
“The common name is draca essence. It is brewed from a flower pollinated by draca. It grows only in the north.”
“These crawler attacks are becoming frequent. The hospital should have a supply.”
“I have sent for a shipment to distribute. It is overdue.”
He nodded; shortages were routine since the war. Then he reached for the bloody cloth that had mopped the wound.
I caught his hand before he touched it. “Have the nurse burn it. A man can be killed by a fraction of the venom tolerated by a woman. You should wash your hands with soap and hot water.”
He drew back, though he seemed unalarmed. “Thank you, Miss Bennet.” I turned to go, the draca flapping to my shoulder, and he added softly, “Great Wyfe.”
Rebecca and I exited through a workers’door and entered the laundry maze.
“Three stings in as many days,” she said. “I like spring weather, but if it wakes those vermin…” Her voice petered out, and she looked back at me.
I had stopped. The song draca was purring a woodwind whistle into my ear. The tone rose and fell, an eerie siren, and a strange sense within me resonated in counterpoint. Hairs tingled on the nape of my neck.
Most of the laundry yard was obscured. Ropes as heavy as ship’s rigging were laden with boiled bandages and dripping smocks. A breeze labored among the wet fabrics, revealing glimpses when the swaying gaps aligned.
“Miss Darcy is at Hyde Park Corner,” I whispered. “Hurry there and ask her to send the coach and driver.” Rebecca’s gaze was concerned, but she nodded and rushed away. Strange times had taught us to honor strange requests.
When she was gone, I called loudly, “Who is here?”
A young woman’s voice answered. “I sought a meeting, Mademoiselle Bennet.” Her accent was French, Parisian, and, as best my ear could judge, aristocratic.
Napoleon’s invasion of southern England had halted travel between London and France. A few French remained, dislocated or emigrated, but they strove to Anglicize their speech. This woman spoke with the careless amusement of a baroness indulging foreign consonants.
I separated a pair of tangled wet towels and stepped an aisle closer. “You know my name,madame. Will you share yours?”
“Perhaps. If I approve of you.”
I dodged below a row of flapping bandages as she stepped into the same aisle. A few yards separated us. She wore an English dress, bonnet, and spencer of slate gray, all expensively edged with lace, but she had tied a white silk fichu around her neck in the French fashion. With her flamboyant accent, it was a poor disguise, if disguise was her intent.
She studied me as well, her head tilting.
The song draca’s claws pricked through the shoulder pad of my dress, and his purring growl deepened to a thrum that vibrated my jawbone. With a silent swoop, a second song draca alighted on the laundry line to my right.
“So, it is true,” the Frenchwoman said, inspecting the draca. “Les présages”—she made a pretty moue while hunting for the English word—“the harbingers follow you.” Her gaze traced my dress. “Black clothes. You mourn your sister?”
Lizzy and Yuánchi were entombed countless fathoms deep. After they fell, two dismal months had passed before Emma sensed Lizzy’s survival—sensed Lizzy’s unbroken binding to Yuánchi. But our family hid that revelation. To the world, Elizabeth Darcy was dead.
“My family is no concern of yours,” I said. Was this a spy sent to discover the fate of England’s scarlet dragon?
“Your family is Bennet. You are a Bennet. Bennets are important.” She tapped a slim finger to her lips. “Our glorious Emperor, Napoleon, has divorced Marie Louise, the Austrian pretender. He will choose a French Empress. One who proves she can bind a great draca.”
I had heard nothing of Napoleon divorcing, although he had done so before, but a different question came to mind. “Bind? There are no draca in France.” There had been none for centuries, one of the mysteries of draca.
She dismissed that with a pitying glance, then smiled. “I met one of your sisters. Ly-di-a.” She stretched her mouth, mocking the English vowels. “Then, I was onlyune demoiselle du palais, a lady-in-waiting, and Lydia was powerful.Now, I am changed. And you…” She pointed her index finger at each draca—one, two—then at me, three. “Vous êtes formidable.”
“Why are you in England?”
Outside the laundry yard, a clop of hooves and clatter of wheels drew up. The coach had come.
She spoke swiftly. “I seek something old and valuable. You are a Bennet. You know where it hides.”
