Darcy shifted. Or appeared to. Then she realized he had not moved at all, but had developed a double profile. The narrow gap between outlines slowly widened, the fainter one moving toward the glass.
It was Darcy's soul.
Why did Darcy himself not move? It was time! He must break contact now, or the false exchange would become true.
The gap increased. The Mirror of Narcissus summoned, demanding its tithe. But she'd be damned before she allowed it to take Darcy s soul. That belonged to God. And to her.
With a cry, she hurled herself against her husband, knocking him to the floor. She held him, and her breath, while she wailed in agonizing helplessness to see whether she also held his spirit. Its outline remained separated from that of his body for what seemed an eternity until, blessedly, they merged.
Darcy's gaze, however, found the glass once more and locked upon it.
'Darcy?' she shouted. 'Darcy!'
She could not command his attention, nor, she discovered, could she physically turn his face from the glass. 'Professor!'
Randolph abandoned his post. He pushed the mirror upright and rested it against the wall, where it continued to bathe the room in the glow of hell-fire. He rushed forward and dragged Darcy out of the mirror's range. She stood and tried to follow.
The mirror would not permit her.
It held her in its sight. Invisible claws raked her, rent her, trying to claim her soul for the one she had denied. She felt a tear, a grasp, as the mirror prepared to consume her spirit. The flames leapt in anticipation of their feast.
Still on the floor. Darcy pushed himself to a sitting position. He moved groggily, as if awakening from slumber. She could not even see his face. With a swift prayer that this would not be her last vision of him in this lifetime, she steeled herself against the mirror's imminent pull.
She felt its grip — strong, overpowering, cold for all the heat of its fire. Then, suddenly, it released her.
The wails of every soul the Mirror of Narcissus had ever held flooded the air, centuries of tormented shrieks and cries that had gone unheard in their glass prison. The flames burned blue, then black. Mr. Dashwood's image had disappeared, no doubt consumed by the raging inferno.
The mirror's surface wavered, losing solidity, threatening to send molten glass oozing across the floor. The wails grew so loud she had to cover her ears or go mad. As they reached a crescendo, a mighty roar sounded. The mirror shook violently, Elizabeth feared it would come away from the wall and topple over to crush her. But it did not.
It imploded.
'Thank heaven you are what you always were.'
The sudden silence was almost more disturbing than the howls of the damned.
Only the sound of the rain, falling gently once more, penetrated the stillness. No one spoke. No one moved. All simply stared at an empty gold frame. The glass had collapsed in on itself, disappearing into whatever plane of hell it had occupied and leaving nothing but a tarnished shell behind.
Elizabeth shuddered — from horror or chill, she knew not. Probably both. The room had returned to a normal temperature, leaving her cold in her perspiration-drenched gown. Darcy came to her. He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly enough to assure her that he was, indeed, her Darcy—
unscarred, if not untouched, by their ordeal. His whispered enquiries and her murmured responses reassured him of her own wholeness.
Though the dimness of the room granted them partial privacy they soon grew conscious of their audience and separated.
Professor Randolph had crossed to the table, where he was actually taking his time relighting the candelabrum. When he finished his task, the tapers emitted a gentle glow, comforting in contrast to the blaze just extinguished.
Randolph assessed them. 'You both appear all right.'
'We are,' Darcy confirmed.
'Then I think we must consider the end result of this enterprise a success, even if we failed to rescue Mr. Dashwood.'
Dread washed over Elizabeth at the mention of Harry. She glanced at his body, still lying on the floor. 'Is he lost forever?'
'The mirror is destroyed. I can only assume that his spirit perished along with it'
She swallowed a lump in her throat. Sadness settled upon her as she thought of the lost potential Harry's death represented, how extraordinarily unfair it was, that he should have the simple pleasures of one life stolen from him, so that Sir Francis could indulge in the guilty pleasures of a second.
Darcy, noting her distress, touched her cheek. 'Perhaps instead of being destroyed along with the mirror, his spirit found rest.'
She released a heavy sigh and turned to look at Harry's body once more. 'I shall hold out hope of that.'
Viewing Mr. Dashwood now. she could believe he had, indeed, somehow found rest. He posed as if in slumber, his limbs having fallen into more natural positions when his body thawed. He lay on his side, his knees slightly bent, his left arm tucked under him and his right gently draped. She imagined his chest lightly rising and lulling in the steady rhythm of sleep.
She caught her own breath. 'Twas not her imagination.
'Darcy, Mr. Dashwood is breathing.'
Incredulous, they all gathered round Mr. Dashwood's form.
Elizabeth extended her hand, but Darcy captured it and instead felt Mr. Dashwood's chest himself.
'His heart beats, and he is as warm as you or I.'
She pressed Darcy's hand at the news but hesitated to celebrate. She raised her gaze to Professor Randolph. 'Is he Harry — or Sir Francis?'
'Harry.' Mr Dashwood murmured
His eyes opened. He slowly rolled to his back and blinked trying to focus his gaze as it shifted among the three of them.
'I'm afraid I've been a neglectful host today.' he said. His voice was feeble, but he sounded more like himself than he had in weeks. 'Do forgive me — I've been away for a while.'
The rain had ceased, and a ray of evening sunlight slanted through the window. Elizabeth smiled.
'It is good to have you back. Mr Dashwood.'
A quarter hour saw Harry sufficiently recovered to transfer from the floor to a chair, and another quarter hour beyond that brought his request to remove from the chamber altogether.
Though only the mirror's frame remained, the sight of it distressed him far more than the exertion of changing rooms. His own chamber having also been the scene of unpleasant memories, Mr. Dashwood chose to relocate to the drawing room.
They assisted him downstairs, where they found most of the servants milling around, speculating about what had transpired above. Elizabeth supposed a little cunosity was the natural result of all the waiting and roaring they must have heard issuing from the spare bedchamber. At the sight of Mr. Dashwood — whom they had last seen stone-cold dead — all gasped, a few crossed themselves, and one maid fainted.
'Mr Dashwood has recovered from his indisposition.' Elizabeth announced.
The four of them ignored the servants' bewildered gazes and continued to the drawing room, where they
