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“Well, I did die, didn’t I? Deserves a bit of jewelry!” Gravey laughed along with hisfrom a flask on his belt

The lady in the gray dress cleared her throat politely “Ah!” Sergeant Major Rogue cried, slapping his beechwood forehead “I would forgetif he weren’t on the money! Miss Currer, Miss Ellis, this is ton of Verdopolis”

Gravey put his arirl in blush “And this is most emphatically not my betrothed, Miss Jane Austen ofwell, anywhere she likes, I expect Jane is far too fine for the likes of me Says I’m morbid and rude Well, I only squired her up because I auey told et my arm under this one so Miss Z wouldn’t feel lonely, and here we all are! You must try to hear one of Janey’s storyables while you’re here; they’re better than any of the desserts”

Charlotte and Ehted once more to meet soush about the lady’s novels She had never much cared for them Too prim and neat and breakable Nobody could ever really be that polite when their lives burst open like rotten dams Emily liked them just fine, and said so But more importantly, Leftenant Gravey just called Jane Austen “Janey” And he was still alive Jane’s pale eyes shot daggers at the Leftenant Crashey hurried to skewer the aard silence

“All rightnough! Moving on to the lessentry!”

“Oh wait, please! That’s quite enough for a first course!” pleaded Emily “I’m already full!”

Gravey and Rogue and their dates ain later, but Charlotte and E

The dancing floor of the Wildfell Ball was half-filled with their toys and half-filled with the greatest men and women in Britain Either of them could recite all those names back with hardly a breath between, but they could not understand it It le the mess Charlotte and Branwell had invented Adrian, the sly and wicked Marquis of Douro! And Emily had dreamed up Mary Percy after Branwell killed Douro’s first wife “to ned all his dreadful poe Soult the Rhymer And of course Anne had her Victoria But Victoria, and Ross and Perry and John Keats and Jane Austen were quite real, and so was Lord Byron and Mary Shelley and Napoleon’s poor wife, Josephine They’d never played Byron and Josephine of an afternoon, not once Yet right at that veryinto the black eyes of Lady Zenobia Elrington, a na up while the Headmaster droned on about the Norman invasion

“Look at e made,” Charlotte whispered to her sister

She could not doubt any longer that they hadbrandy not ten steps away It w

as impossible, of course, and no one would ever believe it, and she hadn’t the first guess as to hohy or when they’d done it Only it was all so ether in the playroom at the top of the stairs So ic, walking through the insides of their four heads, and the wine there tasted wonderful

SEVENTEEN

The Only Onions in the World

Branwell and Anne slept and slept and slept

They had a few di out later, they discovered they’d dreares with cold, sticky hands hly, shoved the off or to put this or that thing on, marched them down halls and up staircases that never seemed to end, the way they never do in dreares were alhispering, and at the h so that they couldn’t hear, but too loud to ignore Their whispering breath smelled like water in a still, scummy pond