Now she required greater circumspection. How many of these bright-plumaged birds would have already sung half a song to their closest confidantes about treason living in their spare rooms? No; new supplicants from this set would only lead to ruin.She should never have begun this. It had started when she sixteen, freshly clad in black once more after her brothers’ deaths, still believing she should play by the broader rules of the world. She’d been wandering the halls of a similar party, unchaperoned for the first time in her life, when she’d heard crying from one of the retiring rooms. She’d found a woman twice her age crumpled into a heap, sobbing for the bruises that blackened her throat.
Lady Amhurl had looked up at Evelyn’s soft gasp, perhaps expecting to see her lady’s maid ready with the powder to cover the marks her husband had left on her yet again. But it had been only Evelyn, who after a moment’s uncertain regard fled. Fled, to her carriage, to her home, to her garden.
At the next party, she’d given Lady Amhurl a small glass vial of gelsemium tincture.
Lord Amhurl had been dead a fortnight later. She’s realized only afterwards what a risk it was, letting another know what she was capable of, but Lady Amhurl was practiced in discretion, and wouldn’t dare incriminate herself. So, instead, when she spoke of Evelyn she spoke only of medicines, of fixes to unfixable problems. Nobody else in her circle suspected a woman of peddling bottled death; they made the easier interpretation. Contraceptives, cosmetics, cures.
Over the years, Evelyn’s garden had grown. She hated the attention, hated the banality of the requests, but even as she began to live by her own rules, eschewing parties for the privacy of her home, she began to see the value in the power she held. On occasion, there were accidents. On occasion, Evelyn exercised her judgment. If a girl came to her seeking a potion to keep her husband’s eyes from wandering, and ended up tending to a husband who could no longer rise from his bed at all, could Evelyn be blamed? Could such a girl seek justice without incriminating herself?
It reminded the tenuous web of women who looked to her for aid that to turn on her, to speak her name instead of whispering it, could not end well for anybody. It reminded them that in exchange for whatever cure she proferred, she controlled a new secret of theirs. It reminded them that she could not cure all ills, and that she was not a tool to be used. It kept them firmly at a distance, and Evelyn liked that.
The blockade had put an end to many requests, and she granted fewer and fewer. The remaining nobility, those who hadn’t defected in the early days, as well as those who hadn’t been at their country estates and were therefore now cut off from Delphinium, were a teetering skeleton crew. This whole party thrummed with an undercurrent of desperation. The smiles were painted on, the eyes hollow. The glittering crowd refused to acknowledge death lurking just out at sea, waiting for them, even as they all could feel the wrongness. They knew where to step around the rotting wreckage of what they had lost, how to keep their backs to it and plug their noses.
Violetta approached along the wall, drawing up just behind where Evelyn sat. “No sign of him, my lady,” she said, confirming Evelyn’s earlier search for Pollard.
Evelyn nodded, eyeing the glasses of wine being passed around by footmen. Her veil would make it too awkward to drink, or eat, and her throat itched with longing.
“Our houseguest,” Violetta began. Evelyn looked at her, brow arched in question. Now was not the time or place.
But Violetta looked deeply concerned. Evelyn sighed and looked back out to the crowd, an invitation for Violetta to continue murmuring in her ear.
“What did you tell him, yesterday? He refused food this morning, and again before we left.”
“You should have told me this before we left the house.”
“His feeding is my responsibility. It isn’t dire, yet.”
“He is a clever man,” Evelyn said. “He understands his predicament.”
“Then he is angry?”
“I expect so. And afraid.” Suspicious of the food, no doubt. “He is stronger than he was; bring him something more substantial than gruel. Perhaps ask what he wants to eat. He prefers you to me; he may engage.”
“Yes, my lady.” Violetta straightened up, looking out at the crowd.
Evelyn heard her soft, sharp intake of breath, and followed her gaze.
Countess Urvenon was crossing the floor to them, her motions graceful but unfamiliar as she stepped around everybody between her and Evelyn. She was smiling. Looking for Pollard? Her dress was a confection of silk and lace, her hair woven with gems, every ounce of her screaming that she was the Empress’s favored niece. Two different times, guests tried to catch her attention, but her eyes were only on Evelyn.
Her bright, unblinking eyes. Evelyn glanced up at Violetta, panicked. “Do you—”
“Her eyes,” Violetta whispered. That was enough. This wasn’t her fleeting vision by the shops the other day. Evelyn rose to her feet, looking for the nearest exit. The door to the hallway, to the dining room.
But Countess Urvenon was upon them, and before Evelyn could slip into the nearest copse of conversing young men, her hand had settled on Evelyn’s arm.
“We are glad that you came,” Urvenon said, smile widening. “We had hoped that you would.”
Evelyn swallowed past her rampaging heart. She wanted nothing more than to break away, to run—but on every side, guests had turned to watch their polite dance. Evelyn had no choice but to play along. Panicked flight would only cause whispers of instability.
“Countess Urvenon,” Evelyn said, as if she couldn’t see the change in her eyes. “Your party is wonderful, as always.”
Urvenon’s grin widened into something horrible. “We are glad the body pushed her invitation. We were afraid she would let you go, on the street. But you came.”
Her blood curdled in her veins. She began to tremble. She tried to lower her arm, remove it from the other woman’s grip, but Urvenon clung to Evelyn. No, not Urvenon. The body. Whatever drug or horror had pinned Urvenon’s eyelids open had divorced her from reason, from herself.
“Let go of me,” Evelyn hissed.
“We do not wish to lose you again.” Urvenon’s grip, if anything, tightened. “It has taken us so long to find you.”
Evelyn’s expression rippled into a snarl before she could school it back to disdainful blankness. She leaned in, aware of being watched. “Urvenon, tell me what you’ve taken. You are not yourself.”
“No, we are not her.” The woman’s expression shifted, grin changing to a distorted frown. “Don’t you recognize us?”
“Your maid,” Evelyn said. “Your maid, she took something, perhaps she gave it to you. What was it? A chew, a drink?”
“We’ve met you before, Evelyn Perdanu. Don’t you remember us?”It was a drug, only a drug; Evelyn clung desperately to that concept even as she hurtled towards the awful understanding that it was no drug at all, drowning in the riptide of the impossible. Her heart crashed against her ribs, as her lungs struggled against her corset to draw enough panting breaths to keep her upright. “Urvenon, you should lie down,” she said, trying to pull her arm away, as if to lead her by it. But what would that accomplish in the face of this? Could she lie down and sleep off the effects? Rest, as if this were any normal intoxication? No.