If she snuffed out the flame before it could rip through all the brush that fed it, perhaps it wouldn’t recur.
That was it. That was how she would steady herself. Evelyn went to work. She had no poppy juice left, not in usable form, and there had been a prohibition on its import for the last fifteen years. But she still made note of the option on a scrap of paper. Past poppies, there was henbane. Chamomile and valerian, which she could add to every compound, to enhance relaxation and to take away the fire on the brain if the medicine didn’t bring about full sleep.
And she could brew a tea of devil’s trumpet as a last resort. It would distort reason, and might damage the senses for a time, but it would sedate without a doubt.
Beyond sedation, what other symptoms could she allay? Where else could she stop the fire where it stood? Something with cooling properties, distracting properties. Purgatives, on the distant chance that this madness was still triggered by ingesting some drug, on the hope that vomiting could shock the body back to its former state. Her mind raced over the options, and she pulled out baskets of dried leaves, took down withered roots from where they hung along the walls, crushed up seeds and ground them to powder.
She couldn’t settle on one single preparation, but she worked through the morning and into the afternoon, setting down her notes and crafting as many options as she could imagine. She tried not to think of all the bright eyes that had been fixed on her in that salon, but she had to consider that the spread would accelerate. She had to arm the Judiciary as best she could. The doctors, no doubt, would happen upon a similar solution once they saw the disease in its non-catatonic form, but when would that be? How would they know to identify it, to connect it to the patients they already had?
When the smoke and fumes began to blur her thoughts, Evelyn went to the workroom door and propped it open. Violetta was nowhere to be seen, and so she let the air of the hallway mix freely into the room. She kept working, kept writing, sweat beading the top of her veil.
By the darkness of the hallway, it was near nightfall when at last she ceased her work, stomach empty and howling distantly for food. She packed her medicines into vials and waxed paper squares, organizing them with written instructions into a small wooden box. A calmness settled over her as she left her workroom and locked the door, walking past the sickroom and out into the main part of the house. Her offering would certainly bring suspicion down upon her household, letting the doctors and Judiciary know that she had a skilled hand at growing and processing herbal potents. Whatever rumors had gained strength after last night would be confirmed. She knew that some of the ingredients in her medicines would point to her less easily excused creations.
But she would bear it. She could bear it, if she were exposed in the service of stopping this poisonous, creeping spread. It would also provide a firebreak against the Judiciary’s attentions, long enough for her to get the soldier back on his feet and out of her life. And Pollard...
She shuddered. He would attempt to shield her from this, too, she suspected.
Evelyn entered the sitting room, expecting to find Violetta on one of the couches mending popped beads from the gown she’d worn the night before. But Violetta was nowhere to be found, black fabric mounded haphazardly on the cushion. Frowning, Evelyn stepped back into the hall, casting about for any sign of life. She heard no footsteps, no whispered speech, no doors moving.
Her calm evaporated. She clutched the box to her chest and hurried to the nearest bell pull, yanking on it and trying not to tremble.
One of Violetta’s girls appeared in the doorway, dropping too deep a curtsy. She was nervous.
Evelyn’s fingers tightened around the box a moment before she forced them to relax. The house was shut, and with the house shut, there was nothing that could reach her. Not yet. “Where is Miss Fusain?” she asked. “I have need of her.”
“In the parlor, my lady. With an officer of the Judiciary,” the girl said.
Her heart stopped in her chest. Nothing could reach her, except that.
“An Officer Linden Pollard, my lady,” the girl added. “The guardsmen—they didn’t think it a wise choice to tell him the house was closed. They thought you should speak directly with him.”
“Of course,” Evelyn said, taking a deep breath. She held out the crate to the girl, who came forward to take it from her. “Take it to the kitchen,” Evelyn said. “I’ll be down to give instructions for it after I see to our guest.”
“Yes, my lady,” the girl said, and then hurried off for the nearby servant’s stair.
Evelyn took the main staircase, self-conscious of the smoke and fumes that still clung to her skirts, along with the plainness of them. They were emphatically work clothing, and not the sort Pollard would expect from her. But what did it matter? It was all closing in, crashing down upon her. She hadn’t moved fast enough, hadn’t been good enough.
She reached the parlor door where it hung open into the hall. Beyond it, she heard Violetta and Pollard speaking in conversational, easy tones. With one last calming breath, she smoothed down the front of her dress, checked her veil, and stepped inside.
Officer Pollard stood at the first brush of her heavy skirts against the rug. He was in full uniform, his hair combed back and pomaded. His expression was carefully schooled to a professional blankness that Evelyn could not read. Violetta rose from the couch opposite of where he had been sitting and retreated to one of the other doors, lingering until Evelyn gestured with a tilt of her chin that she should go.
“Lady Perdanu,” Pollard said, bowing slightly. “I apologize for the lateness of my visit.”
“I presume,” she said, moving to the couch and settling down upon it, “that news of what happened at Countess Urvenon’s has reached you.”
“It has,” he said. Instead of sitting, he came close to her, lips pursing. “I... I was concerned for your wellbeing.”
“I am well, as you can see.” His gaze dropped to her lips, and she realized that he had never seen the lower part of her face unveiled before. “I heard that you left in quite a hurry. If you’ll pardon my saying so, my lady, you aren’t a woman easily scared.”
She watched, impassive, as he settled on the couch beside her, almost too close to be proper. Even now, the impulses that led him to shield her had not been extinguished.
She must rely on that. She must nurture that. The thought was sour and heavy in her mind, but how hard would it be, to play the distraught maiden, overwhelmed by the impossible?
Not hard at all. She felt it in every inch of her, shameful and unshakeable.
“I could not handle hearing that wailing,” Evelyn confessed. “No, I imagine not,” he said, then fell silent. It was not the silence of a man with nothing to say, however, and Evelyn watched him, dread growing in her chest. There was something else, something here that threatened his desperate trust. That was what had brought him to her door.
“Please,” she said, and he looked up at her with a flash of pain. “You wish to say something. Say it.”
Better to know the danger she was in upfront. Better to know if her fears had been correct.
He looked embarrassed as he dragged the words out of his own throat. “It... was suggested, by one of the witnesses, that at other times and at other parties, you have made deliveries of certain items to women of fortune.” His eyes searched hers, as if he couldn’t bring himself to believe it was true.