“Take your stup—”
Purple smoke billowed from the Faytling.
A footman stared at the place where it had landed. “You broke it,” he muttered and looked to Mr. MacDougall. “Sir, they never break.”
Mr. MacDougall pressed himself against the door as if to block it, but it didn’t matter. Smoky tendrils seeped through the space between the door and its frame. It seeped into the room where the calliope now played at full force.
“No, no, no,” Mr. MacDougall repeated frantically. He wheeled around and pulled the door open.
In the confusion, the footmen stepped aside, and I ran into the room behind Mr. MacDougall.
“Stop!” I screamed. “Stop the music! It’s a trick! It’s dangerous!”
I rushed to the instrument. A monocled man in a waistcoat and tails sat at its piano keys, gaping at me. He opened his mouth, but it was Mr. Bailey’s voice I heard rising at the far end of the room.
I turned and was struck dumb, seeing that I was standing not only before the Queen, but Prince Albert, the royal children, the ladies in waiting, a number of grooms, and I don’t know how many other officials and members of the household, their chairs all arranged in tidy rows.
Mr. Bailey stood in the center aisle, his face red and eyes bulging with rage. “What have you done?” he wailed.
Yet I hardly noticed him barreling toward me because I was watching a cloud of the purple smoke slip out an open window at the back.
Was that it? Was that all it was going to do? I had hoped for something that would help. Anything.
But it did nothing.
My will to fight drained from me. Nearly.
I spied the Queen. She appeared in good health if not fine spirits, cowering as she was into Prince Albert’s shoulder. So it wasn’t too late. I approached the man sitting at the calliope. “Don’t lay another finger on that instrument.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Mr. Bailey said, gasping and breathless. “She’s only a maid for goodness sake. She’s mad.” He grabbed my elbow and pulled me.
I yanked out of his grip. “Don’t touch me.”
But then other hands were on me. I turned back. MacDougall’s footmen were pulling me, dragging me from the room. I fought them, and fought the onslaught of images, wild and chaotic images, that descended on me.
The Queen hid her face behind a black lace fan and whispered to the Prince. Then others were whispering, filling the room with low murmurs.
“No!” I yelled. “You’re going to be—”
Before I could finish, a violent crash shook the walls and the back window exploded inward in a cloud of shattered glass and gray mist. No, it wasn’t mist. It was a mass of tiny wings. Hundreds, thousands of tiny wings. Dragonfly wings. A swarm of silvery-white angels identical to my beloved friend.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
In perfect unison, the tiny insects lifted one of the crimson draperies from the window, carried it over the crowd like a canopy, and then, in one smooth and coordinated motion, let it drop over the calliope. I watched it descend with a soft thump over the instrument, trapping the steam and the danger beneath it.
“No!”
The scream was Mr. Bailey’s. He rushed to tug at the curtain, trying to free the pipes. Each time he exposed a corner, the dragonfly horde moved it again. He batted at them, but they ceded no ground.
Still, as I watched that battle, I could see a small wisp of red smoke emerge from a corner of the fabric and float along the floor. Like the purple cloud, it traveled among the chaos of boots and limbs and chairs to the far edge of the room.
I rubbed my eyes. Was it a trick of the light? No, it was there, a ball of crimson mist fluttering in the afternoon sunlight. All around people screamed and ran. Dragonflies hovered in a massive cloud. But I ignored it all and followed the tiny red trail to the window.
The thing, whatever it was, moved like a breeze beneath chairs, some of them overturned in the occupant’s haste to get out of the way.
I hurried after it, winding my way around the legs of people and chairs when I could and anything that got in my way. I followed it to the window, where it climbed the wall to the shattered glass and the splintered sill and traveled out into the open air.
I stood at the broken window and watched. Where was it going?
After a moment, I spied the tuft of smoke again, traveling along the ground toward the castle’s northern wall.
Then I knew.
I bolted for the door.
Mr. MacDougall blocked me. “You aren’t going anywhere.” His furious eyes glared down.
“Leave her alone!” Mr. Wyck yanked Mr. MacDougall’s hand away.
The older man’s fury collapsed into confusion then alarm. “Stand aside, boy.”
Mr. Wyck squared himself to the man. His height was not as great as Mr. MacDougall’s, but the breadth of his shoulders and fighting stance made him more formidable. “I will not.” The words came from somewhere deep within him, like a growl.
I stepped back.
“Go.” Mr. Wyck motioned to me then stared down Mr. MacDougall. “And you need to explain why you’ve been lying to me.”
Mr. MacDougall glared at Mr. Wyck. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” He turned to me. “Don’t you dare leave this room. You will be held accountable for what you’ve done.”
“As you and Mr. Bailey will be held to account,” I snapped back before running to the door. I paused and glanced back. Mr. Wyck’s face was as red as I’d ever seen it. He spewed words I couldn’t hear over the chaos.
If there was any doubt where his loyalty lay, there was none now. He was on my side, and I could have kissed him for it.
Quickly, I tore through the corridors, past the baffled pages
