<em>The Library<br/>Danae, Rehner, Masked Ladies (2) (Leaving: Margaret)</em><br/><br/>"Luktar," Doctor Rehner named her incantation. "Doctor Heinfroth and I come from the old country, where it is difficult for a woman to educate herself or bear arms. Now I have met a number of forceful women since coming to the island, and drowning myself in this work. Before you I would call Baykur the strongest, but the captain could not make you bend."<br/><br/>"Now you march about like a rake in search of duel, and I wonder your intentions."<br/><br/>"I think you tell me the truth. I think your bravery hides a fear. But you are a fighter, you are a confronter of terrors. It would not do to show you the cellar, which might more unnerve you. Return to your affairs, and I will fetch the laudanum for you."<br/><br/>"If there is love in your heart for the women of the old country, for the infant girls who never had our freedoms, then be kind to the patients out there. There but by the grace of Ezra go you or I."<br/><br/>From her faint Margaret Hotspur roused, confused. She blurt a sound, and shrugged the masked ladies from her, bolted from her chair.<br/>"What did you do to me?" Margaret hissed, some luster of high society rubbed from her, Vistani fire beneath. She gathered her dress, with a readiness to flee in any direction, and laid eyes on Danae. Leaned over the devil's desk, engaged in gossip, looking back at her.<br/><br/>Margaret flushed from the library, and careered out into the parlor straight into a throng of masked ladies.<br/><br/><em>Parlor/Guest Room<br/>Aloisa, Corinne, Faelyn, Michelle, Zoe, Doctor Noire, Masked Ladies (24), (Arriving: Margaret)</em><br/><br/>Out of the far room spilled Margaret Hotspur with reckless haste. She was revolted by the touch of those masked patients who broke her stride, flustered and agitated.<br/><br/>"One aspect which captured my imagination in the books of Ezra," Zoe was saying, "is the role of mist as a harbinger of suffering, a personification of evil-"<br/><br/>There was an arrow nocked and pointed not at her, but beyond her, gleaming long and sharp in the fireplace light.<br/>"But-" she wavered, the color drained from her.<br/><br/>There was a pause, from the masked woman Faelyn alone seemed to see coming in a gathering of dozens. What calculation was made behind the mask, none could say, but the threat of certain death by hunter's arrow did not turn her away. Knuckles clutched white and trembling, she angled Aloisa's knife for a plunge beneath Doctor Noire's ribs, where corset compressed.