A Star Shall Fall

PART SIX ^{DISSOLUTIO Winter 1759}

Distance shrinks to nothing at the touch of eyes. A man in a night-black field, peering up at the sky, seeing its wonders magnified beyond their natural size.

Seeing the comet.

The Dragon coils within its prison. Its being is light, part of the growing brilliance that shrouds the comet’s dark core. Matter could not leap the distance between this traveller and that night-dark field, but light can, light does.

Freedom awaits.

Freedom, yes—but little more. There is no power there. Grass, and trees, and the man with the watching eyes; these things could be burnt, and there would be joy in that.

The Dragon wants more than joy.

It wants the city, and the shadow beneath it.

Patience. After so many years, the beast has learned its meaning. The light streams outward now, a banner through the void; it is a declaration of war, growing brighter with each passing instant. Other eyes will come, forging links between Earth and the far-distant comet, and in time one will—must—lead to the Dragon’s prey.

It can wait.

For now.

“It was a German.” For once Galen came in without pausing for a bow, brandishing the folded letter Wilhas had given him. “Johann Palitzsch, in Saxony. A gentleman farmer, if you can believe it; he practices astronomy as a pastime.”

The people assembled to hear him were a motley sort of war council, seated around the chamber’s grand table. Peregrin and his lieutenant Sir Cerenel, representing those who were prepared to fight. Cuddy for the dwarves, who were still in their workroom, swearing over Niklas’s most recent attempt at a trap. The alchemical scholars: Dr. Andrews and Lady Feidelm, Wrain and the exhausted Savennis, and even the genie Abd ar-Rashid. Irrith. Rosamund Goodemeade. And Lune herself, who stood tensely behind her own chair, gloved hands resting on its back.

The Queen said, “And nothing has happened to him.”

She phrased it as a statement, but the tension in her eyes said she wasn’t certain. Galen hastened to reassure her. “Nothing at all, or the Hanoverian fae would have said. The Dragon did not leap down.”

Lune let her breath out slowly, good hand relaxing. “Then that is our first question answered. Either it needs a closer approach to Earth, or it does indeed want this place, and will not settle for another. Though I wouldn’t test that with a sighting by anyone in England, whether at Greenwich or not.”

Which led all eyes to Irrith. The sprite grinned, though it was a strained thing. “They’d be lucky to find the moon, through the clouds we have right now.”

Galen returned her smile. “Lord Macclesfield says Messier has been complaining since November that the skies above Paris are very frequently cloudy. He’s scarce been able to take any observations at all.”

“But will it hold?” Wrain asked.

Irrith frowned in doubt. With this meeting being held in Lune’s council chamber, Ktistes could not join them; the sprite was the only one speaking for the clouds. “How much longer do we need them?”

Once Galen would have needed to consult his notes, but at this point the dates were engraved in his memory. “Perihelion is mid-March. We can’t be sure how long the comet will remain visible afterward, though. To be safe, call it three months, the inverse of Palitzsch’s sighting. Can we stay hidden until Midsummer?”

The sprite chewed on her lower lip. Her hands were clasped around her knees, and her shoulders hunched inward. “Maybe,” she said, drawing the word out. “I’ll have to ask Ktistes. But we might be able to hold it that long.”

Sighs of relief sounded all around the room, from almost everyone there. Not Irrith, though, or Galen, or Lune.

The Queen met his eyes, and he saw his own thoughts mirrored in her. They think we can avoid the question. Put it off until the next century. And perhaps they could, if the clouds held. But they both knew the risk of complacency: all it took was one slip, one tear in the veil, and they could find themselves facing a battle for which they were unprepared.

No, it’s more than that. Even if we knew for sure… Lune is done with waiting. And so am I.

The time has come to face our enemy.

The thought should have terrified him. In some respects, it did. But Galen discovered, to his surprise, that even fear could not last forever. The omen in the night garden, Palitzsch’s sighting of the comet, lanced a wound that had festered for years. He no longer had to dread this moment. It had come, at long last, and now they would make their answer.

Lune straightened, and with that simple motion a regal mantle settled over her shoulders. Here in the crowded council chamber, she commanded as much respect as she would have done seated on her throne. “Thank you, Dame Irrith. Warn us if that cover seems in danger of breaking.”

Her eyes sought out and held every person in the room, from Dr. Andrews to Wrain. “Understand this: we mean to answer this threat. We hide, not like mice, hoping the eagle will pass us over, but like cats, awaiting the best moment to strike.

“Lord Galen estimates our danger shall last at least until Midsummer. I say now that we will not wait that long. Sir Peregrin, how ready are your knights?”

The Captain of the Onyx Guard stood and bowed. “Your Grace, they would fight today if you called upon them.”

The imperious demeanour softened a bit, and she gave her captain a wry look. “I’m sure they would. But how stands their skill?”

“They’re ready,” he assured her. “Spear-knights and others alike. They’ll train from now until you need them, because a soldier must always keep his skills in practice; but if they were to fight today, I would send them into battle with pride.”

“Good. You are our third line of defence; the clouds are the first. Which brings us to the alchemists.” Lune looked to Dr. Andrews. Galen held his breath, wondering if she was about to do something terribly foolish. He almost melted in relief when she said, “Lord Galen and I set you the task of finding a suitable procedure to refine sophic mercury. Do you have one yet?”

Thin to begin with, Andrews had worn down to a skeleton held together by little more than passionate hope. His febrile eyes shifted restlessly, unable to hold Lune’s gaze. “I’m not sure, madam. There are still fundamental questions—”

“Dr. Andrews,” Galen broke in, before the man could say anything injudicious in front of the others. “I understand your uncertainty, but the time for hedging is past. You needn’t say it will be ready tomorrow. In a few weeks—perhaps mid-February—the comet will draw too close behind the sun for anyone to see it, even with a telescope; the clouds can protect us until then. After that, I doubt if anyone will be able to sight it until perihelion at the earliest, in mid-March. That gives you more than two months. Can you be prepared by then?”

The doctor licked his lips, then said, “Yes.”

Andrews’s answer might be a guess, rather than a promise, but Galen counted it as victory nonetheless. Without a date to aim for, the scholars could ponder their questions endlessly, never arriving at a firm conclusion. Placing a boundary would do them good. And if the procedure were truly not ready then, they could always extend the time—so long as the clouds held out.

“You have until perihelion, then,” Galen said. “After that, the comet will draw nearer to the Earth, and our danger will be at its greatest. As soon as you are ready, we will dismiss the clouds, call the Dragon down, and end this.”

Andrews nodded, and wiped sweat from his pale brow.

Lune still stood alone, behind her chair. Galen circled the table and positioned himself at her side. For once—perhaps for the first time—it felt right. Queen and Prince, shoulder to shoulder, against the threats that faced their court.

Their court. His as well as hers.

“Until March, then,” Lune said. “May Fate and Faerie bless us all.”

If, upon her arrival in the Onyx Hall, anyone had asked Irrith how she would spend her final weeks before the confrontation with the comet, she would have confidently predicted a wild adventure through the streets of London, visiting taverns and shops and the houses of mortals, enjoying the city as if she might never see it again.

Instead she divided her time between the Temple of Arms and Dr. Andrews’s laboratory, wishing she could be of greater use in either place. But she had done her part; their first defence was holding, and others were far more qualified to contribute to the second and third than she was. Especially on the alchemical side. Galen had abandoned her bed, though, and the laboratory was the surest place to find him.

Him, and half the Onyx Hall. An exaggeration, of course, but right now the room held Galen and Dr. Andrews, Wrain and poor Savennis, Lady Feidelm and Abd ar-Rashid. Even Podder had been pressed into service; when Irrith entered, he sat with a penknife and a pile of quills, carving each to a fresh point.

It wasn’t entirely true Irrith was of no use. “Lune’s had word from the Cour du Lys,” she announced to the various mortals and fae. “Messier thinks he’s spotted the comet from Paris.”

Galen slammed shut the book he’d been consulting. “Damnation. Is it public yet?”

Irrith grinned. “No. The French king—the faerie one—has done Lune a favour. Delisle, the fellow in charge of the observatory at Cluny, has told Messier not to announce anything just yet. Messier’s furious.”

“Good,” Galen said, fingers curling around the book’s edge. “The silence, not the fury. The fewer people who are aware of this, the better.”

She smiled at him, but in his distraction, he didn’t return it. What his scruples over marriage had failed to accomplish, the sighting of the comet had done; Galen had little time for anything but preparation these days.

No one did. Irrith hadn’t realised just how complicated this “alchemical plan” would turn out to be. She wandered toward Abd ar-Rashid and stood frowning over the Arab’s shoulder. He was sketching something with a careful hand, but she could make no sense of it. “What is that?” she asked.

The genie answered without looking up. “We need a vessel, an alembic, in which to effect our work. The intent is to use the Monument to the Great Fire, the chamber in its base.”

That explained the general shape, but—“What about that stuff at the top?”

The pen lifted from its line and paused. “Mirrors,” Abd ar-Rashid said. His accent had improved to the point that she could detect impatience in the answer. “And lenses. I am told that observation from London will bring the Dragon down, but the Monument is a zenith telescope; it cannot be pointed at its target. Since the comet will not pass directly above, we must direct the observer’s gaze.”

She could understand the difficulty easily enough, but not Abd ar-Rashid’s sketch of a possible answer. Much simpler was the question Dr. Andrews asked of the room at large, utterly without warning. “What happens when a faerie dies?”

Podder dropped his penknife. Irrith said, “How do you mean?”

The doctor had been frowning over some notes in his hand. Now he put them down and frowned at the wall across from him instead. “After a faerie dies, I should say. Suppose this Dragon is killed, instead of trapped or transformed. Will its body decay, according to the ordinary way of such things?”

That, at least, was a topic Irrith was qualified to speak on. “It won’t rot, no. They just fall to dust over time, bones and all.”

“Not dust,” Wrain corrected her. “Nothingness.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “I meant it poetically.”

“And sometimes it takes no time at all,” Feidelm added. “The body just vanishes.”

“I suppose that explains why no one has ever found a faerie graveyard,” Andrews mused. He tapped his cheek with the ragged end of his quill. “And the spirits?”

“They die, too,” Wrain said.

He sounded grim, as most faeries did when they spoke of their own deaths. We don’t like thinking of it—that our eternity may see an end. For some reason it was even more disturbing now, in this well-lit room, than it had been on All Hallows’ Eve. Hugging herself, Irrith said, “Not always, though. Don’t some faeries go on?”

“Where? To Heaven, whose Master does not love us? Or down below, where the devils have their day? Perhaps you think they go into Faerie.” Wrain’s snort showed what he thought of that. “Superstitious nonsense, told by frightened fae who wish to believe they can look forward to something after.”

It stung Irrith, less because she believed it herself than because Lune did. “Her Majesty said she saw a faerie go elsewhere, once.”

“Oh? To where? And how did she know it was so?”

Irrith fiddled with a nearby microscope. “She didn’t say.”

Andrews seemed obscurely pleased. He jotted a series of notes in a nearby book, lips moving in a soundless mutter. Sometimes the man disturbed Irrith, and not just because he was dying; his passion for ideas bordered on the unnatural.

She wished for a different subject, one that would not make her think of Aspell and Lune. A diversion presented itself, in the form of the Prince, who was sitting bolt upright with the book forgotten in his hands. “Galen? What is it?”

He didn’t seem to hear her at first. Then she moved in front of him, and he shifted and came awake. “Have you thought of something?” Irrith asked.

“Vanishing.” He pronounced the word as if it were an epiphany, but she shook her head, not understanding. “Like Lady Feidelm said. Sometimes the body just vanishes. Why?”

“Lune said it happened to the faerie she was talking about,” Irrith said, remembering. “The one she thought went… elsewhere.”

“Yes! Precisely! What if that’s it? What if the fae who vanish are the ones who go on instead of ending?”

His excited cry had everyone’s attention now. Dr. Andrews said, “Some property of aether, perhaps—”

Galen’s hands flew through the air, cutting him off. “No, no—well, yes, perhaps, but not the way you’re thinking. You gave a lecture on this yourself, Dr. Andrews; don’t you remember? At Mrs. Vesey’s house. On Cartesian philosophy, the separation of Mind and Body. What if that’s one of the laws that differs here, in faerie spaces—or more to the point, with faerie bodies?”

Irrith struggled to understand him, because this had animated him so greatly. “You mean that minds and bodies aren’t separate? Our minds and bodies aren’t?”

“Spirit as matter.” Galen seized her by the arms, the first touch they’d shared since Delphia Northwood came into the Onyx Hall. “This, right here—this is you, Irrith. No division. In elemental terms, oh, I don’t know… perhaps faerie matter is simply an idea the faerie mind imposes upon the aether. Or something. It might explain what a glamour is, where it comes from. But when a faerie is killed, body and spirit die together, because they’re no different, and what’s left behind soon falls to nothingness. When the spirit goes elsewhere, though…”

“The body vanishes,” Irrith whispered.

Feidelm drew near, the tall sidhe towering over Irrith and Galen both. “It would explain why the Dragon survived all attempts to kill it. We’ve said before: its spirit is powerful. That is what we must kill.”

Irrith still wasn’t sure whether the idea was too far beyond her to comprehend, or so simple she didn’t understand why Galen hadn’t seen it before. But the part about death… that was another matter entirely. Wrain’s doubt had faded into thoughtful consideration. Savennis was staring at his own arm as if he’d never seen it before. Abd ar-Rashid looked worried, and she didn’t know why.

Andrews had gone so pale she thought he might fall over, but his eyes glittered like diamonds. “Perfect,” he breathed.

Galen turned sharply, releasing Irrith’s arms. “What do you mean?”

“Oh—” Andrews blinked, then brought out his handkerchief to dab at his perpetually sweaty face. “If you are right… the Dragon has no body at present, as I understand it. Yes? So as long as we keep it away from any source of aether, it will continue to be bodiless.”

“Keep it away from faerie spaces, you mean,” Galen said.

Irrith shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. The Dragon was born above, in the Fire. Remember? So it—”

The words stuck her her throat, choking her. “Oh, Blood and Bone.” Faerie profanity wasn’t enough. “Oh, Hell.”

They were all staring at her, until she had to fight not to squirm. “Isn’t it in those books of yours? All that alchemical gibberish? As above, so below. And the other way around, too. The Onyx Hall echoing into London, with aether or whatever else. I think—I think we made the Dragon.” Just as Carline had said.

Andrews spat a curse and flung his handkerchief away. But he seemed curiously abstracted and calm as he said, “Then it will have to be done quickly. If we can get pure mercury into the base of the Monument, then break the clouds and call the sulphur down, so that they join before either has a chance to become contaminated… perhaps if we lined the chamber with iron?”

The others began to argue theories, a conversation to which Irrith could add nothing. For once, she was glad of it. A knot of cold had formed in the pit of her stomach. Never mind alchemy; all she could think about was Aspell’s plan.

If Lune is devoured by the Dragon…

It meant the same thing it always had, really. When fae died, that was it; if there were exceptions, they were rare, and hadn’t Lune said that sometimes she liked the thought of a true end? But Galen’s notion, putting an explanation to something Irrith usually preferred not to think about at all, somehow made it a dozen times more horrifying. The Dragon wouldn’t just be eating Lune’s body; it would consume her spirit.

Irrith wished, suddenly and fiercely, that the fae had someone to pray to as the mortals prayed to their Heavenly Father. They swore by Mab, one of the ancient powers of Faerie, but that wasn’t the same thing; she didn’t watch over them and help them when they needed it. And that was what Irrith wanted right now, someone to beg for aid, so that Galen and Dr. Andrews and all the rest of these clever minds would find a way to make this work, ensuring it never came to that dreadful pass.

I’d ask Galen to pray, but I doubt the Almighty is much interested in helping fae.

But maybe for the sake of London, He would take an interest. She would ask Galen later. At some point when they were alone together—if they ever were, again.

“I’ll go tell Lune,” she offered, into the chatter of the others. Only Feidelm seemed to hear her, nodding before answering some point Andrews had made. Forlorn in the face of their excitement, Irrith sighed and went back to the Queen.

“If chill fogs prevented Britons from walking in the park,” Delphia had said to her mother that noon, “we should never make use of them at all.”

She was not the only one to hold that view, it seemed, for she and Galen were far from alone in St. James’ Park. They had even seen the Duchess of Portland walking with a friend, despite the dreary weather. The months of gray had worn on everyone’s mind, until everyone was desperate for light, however weak. And truth be told, he was something grateful for the fog; it meant Mrs. Northwood fell back and wrapped herself in her cloak, muttering peevishly to herself, leaving the two of them with freedom to speak more frankly—so long as they were careful.

Such freedom was hard to come by these days. With Delphia about to leave her natal household, her liberty to spend time at Mrs. Vesey’s was much curtailed; and now there lay the great weight of a secret between them, a joy to share, but not one they could often indulge. Delphia had tithed some bread to the Onyx Hall, and in exchange Lady Yfaen came calling upon her when possible. It was her primary source of contact with the fae.

Delphia said, “I hear you’ve made some great philosophical discovery.”

He blushed and looked down—never a wise idea, in St. James’ Park, where it was easier to ignore the things one might step in than to try and avoid them all. Cows and deer roamed the park freely, with inevitable consequences. “Not so great; there are still a number of things we’re uncertain of. Though we needn’t try to answer them all in the next month, thank Mab.”

A smile darted across her features at the name. “They have you well trained, don’t they? I have an advantage in that respect, I suppose; gently reared maidens are not supposed to take the Lord’s name in vain, and my mother reared me as gently as she could.” They walked in silence for a while, nodding to those they passed, and when they were once more safe from being overheard she asked, “How long have you been among them?”

Irrith had asked him the same question, nearly a year ago. Galen could not help but feel a pang at the thought of the sprite. He’d hurt her when he drew back, much to his surprise; he’d thought himself nothing but a toy for her, that she would tire of soon enough. But with Delphia brought into the world of the fae, he could not in good conscience go on sharing Irrith’s bed.

“Four years or so,” he said, straightening his gloves to hide the discomfort of his thoughts. “Though I had my first sight of them some months before that.”

“And how long have you been struggling with the problem of this comet?”

Against his will, his gaze went upward. The clouds were as thick as ever, and he thanked God and Mab alike for that, depressing as they were. “Myself? Four years or so. For them, however, it’s been more than fifty years.”

Delphia shivered. He doubted it was from the chill. “That long. I can’t imagine living that way—not for decades on end.”

“They don’t see time as we do,” Galen said. While true, it wasn’t the whole of the truth. The long wait had worn on the fae, he thought. They were accustomed to passing eternity with little attention to the years, counting few things in any increment smaller than “an age.” For half a century now, however, they’d lived with one eye on the calendar. The strain showed. Podder, who had been servant to seven Princes of the Stone, had vanished last week. He wasn’t the only one to go.

“I confess,” Delphia said, “I did not expect them to have philosophers and scholars. When I thought of such creatures at all, I associated them with—oh, I don’t know. Flowers and butter churns, I suppose.”

“Those things have their place; I should introduce you to the Goodemeades. But the fae copy anything they like, and ignore whatever they don’t. They’re very curious creatures, Delphia,” Galen said. The name had grown more comfortable over the months, though he took care never to use it around anyone who might find the familiarity inappropriate. “You would like Lady Feidelm, I think; she, too, is very interested in learning.”

Delphia smiled, tugging her cloak more firmly around herself. “Never mind the faerie court beneath London’s feet; you have a university down there.”

His laugh was too loud; a guilty glance over his shoulder told him Mrs. Northwood had overheard. But what, he asked himself, would she do? Call off the wedding? The marriage settlement was signed, and the ceremony planned for a month hence; she would not undo it all just because her daughter and future son-in-law seemed to be sharing a private joke. “With tedious lectures and the granting of empty degrees? I think not.”

“An academy, then, such as Plato had in Athens. After all, you said yourself that there are unanswered questions yet. Surely you won’t abandon them just because a star is no longer about to fall on your head.”

Now it was his turn to shiver, and she placed a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I should not jest about something that worries you so much.”

He laid his own hand over hers in reply, before they moved apart once more, Delphia tucking her arm back into the shelter of her cloak. For all that Galen appreciated the semisolitude that being outside gave them, he was beginning to grow chilled; they could not stay out here much longer.

Delphia might have been thinking the same thing, for she said, “I will be glad when we are wed, and can spend time in company with one another—or even go missing for a few hours—without raising suspicion.” Then she blushed and said, “I—that is not to suggest that my only reason is—”

Galen drew her arm out again, bringing them both to a halt in the grass and turning Delphia to face him. Before Mrs. Northwood could catch up to them, he placed a kiss on the hand of his soon-to-be bride, and said, “I understand. And I feel the same. Be patient but a little while longer, Miss Northwood, and you shall have what you desire.”

The laboratory was empty when Irrith came in. Abd ar-Rashid was in Wapping, talking to the Dutch Jew who had made their bowl, arranging for lenses and mirrors. Wrain and Lady Feidelm were also above, examining the Monument to the Great Fire, seeing if they could somehow shield the chamber in its base from aethereal contamination.

Galen was at home with his family, for tomorrow he would be married.

Irrith had expected to find Savennis or Dr. Andrews, though. Without them, the abandoned laboratory seemed forlorn. Paper lay scattered everywhere, with notes scribbled in half a dozen different languages and hands. Shelves meant for books were all but bare, their former occupants tottering in piles on the tables and floor. Cold ashes filled the hearth, with no Podder to see to them.

Irrith trailed her fingers over a microscope, a pendulum, some chemical apparatus whose purpose she’d never learned. She picked up a sheet whose top read Extraction of Sophic Mercury in large letters; the rest of it was blank. It flutttered from her hand to the floor.

This wasn’t what she’d imagined. In the long ages of her life, she’d seen every kind of struggle from a knife in the back to armies at war, but never one fought so much in the mind. It might yet come down to armies, of course; that was what Peregrin’s spear-knights were for. But Galen and his scholars were trying to defeat the Dragon with nothing more than ideas: a kind of war she’d never seen before.

In a moment of rare carelessness, she’d left the door open behind her. How long Irrith hadn’t been alone, she couldn’t say, but she turned to find Lune standing in the opening.

Irrith jumped, of course, and her hand went into her pocket, gripping the pistol she always carried these days. There was a hawthorn box in her other pocket, its friendly wood shielding her against the three iron balls within. If the clouds failed suddenly and the Dragon came roaring down, she would be prepared.

But it was Lune, not the Dragon. Once her nerves had calmed, Irrith remembered to curtsy. “Your Majesty.” Then she peered out the door, into the empty corridor beyond. “You’re… alone?”

Lune smiled, with rueful amusement, and closed the door behind her. “I am. After so many years, even I forget there was a time I walked this realm alone, without ladies and footmen and all the other pomp that attends a Queen. I wanted to speak to Dr. Andrews privately—but it seems he’s not here.”

“I think he went home.”

“Good.” Lune picked up a mortar and pestle, studied its contents, set it down again. “Galen said he was having difficulty persuading him to do so.”

“He’s dying,” Irrith said bluntly. “And he thinks being here can save him, at least for a while. But I think it’s sending him a little mad.”

The silver eyes darkened. “Gertrude is very apprehensive of that danger. But Galen argued, and I agreed, that Dr. Andrews’s condition made it worth the risk; we needed his mind, and he would not have long to run mad.”

Needed. Lune spoke as if the matter were done. “Are we ready, then? I know about the Monument plan, but have they found their mercury?”

“They found it long ago,” Lune murmured, and her lips tightened. On most fae, it would have been nothing, but on her it was a like a banner, advertising her distress. “But there is… a problem.”

They had a source for the sophic mercury? This was the first Irrith had heard of it—though admittedly, she hardly understood the scholars’ debates. She knew they wanted to draw it out of some water-dwelling faeries, but there was, as Lune said, some problem. Irrith furrowed her brow, trying to remember.

Then she succeeded, and wished she hadn’t. “They’re afraid it would kill the river fae.”

Lune’s lips tightened again. For a moment she was like a statue, frozen and mute; then she inhaled and answered with a simple truth. “Not the river fae. Me.”

Irrith gaped. No one had breathed a word of this, not in all the time she’d spent in the laboratory—well, of course they hadn’t. Who would say such a thing, any more than they had to? But a thousand things made more sense now, that she hadn’t understood when Wrain muttered them, or Feidelm lapsed into language so abstract she could have been talking about anything at all.

A thousand things—and chief among them, the desperation in Galen’s eyes. He wanted to save the Onyx Hall, of course, but sometimes it took on a sharper edge, and now Irrith knew why.

She studied Lune, marking the hollows under her high cheekbones, the sharp line of the muscles in her neck. Fading, yes—but slowly. She could hold on for a very long time. If there was good reason to. “Galen would die to save this place,” Irrith said, and then corrected herself. “To save you. I don’t think you would die for him… but would you do it for London, and the Onyx Hall?”

Lune stood silent, head bowed, long-fingered hands folded across the stomacher of her simple dress. Irrith could never have asked her this if there were servants present, or even waiting outside the door, but it was just the two of them, and for this brief span she could speak to the elfin woman, rather than the sovereign. The distinction was important to her, though she could not have said why.

“There have been times when I almost did,” Lune said finally, not lifting her head. “I held back because in the end, I believed my death—or even my abdication—would create more problems than it would solve. There are fae here who share my ideals, but none of them, I think, could manage this court. And those who could rule effectively would not do so in a manner I can accept.

“So when it was merely the arguments of the Sanists, it was easy to say no. But now there is the Dragon. And now… I do not know.”

Irrith’s hands curled into fists. She was vividly aware of her fingers, bones, joints—her body. Her self. No separation between the two. “Maybe you wouldn’t die, though. I don’t really understand what they’ve been talking about, but it sounds like what they’re after is just you in a different form, your soul separated from the aether that makes you solid. So you wouldn’t really be dead, would you? You’d just be… different.”

The two of them stared at each other, neither one moving, as if both were struck by the same thought. Lune said, “The philosopher’s stone—”

“Would it be a stone?” Irrith asked, still not blinking. “Galen told me the alchemists thought it would be some kind of powder, red or shining or whatever—but how would they know? None of them ever made it, not truly. And we aren’t working with metals, are we?” They were working with spirits. The Dragon’s, and Lune’s.

Wouldn’t the result be a spirit, too?

The words seemed to float up out of Lune, without any effort on her part. “I want to save the Onyx Hall.”

“And the Dragon wants to destroy it,” Irrith finished. “Which one of you wins?”

Her answer was the fear in those silver eyes. Lune was strong and determined, yes. But strong enough to defeat the Dragon?

“We could be wrong,” Lune said carefully. “This is mere speculation, and neither of us is a scholar. Nevertheless…” Her shoulders went back, and the elfin woman was gone; in her place stood the Queen. “I hardly need tell you not to speak of this to anyone. I will consult with Galen—no, he is occupied. Another, then. I thank you, Irrith; you’ve given me much to think about.”

She swept out the door, leaving Irrith alone once more in the laboratory. Staring blindly at the far wall, she sank into a cross-legged position on the floor.

The philosopher’s stone might not be their salvation after all. Which left them with what? Aspell’s plan of sacrifice?

A chill sank into Irrith’s bones. Until Lune brought it up, she hadn’t given much thought to the question of what would happen to the Onyx Court if its Queen… went away. The Hall, yes; but not the court itself, the fae and mortals, with all their conflicting desires. Who would hold them together in Lune’s absence? Who could?

Aspell, maybe. But he showed no sign of wanting it; from what Irrith had seen, he was a Sanist only with reluctance, because the situation forced him to it. So who, then? One of the others in the coffeehouse that day?

She didn’t even know who they were—much less what ambition hid beneath their masks. And the more she thought about it, the more fear tightened her muscles. The Lord Keeper might insist he would do nothing against the Queen’s will, but those unknown others….

Irrith paced with small, tight strides, thinking. If she tried to ask Aspell for their names, he wouldn’t tell her; he’d think she was preparing to betray them. And maybe she was. But there was someone else she could ask—someone who might know, who could be intimidated into telling, and who wouldn’t much care what happened afterward.

Irrith went to hunt Carline.

Feidelm sat in perfect silence for a full minute after Lune shared what she and Irrith had discussed. The sidhe’s vivid eyes grew distant; when they sharpened once more, frustrated regret filled them. “Now of all times, I wish I still had my prophetic gift. I could look to the future and tell you if that danger is real.”

Such favours had been precisely what lost her that gift. Tensions between mortal England and Ireland rose and fell, but never subsided entirely, and that colored relations between their faerie courts, as well. The King and Queen of Connacht did not want one of their seers constantly lending aid to Lune, even if the Onyx Court no longer meddled in national politics as it once did.

Reminding Feidelm of that would do no good at all. “You have more gifts than just foresight,” Lune said. “What does your wisdom tell you?”

The Irish faerie bent her head, gripping her hands together. “That you and Dame Irrith are right—and even if it’s unsure, we cannot risk it.” She sighed, knuckles tensing. “We struggled so hard with the question of how to do this thing that we could not spare thought for what would happen afterward. But we should have done.”

The brilliance of the idea had carried them all away. Not just to stop an evil, but to turn it to good. It meant more to Galen than it did to the fae, who were already immortal; and it meant the most of all to Dr. Andrews, whose life might be saved by this means.

Lune asked, “Is Dr. Andrews at home now?”

Feidelm nodded. “With Savennis, I think. The last I heard, he insisted he’d conceived of a way to extract sophic mercury, without harming the source; Savennis was trying to find a river nymph to assist them.” She exhaled, not quite a laugh. “I don’t know what they think they’re doing. Nothing Andrews says about it makes the slightest bit of sense. He may have gone mad in truth.”

Staring at his own death so near—any man might lose his wits, even without the touch of faerie. And now Lune would have to crush his final hope.

It would be better if she waited for Galen, though. Not only did she wish to avoid undermining his authority as Prince, he was friendly with Dr. Andrews, more than any of the fae were; that might make this less cruel. In the meantime—

Feidelm straightened her shoulders under Lune’s gaze. “I know. Wrain and I will go into the Calendar Room. We won’t give up. If this can be made safe, we’ll find a way; or we’ll find something else.”

They still had the clouds. They still had time.

At the wedding breakfast after the ceremony, the loudest talk was of the St. Clair estate in Essex, and how it would be opened for the first time in years so that Galen and the new Mrs. St. Clair could reside there. His father and Mr. Northwood were already discussing investments, which would multiply Delphia’s dowry for such renovations while still keeping portions safe for Galen’s sisters, and Irene was telling anyone who would listen that her brother should breed horses once he had his own estate; but Aldgrange was the subject of immediate interest, for it was agreed upon by both families that the happy pair should remove from London at the first opportunity, and enjoy themselves in the countryside.

Fortunately, “the first opportunity” was months off yet. Aldgrange needed a good deal of cleaning and repair before it would be suitable to inhabit. Galen and Delphia would be going nowhere before the end of the Season.

In the interim, they would reside at Sothings Park, with Mr. Northwood paying for their keep there. Galen had to admit it would be both easier and more pleasant than living under his father’s eye. Strange as it sounded, he was master of his own household now; if he devoted his hours to the Onyx Hall, he need answer to no one other than Delphia. And she understood.

I made the right decision, telling her. Tension might grip his heart as they walked through the gardens after breakfast, but at least none of it arose from secrecy.

As if thinking of that tension, Delphia tilted her head back and shaded her eyes with one hand, searching the clouded heavens. “Even if the skies were clear,” Galen said, “you wouldn’t be able to see it. It’s too near the sun.”

She lowered her hand. “Perihelion—am I right?”

“Yes.” Today, the comet stood at its closest approach to the sun. In the following days, it would draw toward the Earth. Pamphlet writers and half-literate preachers had been prophesying a resulting doom for years; Galen wondered sometimes whether they had somehow divined the faerie threat. Or perhaps some Sanist had told them, in order to undermine the Queen. A fiery conflagration, destroying all life upon the Earth… he prayed it would not come to that.

This was a miserable topic to consider on his wedding day. “We’re quite safe at the moment,” Galen said. “Even telescopes cannot find the comet, even in clear skies. Let us turn to happier topics—ones, perhaps, that do not touch on the world below.”

They rounded a hedge, and found Lune waiting for them.

The faerie Queen stood unmasked in the centre of the path, silver hair shining despite the cloudy light. The sight of her sent a lance through Galen’s heart: today of all days, to face the creature he adored, with his new wife upon his arm.

His pain was all the worse because Lune had obviously caused it unthinking. “I came to deliver my good wishes to you both,” she said, inclining her head toward Galen and Delphia in turn.

If she was here, showing her true self, there must be half a dozen fae elsewhere in the gardens, keeping watch to ensure no one else wandered by. And more keeping her secret back in the Onyx Hall, so the Sanists would not know she’d gone. All that effort, just for good wishes. Lune truly considered it that important, to come and congratulate them on their wedding day?

Congratulations, and something more. “I have gifts to bestow upon you,” Lune said. Her hands were empty; did some lady or hob lurk in the hedge, ready to hand her things as needed? No, her gifts were of an intangible sort. “For the two of you together, a promise of blessing. You need not fear losing children to illness; they will never want for good health.”

Gertrude had once said the Queen did that for all her Princes’ children. Fae almost never had any of their own, so the offspring of mortals were priceless wonders in their eyes. Galen bowed, murmuring thanks, and Delphia echoed him.

The Queen looked next to the new bride. “For Mrs. St. Clair, a position in my household as lady of the bedchamber—the first mortal ever to be offered such a place.”

Delphia’s eyes widened. Galen doubted she had expected anything at all, not for herself in particular; certainly she hadn’t expected this. Ladies of the bedchamber were few in number, and close to the Queen. Even Irrith was not counted among them. Delphia sank into a belated curtsy, this one deeper than the last, and stammered new thanks.

Then it was Galen’s turn. He knew Lune had promised a wedding gift, but what she might choose to give him, he could not begin to guess.

“I considered many things for you, Lord Galen,” she said softly. Sorrow touched the edges of her mouth, so faintly that one who had not studied her face for years would not have seen it. “In the end, I could think of no thing better than this: to say that you may have one boon of me. Whatever you ask—whatever might please you on this day—I will grant it to you.”

His heart ached so fiercely he thought it might stop. Galen was perversely glad of the pain; it kept him from speaking the words that leapt into his mind.

Give me one more kiss from your lips, as I had when you made me Prince.

He would rather have died than said it, with Delphia standing at his side. By the time his throat had opened enough to speak, he’d conquered the impulse—but that left him with nothing to say. What could he ask of her, that he wanted badly enough to spend her boon upon it? Everything he could think of was too trivial, or else would cause Delphia grief. I want to choose something neither will despise me for. Something they can be proud of.

Both of them, Delphia as well as Lune. While there was no romance between him and his new wife, there was friendship, and he wanted to be worthy of it.

Those thoughts, here in the garden of Sothings Park where he had made certain promises to Delphia, gave him the inspiration he needed. “Your Grace,” Galen said formally, “I would like to form an academy in the Onyx Hall.”

Now all three of them had been surprised this day. “An academy?”

He heard the soft breath of Delphia’s delighted laugh, and took heart. “Yes. A society of those who take interest in the nature of your world. An institution that might draw to it learned minds from all lands, mortals and fae alike, for the purpose of understanding the sort of questions we’ve begun to ponder this last year.”

Baffled though she was, Lune nodded. “If that is what you desire—then certainly.” Her expression turned speculative. “In fact, it might be of some help to Ktistes, whose efforts have been sadly neglected while we addressed the problem of the comet. I wonder—”

Then she broke off with a laugh. “No. The academy, yes; but I will not trap you here discussing troubles. Not on such a happy occasion.” Lune approached, holding out her slender hands; Galen took one, and Delphia the other. “My felicitations to you both, Lord Galen, Lady Delphia. Enjoy your wedding day, and may many more days of joy follow it.”

Despite the myriad of good reasons he had to refrain—his wife’s presence; the formality of the moment—Galen murmured what he had never dared voice before, not to the Queen’s face. “Thank you… Lune.”

Irrith was not at all sure of the directions she’d been given. Bow Street was easy enough to find, and a carved Turk’s head hung above the lintel of one well-lit door, but the interior looked like a coffeehouse—not the place she sought. London had plenty of Turk’s Heads, most of them selling coffee; perhaps she’d been directed to the wrong place.

Still, she went inside, and was accosted before she’d gone three steps. “How can I be of service, my fine young sir?”

Irrith transferred her suspicion to the smiling man at her elbow. “I don’t think you can. I’m looking for a bath-house.”

His smile only broadened. “Why, it’s here, good sir!” One hand swept an inviting arc toward a door in the far wall. “The bagnio is right this way. Though I regret to say that this evening it is occupied by a party of illustrious gentlemen and their companions. I would be happy, though, to serve you an excellent supper, and some—”

Her glare stopped him before he could say “coffee.” Gentlemen and their “companions”? I’m in the right place, sure enough. But not well-enough dressed to pretend she belonged with illustrious folk. And she wasn’t good enough to lie her way past, even if she changed her glamour.

A simple faerie charm did just as well. Irrith dug around in her pocket and produced a golden guinea. The man’s eyes bid fair to pop out of his head at the sight of it; she wondered wryly if they would sink back into his skull when he found a dead leaf tomorrow. “I bear a gift for one of the ladies,” Irrith said, patting her other pocket. “On behalf of my master. I won’t impose on them long.”

The man made the coin vanish so fast he might have been a faerie himself, and laid a sly finger along his nose. “For Kitty Fisher, perhaps? She made quite a name for herself by that riding accident in the Mall—I’ve heard two songs about it already. Quite the beauty they say she is, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so. Your master will have to strive against some important men to win her charms, though.” And so saying, he opened the door to the bagnio.

Now it was Irrith’s eyes that threatened to fall out of her head. Oh, she’d heard of these places, but had been so occupied with other matters that she never found the time to visit one. She found herself in the midst of an Oriental dream. Tiled pools, coyly separated by carved screens, sent steam wreathing through the air—a wholly inadequate veil to cover the many half-clad or altogether naked people lounging about the space.

Not so many, she realised once her initial startlement passed. Perhaps a dozen in all: three ladies, and the rest men, all enjoying a thorough debauch. One fellow floated blissfully in a pool; two others sprawled with wine and candied fruit, conversing upon some topic with much laughter. A blonde woman sat on the back of a fourth, kneading his shoulders while she whispered in his ear. The other two ladies—to grant them a title they did not deserve—were dallying upon cushions with the remaining men. And it was there, of course, that Irrith found her target.

Once again, Carline had made no particular effort to disguise herself, aside from a thin veneer of mortality. No reason she should; her lush beauty was perfectly suited for this kind of pastime. Seduction had always been her favourite game, and she played it very well. Irrith was not surprised that her last farewell to London should be a night in a bagnio with as many handsome and wealthy men as she could manage.

Her dark-haired friend was devoting her attention to a rather unhandsome fellow, with a wide mouth and unfortunately bulbous eyes. He must have a great deal of wealth, Irrith thought cynically. Carline had taken the finest of the set, a strong-jawed man with shoulders that would look well in a tight coat and looked even better out of one. He so occupied her that she didn’t look up as Irrith approached.

The unhandsome one did, though, and frowned. His companion wrinkled her upturned nose. “A friend of yours, George?”

He shook his head. Irrith offered a deep bow to them all and thought fast. The “gift” had just been an idea to get her past the owner of the bagnio, but now she had more attention than she wanted, and no good way out of it. “Good evening, my most excellent lords,” she said, delaying while she scrambled for a fresh idea. Sweat was already soaking through her shirt into her coat, and nervousness did not help. “I’ve come in search of a, er, a lady—”

Derisive laughter greeted her stammering statement. “Miss Fisher,” one of the men said in cool tones, “is not available this evening. As you can no doubt see.” He gestured at the woman with the upturned nose.

“Not her,” Irrith said, and pointed at Carline. “That’s the one I seek. My master sent me with a gift for her.”

Carline still had not looked up from her giggling play with the broad-shouldered man. “Tom,” the ugly George called, and Kitty Fisher jabbed the fellow with her toe. “Competition for your Caroline’s charms.”

The two broke apart, and Carline, pouting, finally turned to face Irrith. The sprite watched as understanding came to her, stage by stage: she saw first a gentleman, then someone under a glamour, and then apprehension settled in. Not knowing who lay beneath the disguise, she would be fearing the worst—as if Lune had the attention to spare for one turncoat faerie lady on her way out of London.

But Irrith could use that fear. Her hand brushed her pocket, and a dreadful notion came to her. Bowing to the broad-shouldered Tom, she said, “May I present the gift to her?”

He scowled, but Kitty jabbed him again. “Go on, Tom. Or are you afraid your, ah, purse isn’t deep enough to keep her?”

His scowl shifted targets, but George lifted a quelling hand, and Tom slid backward with ill grace, leaving Carline alone on her couch.

Irrith knelt before the faerie lady and pulled the box from her pocket. Then cupping it in her hands so no one but Carline could see, she cracked the lid upward.

All the blood drained from Carline’s face. While Kitty and the others hooted and began speculating about the gift, Irrith murmured, “Five minutes of your time—and a bit of information. Then you can go wherever you please.”

For a moment it seemed Carline would be unable to move. Then she shoved herself off the couch so fast Irrith almost fell onto her rump. “Five minutes,” she said in a strangled voice. “No more.” And she stalked into the far corner of the bagnio, bare feet thudding hard against the floor.

The laughter faded, and Tom regarded Irrith with undisguised suspicion. “Pardon me,” she said, and went hastily after Carline before anyone could decide to interfere.

Carline waited with her arms crossed tight beneath her breasts, straining the damp fabric of her shift. Had Irrith been interested in such things, it might have been an effective distraction, but Carline hardly seemed to be trying. “Who sent you?” she demanded, before Irrith had even come to a halt.

“That doesn’t matter. So long as you tell me what I want to know, there won’t be any need for what’s in that box.” If Carline were thinking at all clearly, she would know that iron shot in a box was little threat; and loading the pistol in Irrith’s other pocket would give her time to get away. But she had been drinking a great deal—for days now, if her servant was to be believed—and fear was louder than common sense.

Carline swallowed hard. “If you shoot me… these are important men, you know.”

“I’m not going to shoot you,” Irrith said impatiently. “All you have to do is tell me: who are the Sanists? Not the folk who read The Ash and Thorn and get into fights in the Crow’s Head; I mean the leaders, the ones who are plotting. They wear glamours when they meet, but I’d wager my entire cabinet that at least a few of them were your supporters when you wanted to be Queen. Who are they?”

The tension faded minutely from her hunched shoulders at the reference to a cabinet. “Irrith?”

Blood and Bone. She gritted her teeth. “Names, Carline. You’re leaving anyway; it doesn’t matter what you say now. I need to know who they are.”

Carline cast a swift glance over her shoulder at the others, who weren’t pretending not to watch. Kitty was whispering into George’s ear. “Nianna Chrysanthe supported me. Hafdean, who keeps the Crow’s Head. The fetch Nithen. Valentin Aspell.”

She tried to imagine any of those under the glamours at the Grecian. “Wait—Aspell? He was working with you, that long ago?”

The lady’s entire body stiffened. All artifice and pleasantry vanished.

“What do you mean, he supported you? What was he doing? Tell me!”

Muscles stood out in Carline’s lovely face, her jaw clenching tight. Her eyes blazed out of that rigid mask, as if trying to communicate by passion alone.

Irrith had to fight to draw breath. “You—you’re under an oath, aren’t you.” No response, but of course there wouldn’t be. Fae could not break their sworn words, and Carline had given hers to Aspell. Some loophole allowed her to let slip that he’d supported her—Irrith was sure that had been deliberate—but nothing more.

The sprite’s mind felt like it was moving three times faster than normal. “He did more than just encourage you. He helped you. In ways he didn’t dare let Lune find out about, so he made you swear.” The answer was obvious, now that she looked for it. “He told you about the London Stone.”

Carline couldn’t say anything to confirm or deny it, but her expression gave way to pity, and she put one hand on Irrith’s shoulder. “You’ve fallen into politics again, haven’t you? Poor fool. I wish you well in escaping whatever net has you now, as you escaped mine. There are some in the Onyx Hall who could stand to suffer the consequences of it.”

Irrith didn’t pull free. “But I—I was with them. The things I did, the things I told them—if I tell Lune—”

The fallen lady smiled bitterly. “Yes. Oaths are one way to bind people, but guilt is another. Betray them, and you betray yourself. Especially after your history with me, which will not look good at all. Be glad you have a merciful Queen. She will likely only exile you.”

I’ll lose London. The thought hurt, but Irrith was fiercely glad to realise that it didn’t matter. And not because of the Dragon; even if there was no other danger, she would tell Lune. She was done helping Valentin Aspell.

“Enjoy France,” Irrith said. Then she walked very fast out of the bagnio, past the owner in his coffeehouse, and once she was out in the street she began to run.

“It’s been tried, Valentin.” Carline blew her breath out in a theatrical display of frustration. “You’re not the sort of faerie who forgets yesterday as soon as the next day begins. People have tried to usurp the throne of the Onyx Hall before, and failed.”

The serpentine lord had draped himself over her most comfortable chair in a posture that seemed to require joints where ordinary beings did not have them. “And people have also succeeded. Lune did it. Or have you forgotten your history? She wasn’t always Queen of this court, Carline. Have you never asked yourself how that change came about?”

Glaring at him, Carline sank gracefully onto her second-best chair. “Invidiana died. If you’re advocating regicide, you can leave my chambers now. I have no stomach for blood.”

He uncoiled his arm from the back of his seat and leaned forward with an intense air. “It doesn’t require blood. All it requires is to make the realm recognise you as its sovereign.”

She threw her head back in a laugh. The ceiling of her chamber was an intricate lacework of black stone; she addressed it whimsically. “Oh great Onyx Hall—will you make me your Queen?”

“You’re speaking to the wrong part,” Aspell said. “Surely you’ve heard the rumors. To control the Onyx Hall, you need the London Stone.”

Her laughter faded away. Carline lowered her head, and found the Lord Keeper smiling. Nervousness made her play with one of the bows that crossed her stomacher; then she made herself stop. “More easily said than done. Its location is the most closely guarded secret in this place.” She bit her lip. “Do you…?”

“Know where it is? No. As you said, it’s closely guarded. The Queen and Lord Joseph know, of course. I believe the Goodemeades do as well, for all the use that is. Sir Cunobel and Sir Cerenel were there when Lune claimed the Hall for herself; they might know.”

The lady scowled. “Cunobel’s long since vanished into Scotland, and Cerenel—hah. You’d have better luck forcing blood from a stone.”

“And one other,” Aspell said. “More easily squeezed than a stone. Dame Irrith.”

The rustic little sprite from Berkshire. That showed real promise, Carline thought, running one fingernail over her painted lip. Unlikely that she could be persuaded or bought—but the poor, simple creature was not beyond manipulation, however much she liked to think so. Friendship would be the easiest way. Irrith distrusted courtiers, but responded well to friends.

But not if their generosity seemed too out of place. Carline fixed a suspicious eye on Valentin Aspell. “Why offer me this help?”

He shrugged and leaned back once more, this time settling into a watchful posture. “I have my reasons.”

“Come, Valentin—you needn’t be coy. We’ve sworn each other to secrecy, and I of all people am not likely to throw stones at a little naked ambition.” She rose and drew near him, trailing one hand over the shoulder of his coat. “You’re already Lord Keeper, so it must be something greater you want, that Lune will never give you… King, perhaps? Do you wish to rule at my side?”

He laid his fingers over her own, cool and dry. “I believe you’ll need a mortal in that position. Lune is overfond of them, but her insistence on replacing Princes as soon as possible makes me suspect there’s more to it than mere attachment.”

“That isn’t a denial.”

The light from the fireplace cast his eyes into shadow. “I have my reasons, Carline. Leave it at that.”

Doubt curled in Carline’s heart. Even with so easy a target as Irrith, there was risk. And were she to be caught, the oaths she and the Lord Keeper had sworn to each other would make it hard for her to accuse him. Once she found the London Stone for him, she might discover her use had run out.

Or something else. Aspell’s motivations had never been clear to her. He enjoyed power, but was content to bide his time until those above him precipitated their own fall. If he did anything to hasten that, she’d never caught him at it.

Until now. The change bothered her, because she didn’t know its cause.

She would have to be wary of him. Whatever game Aspell was playing, she did not intend to let it take her by surprise.

“He said he intended nothing against your will.” The memory stung bitterly in her mind. “And I believed him.”

The elfin woman Irrith had spoken to in Dr. Andrews’s deserted laboratory was gone; the creature she faced now was every inch the Queen of the Onyx Hall. Lune sat with rigid posture, hands unnaturally still on the arms of her chair, flanked by Sir Peregrin Thorne and Dame Segraine. The Queen had listened without comment to the tale of Irrith’s involvement with the Sanists; now she sat silent a moment longer, eyes as flat and inexpressive as two silver coins.

Sir Peregrin asked coldly, “And what was your part to be in all of this?”

Irrith was already kneeling; now she ducked her chin and dug her fingers into the midnight carpet. “He—he said the idea would need to be in her Grace’s mind already, so that she’d make the decision quickly when the time came.”

A soft, sharp exhalation: the first sound Lune had made since Irrith began. “Perhaps he spoke the truth, then,” she said, with a razor edge of irony. “My will; my decision to die. Once he’d arranged for it to be so.”

“You give him too much credit, madam,” Segraine muttered. Irrith had asked her to be here for this audience. Lune might be merciful as Queens went, but Irrith wanted a friend present regardless. “He’ll have weighed Irrith to an ounce before he said anything to her. He knows she would never agree to outright regicide. But just because he said all those fine words doesn’t mean he wouldn’t hurl you into the Dragon’s maw if you decided the wrong way.”

Irrith’s gut twisted. Still like a babe in the wood. Still a puppet to be danced about by courtiers. Carline used friendship to snare her; Aspell had used her ideals. Pretending all the time that he wanted what she did, when in truth his treason began long before the Onyx Hall began to crumble.

She bowed her head even farther. “Your Majesty… what are you going to do?”

Leather creaked as Lune flexed her good hand. “Sanist sentiment is widespread in some parts of the Onyx Court. Eliminating their leading cabal won’t change that—though it would at least prevent what you’ve described. Unfortunately, Lord Valentin led my efforts to uncover that cabal. Thanks to him, we have nothing better than suspicion, and your word that he is their leader. We have no firm accusation to level against him, that would carry weight in a trial.”

What do you need a trial for? Just kill him! But Irrith had reason to be grateful for the Queen’s sense of justice, and her mimicry of mortal customs in reaching it. “Your Grace, I meant—what are you going to do with me?”

Sir Peregrin made a brusque sound that might have been either a growl or an angry laugh. Irrith did not dare look up at Segraine. She could feel the pressure of Lune’s gaze upon her. This is what he wanted me to be afraid of. And I am. Bad enough I went with him, but much worse that I stayed silent. That I let months go by without telling her.

“Why did you meet with the Sanists?”

Irrith could read nothing out of that question; Lune was too good at keeping her thoughts from her voice. Not that she would have had any other answer to give, regardless of the Queen’s state of mind. All she had was the truth. “Because the monarch is the realm. I don’t think it’s fading because you’re wounded, madam, but—I don’t know if it can be repaired so long as it has a mistress who isn’t whole.”

That was definitely a growl from Sir Peregrin. Lune, however, gave a quiet and weary reply. “Neither do I. I’m not ready to give up yet, though.”

“You shouldn’t!” It burst out without any polite address at all, and jerked Irrith upright as if someone had pulled on a string. Sitting back on her heels, hands clenching, she said, “He wants you to think you should. All of them do, all the Sanists, and they’re too eager to accept the easy answer, rather than looking for something else. But Aspell’s the heart of it. Don’t wait for a trial; give me permission, and I’ll go stab him this very moment.”

The Queen laughed, as much from startlement as anything else. “A very kind offer. Unfortunately, it’s one I can’t accept. That would make him a martyr, and encourage the others. Not only do you not have my permission, Irrith, you have our royal command that you are not to murder Valentin Aspell.”

Irrith hung her head. “Yes, madam.”

“As for your punishment,” Lune said, and paused.

Even though the sprite knew she should keep silent, she said it anyway. “I don’t have any right to ask for this, but—if you’re going to exile me, then please, let me stay long enough to face the Dragon.”

Sir Peregrin made a disbelieving sound. Lune said, “My subjects slip away in the night, and you ask to stay.” Despite everything, a bright edge lightened her voice. “Very well, Dame Irrith. For now, your punishment is that you are forbidden to depart until we have disposed of the Dragon. After that, we shall decide further.”

The Queen forbade her to kill Aspell, but not to plot other things.

Irrith perched atop a flying buttress, watching the door to Valentin Aspell’s chambers. She’d been up there for a while, considering her options. Part of her was tempted to stab him anyway; it might be worth guaranteeing her exile, just to get rid of him.

That shouldn’t be her first move, though. At present she was contemplating breaking in and seeing what she could find, but she suspected someone had already done that on Lune’s behalf. Besides, Irrith wouldn’t know what to look for. The Lord Keeper would hardly leave a notebook lying around with PLANS FOR TREASON written in large letters across the top.

Sitting here made her feel better, though. More fixed upon her purpose, which was to find proof that could be used to put an end to Valentin Aspell.

Could she lie to him? Make some pretence of— no, she dismissed the thought before she even completed it. Irrith was no good at masquerade, and she knew it.

They said Lune was very good at it indeed before she became Queen, disguising herself as a human woman for months on end. Some said that was why she had such strange mortal notions—that even the “safe” bread of the tithe left a taint of mortality, if eaten for long enough. Irrith thought it had more to do with loving a human man, but perhaps the two went hand in hand.

Distraction, all of that, from the fact that she didn’t know what to do. Irrith was jarred out of it by movement below.

She had spied on people from the concealment of trees, and this was not so different. Her blood quickened as she recognised the thrumpin from the Crow’s Head, the Sanist who helped start that brawl. He knocked on Aspell’s door, and handed a folded slip of paper to the hob who answered.

Irrith leaned forward, hoping for something of interest, but the hob merely bowed and closed the door, and the thrumpin went away. Frustrated, she smacked one hand against the stone. Seeing Aspell receive a message from a known Sanist was no use at—

The door opened again, and Aspell emerged.

Despite herself, Irrith grinned. She might not be much of a liar, nor a thief, nor a knight—but trailing someone in secret? That, I can do.

She went from buttress to buttress until she reached the end of the gallery. Then, unfortunately, she had to drop to the floor, which meant following at a greater distance, with a charm to silence her feet. Aspell had cast no such thing, which made her frown. If he wasn’t bothering to be secret, then maybe this was nothing to do with the Sanists, thrumpin or no thrumpin.

Her mind was so on that question, and on the challenge of neither losing her quarry nor betraying herself to him, that she paid little attention to their path. With a start, she realised they had passed the only remaining branch in the corridors, and that only one thing lay ahead.

The Newgate entrance.

Blood and Bone! Aspell was going above. No need to hide that—it was ordinary enough—and once up there, easy enough to give the slip to any pursuers. And Irrith, searching desperately through her pockets, realised what bread she had was in Ktistes’s pavilion.

Aspell went into the chamber. She drew close, into the shadow of one of the pillars supporting the arch, and saw him don a glamour. Then the air whispered, ghost-quiet, as he stepped onto the roundel and floated upward.

Irrith gritted her teeth. I should let him go. Too hard to follow him, too dangerous, and what proof have I it’s even worth the risk?

Proof didn’t matter. Only the possibility. In her heart, Irrith had sworn she’d find a reason to take Aspell down. It was the only way to purge her own guilt.

Cursing softly, Irrith began to build her own glamour.

Luck seemed to be smiling and spitting upon her by turns. First it sent the thrumpin to Aspell; then it put no bread in her pocket. Now it gave her the gift of a city in the dark of night, when almost no one would be on the streets to wave iron or invoke the Almighty, and by doing so shatter Irrith’s unprotected glamour. Still, she wondered what ill luck would follow in turn.

She got her answer when, out of habit, she glanced up to judge the time.

A waning moon shone in the sky, its light breaking through wisps of cloud.

Irrith’s heart tried to burst right through her ribs. She actually pressed her hands to her breast, as if that would help her slow its sudden pounding. Hemmed in by walls, she could see only a little of the heavens; the rest looked to still be shrouded in clouds. Hadn’t Galen said the comet was near the sun right now? The sun was hours from rising. The comet couldn’t possibly be visible. They were still safe.

But the clouds had begun to fail.

Irrith forced herself to concentrate. She could do nothing about that right now, and if she didn’t move, she was going to lose the one thing she could do. Where had Aspell gone?

Fortunately, the likely guess turned out to be the right one. The Newgate entrance, like the Fish Street arch, saw a great deal of use these days, thanks to the growth of Westminster and the areas between, and there was a gleam of flame headed down Snow Hill. Aspell, and someone else—a human, it looked like, carrying a link to light his way. A real human, not a faerie under a glamour. He must have been waiting for the Lord Keeper, and that was the content of the thrumpin’s note.

Grinning, Irrith followed. Soon they were on the much wider street of Holborn, and still going west. If they were going to some secret meeting, it could be anywhere in Holborn or the north of Westminster, but it certainly wasn’t in the coffeehouse Aspell had taken her to before. Too easy to guess, probably. He thinks like a spy, well enough not to repeat himself.

Suddenly fearful, she cast a glance behind her, but saw no one. Of course not: he was still Lune’s Lord Keeper, with no reason to think the Queen suspected him of anything. And the link-bearer glanced back occasionally, but with that light in his eyes, he hadn’t a chance of spotting her. Irrith had spent long enough in the city to be almost as good at hiding as she was in the Vale—except when the occasional bit of passing iron made her queasy.

When they turned right at last, her heart began pounding almost as hard as it had upon seeing the moon. She’d been down this road, twice before. Once with Segraine, and once following Galen.

They were going to Red Lion Square.

In the dark of night, when no one was around to see. Irrith quickened her step, risking them seeing her. Aspell had spoken so much of last resorts—but they had another, didn’t they? The alchemical plan. She’d told him about it herself. Only she hadn’t told him everything: the role Lune might play, and the possible danger they’d uncovered. Whether the scholars had settled the question of the philosopher’s stone, Irrith didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. So far as Aspell knew, alchemy held a way to save the Onyx Hall, without harm to Lune.

Unless he and the brawny man with him did something to prevent it.

In her haste, Irrith almost fell prey to an easy threat. A constable coming down a crossing street made her pull back into the shadows, crouching and holding her breath. Fortunately he was a lazy fellow, whistling as his own yawning link-boy trotted on ahead, making no real effort to see beyond its smoky light. By the time he passed, though, Aspell and his man were already in Red Lion Square.

She peered carefully around the corner of a building and saw nothing but an empty square. Coming farther out, she studied the front of Andrews’s house. The blue door was black and silent, and the shutters were closed against the night.

The lock on the front door was beyond her abilities, and the shutters of the ground floor windows out of reach thanks to the open space of the area. How was she to get in?

Against her will, Irrith’s gaze went downward, and she cringed in dread.

The area. It lay at the bottom of a set of steps giving access to the cellar, where the kitchens would be located. Those shutters, she might be able to open.

But first she would have to get past the iron railings that helpfully prevented passersby from falling down the steps.

She’d come this far. Even now, Aspell and that man might be creeping into Dr. Andrews’s bedchamber, putting an end to the old man before consumption could. And then what he knew would die with him.

Thinking about it wouldn’t make the task any easier. Biting down on her own hand, Irrith forced herself down the steps, feeling her glamour crumble around her. Don’t think about the iron fencing you in. Don’t think about how one careless brush of your elbow could— oh, Mab—don’t think about it, just keep moving…

She had to remove her hand from her mouth when she reached the bottom, so she could deal with the window. The slender knife she kept inside her coat was perfect for sliding in between the shutters, fumbling around until she felt the latch lift. When she drew it back, though, the faerie silver of its blade had dulled and blackened, from the iron of the shutter nails. Gagging, Irrith took hold of the wood with her fingertips and pulled it back, until the panels swung clear. Then she was shoving at the window’s lower sash, sliding it upward, hardly caring how much noise she made, until she could squirm through the gap and into the cellar beyond.

It wasn’t much better here. Iron screamed at her from all over the kitchen: pots, hooks, more things than she wanted to think about. Irrith stumbled forward blindly, and gagged when her hand touched a hinge. Stifling her cries, she dragged the door open and fell out into the blessed darkness of the passage. She fled to the base of the stairs and stood there gasping, cradling her stinging hand. I’m a fool. A reckless fool.

Carline’s mocking voice sounded in her head. And what will you do when you go upstairs, little sprite? Attack those two, all on your own?

Yes, if I must. She had her pistol. But only iron shot. Could she even bear to load the gun?

It was that or the knife, and that would mean going within reach of the link-bearer’s brawny arms. But even as Irrith marshaled the will to go upstairs, she heard something that stopped her where she stood.

Voices. Valentin Aspell’s, sibilant and oily, recognizable anywhere. And a hoarse, whispery reply, coming from a chest that could no longer manage anything more.

Dr. Andrews.

“Will you live until the morning?” the Lord Keeper asked cynically.

“I will. I must.” A pause for coughing. “I have not endured this long only to die now.”

“We’ll need bread.”

Irrith tensed. Bread would be in the kitchen. But it seemed Andrews was prepared, for she heard a soft clink, as of a bowl placed on the floor. “Or should it be the doorstep?” Aspell must have shaken his head, for Andrews recited the rote phrases, tithing bread to the fae. When it was done, Andrews said, “Send your people in pairs. I don’t want suspicion.”

“Dr. Andrews,” Valentin Aspell said, with an edge sharp enough to draw blood, “do not presume to tell me my business.”

Footsteps, and the front door opening and closing. He was gone.

Irrith sank onto the bottom step, mouth open. What was that?

She didn’t have long to wonder. More footsteps, these light and uncertain, but headed toward the head of the stairs. Blood and Bone! She couldn’t go back into the kitchen—not with all that iron—

Her eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness that she saw a second door, close by her hand. Irrith pushed this one open and slipped through, praying there would not be another world of iron behind it.

The chamber smelled of alcohol and less pleasant things, but no iron scraped across her nerves. Unfortunately, luck was spitting upon her again; light came through the gap of the door, heralding an approaching candle. Irrith’s hand bumped a table, and she dove underneath it just before the candle entered the room.

Andrews was dressed, despite the black hour. She watched his feet shuffle unsteadily around the room, light blooming in his wake, as he lit a set of lamps. It revealed two more tables apart from the one she hid under, all three of them large, heavy things, and shelves along the walls. Then the rustle of paper, as he turned the pages of a book.

Pressed into the corner of the walls, concealed by the table, Irrith wondered what to do. Stand up and announce herself? But then she would have to explain what she was doing in Andrews’s cellar, and whether she’d heard that strange and worrisome conversation. Any kind of cooperation between him and the Sanists troubled her. How could Aspell—

Her entire face creased into a silent wail. My fault. Again. I told him about the alchemical plan; he must have gone to Dr. Andrews. But what are they planning?

Gentle tinkling: the doctor was ringing a bell. A moment later, he repeated it, more insistently. She heard him cough, then mutter something too faint to be made out. His feet shuffled from the room, and back up the stairs. Blessing whatever servant was failing to respond, Irrith slipped from under the table, intending to escape while she could.

Horror turned her to stone.

One of the other tables held a crumbled, indistinct shape, so far gone all that could be told was that it had once been very small. The other was much newer: a river nymph, pale and cold and unmoving.

And the third…

Irrith staggered away from the table that had sheltered her. Savennis’s clouded eyes stared blindly at the ceiling, as if refusing to look at the gaping hole in his chest. Alcohol, and less pleasant things: she’d been smelling old blood. It stained the table, the shackles that held Savennis, the cracks between the stone flags of the floor, where no amount of scrubbing could remove it.

Her mind refused to put the pieces together, the corpses and the blood and the knives, the rowan chains no faerie could break and the jars of alcohol holding things she didn’t want to recognise. Dr. Andrews. Valentin Aspell. There was a picture here, but she could not see it around the scream that filled her mind.

She ran. Even iron couldn’t keep her out of the kitchen, her one route to safety; she was through the window and up the stairs before she knew she was moving, running away from Red Lion Square, back to something like safety.

But time had passed; people were beginning to move, in the murky predawn light. She tried to put up a glamour, lost it before she’d gone ten steps. Irrith snatched desperately at everything she knew of London, every black alley and hidden nook, every series of rooftops that afforded her a road away from where people could see. She had to make it back to the Onyx Hall. Had to stop Aspell, whatever he was planning for the morning. She had to.

She made it down Holborn, past the flat new space of the Fleet Market where sellers were beginning to set up their wares, through the broken mouth of Newgate, until she was on the roof of the pawnbroker’s that held the hidden entrance.

Church bells caught her there, and she fell.

The usher, it seemed, had been given new instructions. “Lord Galen, Prince of the Stone, and his wife Lady Delphia!”

The lady in question colored at the unaccustomed title, but sallied bravely forward with her arm in his. Galen nodded at the curtsies and bows they received, and approached Lune in her chair of estate. “Lord Galen,” the Queen said, with a smile that warmed her worried eyes. “We did not expect to see you here so soon after your wedding.”

“The comet may still be concealed in the light of the sun,” Galen said, “but that’s no excuse for laziness on my part. And my lady wife was eager to spend more time in the Onyx Hall.” Now that she could do so with greater ease. No one could object if Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair chose to wander off in each other’s company.

“Lady Delphia,” Lune said, and received another curtsy in reply. “If you are so eager, then we’ll put you into the keeping of Lady Amadea, our chamberlain, who will acquaint you with the other ladies.”

Amadea seemed pleased enough, though some of the others were clearly not so sure. Galen kissed his wife’s hand and let her go. She would do well enough in the Lady Chamberlain’s company.

A brief exchange was occurring at the door behind him, someone handing a note to the usher, who passed it to a nearby lord, who brought it to Lune with a bow. The Queen unfolded it, and Galen saw surprise break over her like a wave. “Lord Galen, if you would—”

He followed her into the small privy chamber beyond. His curiosity didn’t last long; Lune said in a voice that carried no farther than the two of them, “Dr. Andrews says he has succeeded at last. Sophic mercury, extracted in a form we can use, like drawing blood from a patient. He’s invited me to Red Lion Square to see.”

“Only you?”

“You, Lord Galen, are supposed to be at Sothings Park still, enjoying your connubial bliss. No doubt a letter is seeking you there, without result. In a moment we’ll go back out, and my courtiers will hear me send you to Holborn, to consult with Dr. Andrews.”

Amusement rippled inside him. It felt good; the knot of tension that had bound his heart since Abd ar-Rashid first brought up the moon queen was coming untied at last. Lune did not seem so relieved, but her determination was unmistakable. “I’ll find you waiting for me in Newgate, won’t I?”

“I thought the Fleet Market would be an appropriate rendezvous. Meet me there in half an hour.”

They shared a carriage, knees almost brushing in its close confines, and arrived at Dr. Andrews’s house a little before noon. The footman escorted them up to the drawing room on the piano nobile. This was where Andrews had displayed his menagerie, before illness forced him to disband it. The room was less comfortable than the back parlor, and despite the chill in the air, no fire burnt in the grate: an unusual piece of carelessness, from Andrews’s usually scrupulous servants. Nor was Andrews there.

They heard the man’s coughing before he entered the room. Galen was appalled. Andrews had finally agreed to spend less time in the Onyx Hall, for the sake of his mind; it seemed his body had paid the price. Or perhaps this decline would have happened anyway, his health finally abandoning the fight against the disease that was killing him. He should have been in bed, enduring his last days in what comfort could be managed, but it seemed his will was too strong to allow him that surrender.

Lune saw it, too. She swept past Galen and took Dr. Andrews by the arm, helping him into a chair. “Thank you,” the man whispered, his voice a ghost of what it had been before.

Then he saw Galen, and surprise sparked another bout of coughing. When it ended, Andrews rasped, “Mr. St. Clair—you were supposed to be at Sothings Park.”

“I came to see the mercury,” Galen said, his own voice as hushed as if he stood at someone’s deathbed.

Andrews shook his head. “I don’t have it yet.”

Lune and Galen exchanged looks of mutual confusion. “But your letter said—”

“Need you.” He pointed at Lune. “It won’t work with a nymph. We need the connection to the Onyx Hall. Just as the Dragon acquired an association with air by its transmission to the comet, so are you completed by your realm.”

“Dr. Andrews, no.” It hurt all the more because Galen had believed their problem finished at last. “If this mercury depends on a connection to the Onyx Hall, it cannot be used; the power of the Hall is exactly what the Dragon desires. You would give our enemy precisely the thing we fight to keep it from.”

Andrews’s breath rattled audibly in his chest, and he clutched his ever-present handkerchief as if it were the only thing anchoring his spirit to his body. “There is no other choice, Mr. St. Clair. If the Dragon’s power is as great as you say, then it must be matched by a source equally strong; only the Onyx Hall will suffice. Else sulphur will obliterate mercury and the work will be lost.”

Galen rose slowly to his feet. His entire body was trembling, and the dark, bare space of the drawing room seemed to be closing in on him, narrowing his world to himself and Dr. Andrews alone. He didn’t want to ask, but he had to; the salvation of London depended on it. “How—how would the extraction be done?”

The dying man finally met Galen’s eyes, and what he saw revealed there struck him dumb with horror.

Andrews whispered, “I’m sorry.”

The doors to the drawing room opened. In came six people Galen didn’t recognise: ordinary laboring men, or so they appeared to be, except he knew without question that they were fae under glamour.

Sanists.

“There is no drawing of blood,” Andrews said. “No extraction of the necessary element without harm to the patient. I tried, Mr. St. Clair, but they all died. If there was any other way, I swear to you, I would use it, but—”

“Dr. Andrews.” Lune spoke his name, but addressed all of them, with courage and dignity that would give the hardest assassin pause. “I understand your desperation, but you must listen to me. The philosopher’s stone is not your salvation. Not if it is created from the Dragon. It’s a creature of destruction; even if you take me, with all the power of the Onyx Hall behind me, I won’t be able to stop it.”

Andrews shivered. “But it’s perfection. It creates perfection.”

“And so it may do—by annihilating that which is not perfect.” Lune spread her arms, seeming to encompass the entire city within her embrace. “After London burnt, men submitted plans to the King, grand designs for transforming it into the jewel of Europe, sweeping away the old tangle of streets to create something better. They failed. But if London were to burn again—why, then, they would have another chance. Dr. Andrews, you cannot do this. It will destroy us all.”

For one timeless, breathless moment, Galen thought she had persuaded him. Andrews’s mouth wavered, uncertainty breaking through the desperation.

Then the doctor made his choice.

What he would have said to excuse it, Galen never learned. He charged forward, blindly, but one of the Sanists was there before he got two steps, grabbing him and wrestling him back. Another trapped Lune with brawny arms. “You shouldn’t have come, Mr. St. Clair,” Dr. Andrews gasped, in between coughs. “I meant to spare you this. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

Galen screamed. It didn’t last more than a heartbeat before silence blanketed the room. A third Sanist came forward with rowan-wood shackles to bind Lune’s good and crippled hands together. Her silver eyes sought him out, and their touch pierced Galen to the bone.

Still screaming, feeling it tear out of his chest even if nothing reached his ears, Galen fought like a wild animal. He clawed free of his captor and snatched the nearest thing that came to hand, his chair, swinging it like a tavern brawler. The Sanist knocked it aside contemptuously and punched him in the face. Light burst all across Galen’s vision. He felt the wall beneath his hands, holding him up; then a second blow struck him in the stomach, driving all the air from him, knocking him back. He raised his hands in feeble defence, but it did him no good as the fist came at him a third time.

This one sent him staggering backward, out of control, and into the window.

Glass shattered against his back. The wooden sill caught his knees; Galen threw his hand out, trying to catch himself. Pain flared across his palm—he lost his grip—then he was tumbling over the projecting lintel of the front door below, scrabbling for purchase on its edge and then slipping free. Galen hit the front steps and went sprawling in the street.

He looked up to see his captor’s face at the window, staring in surprised fury. Gasping for air that would not come, Galen staggered to his feet and ran, limping, for the corner of the square. No shouts came from behind him—of course not, the silencing charm—but he ran as if the hounds of Hell chased him, because soon they would. Out onto Holborn, and there was a hackney; he flung himself into the carriage, ignoring the startled protests of the man inside, and rattled away into the faceless masses of the street, where no pursuer could find him.

When the hackney driver stopped to throw him out, Galen poured the entire contents of his purse into the man’s hands, demanding he be taken back to the City.

Only after he staggered out again in Newgate Street, wrapping his handkerchief around his bleeding left hand, did he realise his error. This was the obvious entrance to seek if he were returning to the Onyx Hall. Galen whirled in the narrow alley, trying to look in all directions at once, and nearly fell.

Then he looked up, and he did fall, straight into the mud.

A hand dangled over the edge of the roof, at the back of the pawnbroker’s. An unmoving hand, he realised—a hand too delicate to belong to anyone human. Galen lurched to his feet and crept forward, half-crouched, ready to run again.

When the fingers did not so much as twitch, he climbed onto a crate, and looked over the edge of the roof.

Irrith lay unconscious, sprawled across the tiles of the building’s back extension. Galen thought she was dead. Her skin held a gray pallor, as if the light of her soul had almost gone out. But when he cradled her face in his hands, she stirred, ever so faintly.

Favouring his gashed palm, Galen pulled her awkwardly forward, dragging her off the roof. The contents of her pockets rained down, making hazards for his feet, but he managed to lift her onto his shoulder and carry her to the ground. Had the Sanists attacked her? But if so, why had they left her alive?

The flapping of wings gave him half a second of warning. Galen had just enough time to lay Irrith down before the approaching faerie transformed in midair, falling out of the sky to land in humanlike form. She was a sharp-faced creature, none Galen knew by name, but her predatory leer told her intent clearly enough. And she stood between him and the relative safety of the street.

Ever since fleeing Red Lion Square, the shame of having abandoned Lune had burnt Galen alive. Now Irrith lay helpless in the mud at his feet. Once the goblin woman finished with him, the sprite would not last long.

No.

That single word was the only clear thought in Galen’s head as he lunged for the fallen contents of Irrith’s pockets. It gave him speed: he came up with the pistol in his hands just before the goblin reached him, and fired from a mere foot away.

The hammer of the gun snapped down—and nothing happened.

She’d slid to a halt in a vain attempt to dodge. Now she laughed and raised her claws.

Galen struck her in the head with the empty pistol. The goblin staggered. He struck her again, a third time, a fourth, beating her down into the mud, until his sweaty grip failed and the gun flew from his grip. But by then the goblin wasn’t moving.

He didn’t trust it. Any moment now she would rise again, and then he would be doomed, because he was no soldier or brawler; he was a gentleman, and had never come closer to battle than his fencing lessons as a youth.

Galen dragged Irrith out of the mud. How he fit both of them into the cramped alcove of the entrance, he would never know; but a moment later they were in the relative safety of the Onyx Hall, and then he began shouting for help.

His cries seemed to have summoned fae out of every crevice of the Hall, and half of them were now crowding into the room. Galen didn’t even know where they were; it was some courtier’s chambers, he thought. Whatever had been nearest when help came running. But the result was chaos, and they were wasting time.

He bellowed loud enough to make Gertrude drop the bandage she was wrapping around his hand, and was rewarded with a ragged fall into silence. “Out,” he snarled. “I need Sir Peregrin and Sir Cerenel—the Goodemeades can stay—and the scholars, get me Lady Feidelm, Abd ar-Rashid, any of them you can find. Everyone else, get out.”

Sir Adenant took up his orders and repeated them, herding almost everyone from the room. Now Galen could see Rosamund, crouching over Irrith, trying to chafe warmth back into the sprite’s limp hands. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Iron,” the brownie said, not looking up. “And holy things, and everything else. She was up there without bread, Galen, I don’t know for how long.”

Would she recover? He couldn’t spare the time for that worry, not right now. Gertrude tied off the bandage as Sir Peregrin came in with his lieutenant. Abd ar-Rashid was not far behind. Good enough to start with.

Galen told them of Red Lion Square. He wanted to be concise, but every word made his face ache, and his thoughts kept scattering to the four winds; Gertrude pressed a cup of mead into his good hand, and he drank it down, shaking almost badly enough to choke. Where were the rest of the scholars? Abd ar-Rashid shook his head when Galen asked. “Lady Feidelm and Wrain are in the Calendar Room. I cannot find Savennis.”

“He’s dead.”

The paper-thin whisper came from Irrith. Rosamund had tucked her into the bed of the courtier whose chambers they’d usurped, where she looked like a small child, wasted by illness. Her shifting eyes had dulled to a flat, muddy green. “In the cellar. Andrews was experimenting. They’re all dead.”

I tried, Mr. St. Clair, but they all died.

The doctor’s words echoed in his head. The vivisected salamander, the laboratory beneath Andrews’s house—the questions about what happened when a faerie died. Christ. Lune.

Galen stumbled blindly toward the door. “We have to go now. She—she may already be dead…”

Cerenel caught him before he could get far. Rosamund hurried to his side, with hasty words of comfort. “She isn’t, lad; you’d know if she were. The Hall would tell you. But you have to plan before you go rushing in, because of a surety they’ll be waiting for you.”

“We don’t have the time!”

Abd ar-Rashid’s accented voice brought him down to earth, unreasonably calm in the face of his own panic. “I think perhaps we do. If I understand Dr. Andrews well enough.”

Galen stopped fighting Cerenel’s hands. “What do you mean?”

The genie folded his arms, frowning. “He seeks the moon queen, yes? Then he will want the moon. Full would be best, but he has missed that; he will not wait for it to come again. But the… extraction will be tonight.”

“Then why snatch her now?” Peregrin demanded. “When it gives us time to respond?”

“Because he needs time to prepare.”

Cerenel allowed Galen to step back. The pause had checked the fire in his veins; now, at last, he began to feel the beating he’d taken, the throbbing heat of his hand, the protests of his right ankle when he put weight on it. But the mead gave him the strength to keep going.

Everyone was looking at him. Prince of the Stone, and in Lune’s absence, the voice of authority in the Onyx Hall.

He tried to focus, past the unpleasant pulsating of his bruised face. Abd ar-Rashid’s calm response to Peregrin sounded plausible, but he suspected it was more of a guess than the genie admitted. If the extraction was now…

“Lune was supposed to go alone,” he mumbled, mostly to himself. “Not with me.”

“Aspell must know she’s been sneaking out of the Hall,” Irrith said, struggling to sit up, against Gertrude’s insistence.

“Aspell? The Lord Keeper?”

Peregrin’s teeth bared in a snarl. “The Sanist. Dame Irrith told us, while you were away.”

The knight likely didn’t mean it as an accusation, but it cut Galen nonetheless. Irrith brushed lank hair from her face and said, “I followed him to Dr. Andrews’s house. I didn’t know what they were planning, but I was trying to get back here to warn the Queen.”

They shared the same shame, the same failure. He saw it in her face, as no doubt she saw it in his.

So the intent had been for the Queen to go in secret, by herself, or at most with one attendant. There was no reason to suspect Dr. Andrews, and no reason to take a guard. By the time her absence was remarked, and her location determined, it would be too late.

“But they know now that we know,” Galen said. He lowered himself stiffly into the nearest chair. “Andrews won’t use his cellar laboratory. By now they’ll be gone. But to where?”

Silence. The assembled fae looked from one to another, seeking answers, finding none.

Andrews had nowhere else to go, not that Galen knew of. He could not kill a faerie woman inside the house of the Royal Society. “Does Aspell have any familiar haunts, outside the Hall?”

More silence, shaking heads. It sparked Galen’s anger. “Come on! There must be something. Where can they be safe? Abd ar-Rashid, give me the alchemical answer. What place is best for the work he intends to do?”

The genie closed his eyes and began to murmur to himself in rapid Arabic, unintelligible to them all. Then, still without looking, he changed to English. “Ablution. Washing the material in mercurial waters to reach albedo, the white stage before the creation of the stone. He will need to purify her… he would not have done this in his house, I think, even without being found. He needs a source of water, away from iron or other things that will harm her.”

Galen’s mind offered up an enormous list of water sources in London. “The ponds in St. James’ Park. The Chelsea Reservoirs. The Serpentine. Not Holywell—the New River Head—”

“No,” Rosamund murmured, cutting him short. “Think, Galen. The Thames.”

The answer so obvious, he overlooked it. Abd ar-Rashid’s lip curled delicately. “It is an open sewer. Not clean at all.”

“But the heart of London, and connected to the Onyx Hall,” Galen said. “Which is part of what Andrews is relying upon. Rosamund is right: he will use the Thames.”

Abd ar-Rashid was right, though, about the state of the waters. Somewhere upriver, then, where they were less fouled. Galen thought back to his Vauxhall visits, what he had seen from the barge. Westminster—no, too many wharves. The swampy banks of Lambeth, perhaps. Or Vauxhall itself? But while all of that, strictly speaking, fell under Lune’s authority—which extended to more than just the Onyx Hall itself—the farther he went, the farther he took her from the London Stone, and the heart of her realm. And Aspell knew about the Stone. Surely he would have told Andrews.

Galen stared blankly at the far wall, seeing in his mind’s eye the journey upriver. The wharves floating by, the fine houses along the Strand, the Palace of Westminster.

Upriver and down. Cleansing before the extraction. No one place would serve, but…

“What about a barge?”

A gleam came into Abd ar-Rashid’s dark eyes. He shared a little bit of Dr. Andrews’s flaw, Galen thought, the willingness to love an idea for its own beauty, without concern for its consequences. “A moving laboratory, for the volatile principle. Yes, it would do well.”

Very well indeed—if they weren’t speaking of Lune’s death. “Starting upriver, where the waters are cleaner, and floating down. If it’s her connection to the Onyx Hall he wants, then the—the extraction will happen in the City. Beneath the moon, I suppose.” Galen swallowed down bile.

Peregrin said, “Assuming all this speculation is correct. We have nothing but logic to support it.”

Gertrude had convinced Irrith to lie down again, or perhaps simple exhaustion had done it for her. The brownie said, “Might be we have a way to tell. I don’t know how far it goes, but—the Thames is connected to the Onyx Hall, and so are the Prince and Queen. If she’s on the river, he might be able to tell. Once she’s close enough, anyway.”

The Onyx Hall. A quiet presence in the back of Galen’s mind, grown familiar enough that he rarely thought of it. Could he use it to find the Queen?

He could certainly try. “In the meanwhile,” Galen said, “we assume nothing. Sir Peregrin, I’ll tell the Lord Treasurer to provide whatever’s needed. Search this city from one end to the other. If Lune is anywhere within London, find her—before tonight.”

“I’d bring you with me, but you need to rest.”

Irrith shook her head—or at least rolled it on her pillow, the best she could do. “Not even if I could, Galen. Carline almost tricked me once into telling her where the London Stone lay. I’m happier not knowing where it is now.” So long as there were vipers like Aspell in the Hall, she wanted to know nothing that could betray it.

He squeezed her limp hand. Even that light pressure forced her bones together—as it had always done, no doubt, but now she was aware of it, as she was aware of the fragility of her entire body. Irrith felt as if she’d been pounded, head to toe, with an iron club, and one more blow could break her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

She wasn’t sure either of them knew what precisely he was apologizing for. An unaccustomed prickling stung her eyes. “Galen—I think Podder was in that cellar. He didn’t run away.”

It barely touched him; his fear and rage for Lune left little room for anything else. But Galen nodded. Then, when neither of them could think of anything further to say, he turned to go.

When he was halfway to the door, his wife came into the room.

Delphia Northwood—no, Delphia St. Clair—gasped at the sight of her new husband. Irrith had no idea what Galen had been up to while she lay unconscious in Newgate, but his shirt was filthy, the back of his coat was slashed to ribbons, and his face was beginning to bruise beneath the blood. Small wonder the woman was horrified. “What in Heaven’s—”

He held up his left hand, seemed to notice the bandage on it, and replaced it with his right. “Delphia, I’m sorry; I don’t have time to explain. I have to find Lune. Something terrible has happened, and I… I need to be Prince right now.”

Irrith watched the words settle over Delphia St. Clair. Did the woman see the difference in Galen, beneath the blood and the bandages? I need to be Prince right now. He was the Prince, maybe for the first time ever. Not merely standing at Lune’s side, fulfilling his duties as required, but making decisions, giving orders. The change showed in his posture, the set of his jaw. The challenge had come—the crisis, not just the creeping threat of the comet—and he had stepped up to meet it.

As a Prince of the Stone should.

Delphia let him go, with only a brief touch of her hand on his shoulder. Then she stood, eyes cast down, in silence, and Irrith would have wagered all her remaining bread that the woman thought she was alone in the room.

But Gertrude would come back in a moment with mead for Irrith, and then it would be embarrassing to admit she’d listened to that exchange without saying anything. I could pretend to be asleep.

Instead she cleared her throat, and watched Delphia try to jump out of her skin. “It won’t end, you know,” Irrith said. “This fight, yes—one way or another, it will be over tonight. But it will always be true that Galen has to be Prince. He’ll always be running off, and leaving you behind.” Not just for Lune’s sake, but for the entire Onyx Court.

The mortal woman came forward one slow step at a time, hands clasped over her skirts. She studied Irrith with curious eyes, and a hint of compassion. But only a hint; the rest was steel.

“I am not left behind,” Delphia St. Clair said. “I’m a lady of the bedchamber to the Queen. I’ll make my own place here in this court, and when my husband goes to do his duty, I will not resent him for it.”

Irrith managed a weak smile. She did like this woman, who commanded admiration instead of pity. “Well said. If you really do mean it, then I suggest you go above, where your words won’t hurt us… and pray you still have a queen to serve tomorrow.”

In a tiny alcove well concealed in the Onyx Hall, Galen stood with both hands upraised, clutching the rough surface of the London Stone.

It looked like nothing: a rounded stub of a crude pillar, protruding from the ceiling above, its tip deeply grooved by the abuse of centuries. Its significance to London above was half-forgotten, even as the Stone itself was half worn away.

But in the shadowy reflection that was the Onyx Hall, there was no place of greater significance. This was the axis, the point where the two worlds fused into one, and Galen could touch his entire realm with his mind.

The Hall, fraying and fading in scattered patches. The wall, fragmented more with every passing year. The hill of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the west; the hill of the Tower in the east. The Walbrook, running buried beneath the City, from the north down to the greater waters of the Thames in the south.

The Thames.

This was where Galen directed his thoughts, striving outward, seeking the Hall’s other half. He devoted some attention to the waters downriver, and more to the ground of the streets above, in case Lune should be there; but the greater part of his being he sent upriver, past the Fleet, past the Strand, past Westminster, stretching himself farther and farther as he went, desperately grasping for any tremour that might indicate the presence of the Queen.

He held the image of her before him like a beacon, shining silver and pure. The moon queen, as Dr. Andrews had said. A goddess beyond his reach, but perhaps this once he could serve her as she deserved, saving her from those who would cut that glory out of her flesh and feed it to the fire.

Before she could be saved, she must be found.

Farther. And farther. And farther, his spirit strained to the breaking point.

There.

The barge approached Westminster just after midnight, floating silently on the black waters of the Thames. Even the watermen who managed the craft worked without sound, going about their tasks like automata, their minds fogged by their faerie passengers. They took only as much notice of those passengers as was needed to avoid tripping over them, and no notice at all of the canvas-roofed cabin in the centre of the deck, where a cool light unlike any lamp’s flame shone.

The fae were silent, too, until the thrumpin Orlegg elbowed his neighbour and pointed at a shadow on the water up ahead. “Glamour. Big one, on Westminster Bridge.”

All the faerie company, save those inside the cabin, squinted through the darkness to pierce the effect. The first one to succeed snorted. “Swopped the arches half a step, all the way across. Seems they don’t mind risking their Queen drowning.”

Orlegg growled. “They know we’re coming.”

The Sanists moved quickly. One charmed the watermen, persuading them to steer the barge straight for what appeared to be a solid stone pier. Another cracked the door to the cabin and whispered to those inside. Orlegg mustered the rest in preparation for battle.

The loyalists would not give up their wounded Queen without a fight—and so the Sanists would give them one.

All along the Strand, the wide road leading from Westminster to the City, folk waited in shadows. The Lord Treasurer had all but emptied his domain, armoring fae for the long night of readiness. A company had concealed itself in the alcoves of Westminster Bridge, hoping to catch the barge in its deceptive glamour, so they could swarm down on it from above; so far all they had caught were two little scullers, ferrying gentlemen home from their late-night pleasures.

But if fae rode upon the barge, that trap would do little good. And so the rest of the Onyx Hall’s fighting force, all those loyal to the Queen, strung themselves along the Strand, waiting to converge upon their target.

As soon as they found it.

Segraine’s blade hissed from its scabbard and swung before Irrith could even leap back. The point came to rest just against the side of her neck. “Blood and Bone—Irrith! What in Mab’s name are you doing here?”

The sprite pushed the sword away with two careful fingers. “Rescuing the Queen.”

“Over my dead body—or your own, more like. You can barely stand.”

“But I can stand,” Irrith pointed out, and began loading her pistol. Elfshot only; the iron in her pocket, she was saving for the Dragon. “Unless you want to waste time dragging me back to the Hall, I’m here to stay.”

The lady knight ground her teeth. “Irrith, we can do this without you—”

“It’s my fault, all right? I’m the one who told Aspell what Andrews was doing, and if it weren’t for me—”

She never got a chance to say how things might have been different. Bonecruncher clapped one taloned hand over her mouth. “If it weren’t for you, we might have a chance of avoiding the constables,” the barguest hissed in her ear. “Leave or be quiet, but if you go on shouting like that, I’ll drown you in the Thames myself.”

Mute, Irrith met Segraine’s eyes. The knight clenched her teeth, but nodded. Bonecruncher dropped his hand, Irrith loaded her second pistol, and they waited for the barge to come.

In the black waters of the Thames, more shadows moved.

The fae of the river, nymphs and asrai and draca, found less and less joy in the city these past years. Their land-dwelling kindred could retreat from the filth of London into the Onyx Hall, but living in Queenhithe’s subterranean mirror was like living in a pond. Out here in the river, they had to contend with all the refuse of the mortals, and waters that grew fouler every year.

Tonight, however, they swam without complaint. They flooded out the Queenhithe entrance and formed a line across the river, sweeping upstream in search of the barge. There were other craft upon the Thames, of course. The larger ships, however, were confined downriver by the ancient stones of the London Bridge, and at this hour of the night, only a few small wherries plied the surface. Their search was—should have been—easy.

But they were not the only shadows in the water.

There was no warning. Just a claw, snaking out of nowhere to snatch an asrai and drag her down. Underwater, she could not scream; she vanished without a sound.

A draca was the next target, and he dodged not quite rapidly enough. Blood bloomed in the murk, and then he saw his enemy.

Blacktooth Meg cared little for the politics of the Onyx Hall. All she knew was rage. The poisoned Fleet, long choked with garbage and offal, corpses and shit, had turned the foul river hag even fouler, until all she wanted to do was rend and destroy. Valentin Aspell offered her a chance to do so. She merely had to venture out of her waters into the Thames, and prevent the fae there from swimming upstream.

Battle churned in the darkness below, invisible to those above. Even the water-dwelling fae could scarcely see their enemy before she closed with them. But one nymph broke free, driving herself upstream with frantic speed, desperate to carry out her sworn task.

She didn’t have to go far. Under cover of darkness and charms, the barge had come nearly to the mouth of the Fleet, and the boundary of the Onyx Hall.

Hands made clumsy with panic tore at the box tied to her waist. Then the lid was open, and the will-o’-the-wisp sprang out, erupting from the water into the air above, marking the target for those who waited to attack.

The sky was too dangerous for large forces on any night other than All Hallows’ Eve. But birds attracted no notice, especially against the dark background of the clouds. Their sharp eyes picked out the flare of light on the river below, and they screamed a warning through the air.

A lone horseman came galloping through the sky, downriver from Westminster Bridge. The tatterfoal stretched his legs to their fullest, angling downward to seek out the barge, and his rider Sir Cerenel dropped the reins to ready the weapon he held.

Not all of the jotun ice had gone into the spear for the Dragon. Leaning sideways out of the saddle, the elf-knight hurled a shard into the river below.

It struck the water and sank halfway in. No farther: by then the river had frozen around it, ice crystalling outward in all directions, even down to the soft mud of the bed, trapping the barge just short of the mouth of the Fleet.

And forming a bridge from one bank to the other, a road for the rescuers to ride.

Galen had positioned himself in the timber yard off Dorset Street, scant yards from the open bank of the Fleet. Sir Peregrin let him do it because the Captain believed they would catch the barge much farther upriver. But Galen thought, when he saw the ice race across the surface of the Thames, that some dismal part of himself had always believed it would come to this, the last, desperate chance to save Lune.

He heard the clatter of hooves and feet approaching down Temple Street, the company that had waited in the King’s Bench Walk, but he could not wait for them, not even half a moment. Spurring the brag he rode, Galen charged out onto the ice.

The surface was treacherous beyond belief, crazed from the unnatural speed of its freezing, but slick all the same. His mount screamed and went down twenty feet from the barge, sending Galen flying across the ice, out of control. But it also saved the Prince; when a goblin leapt over the gunwale, sword in hand, the attacker’s feet went out from under him, too.

A bullet chipped the ice near Galen’s head. Someone on the barge was more clever. The Prince half-crawled, half-slid into the shelter of the vessel’s wooden side, and snatched up the sword the goblin had dropped. The creature tried to run at him, but by then the rest of Galen’s company was there; Sir Adenant rode him down.

Behind them came Segraine’s company, marked by the flaming eyes of Bonecruncher. And Irrith, corpse-pale as if she might collapse, but lifting her pistol to fire at a Sanist.

Galen gritted his teeth and rose, clawing his way over the barge’s edge. Gunfire still cracked around him, but they couldn’t afford to lose a second, lest Andrews decide he’d come close enough to his goal. The Prince came aboard to find himself facing a blank-eyed waterman. A blade flashing out from behind the man told him a fae was using the mortal as cover. But the strike was made half-blind, and Galen dodged it easily, shoving the waterman backward. There—the cabin—

Cool light radiated upward as someone dragged free the canvas that served in place of a roof. Heart in his mouth, Galen looked upward.

Clouds still covered most of the sky, but ragged patches had appeared here and there, and one of them revealed the moon.

Only the raw scratch of his throat told him he was screaming. Galen threw himself forward, using the sword as much like a bludgeon as a blade, not caring who he drove through or how. More fae swarmed onto the barge with him, but the Sanists stood ready, and the confines of the deck limited the opposing numbers to something like equality. Then the thrumpin in front of him went down with a howl, and Galen saw Irrith, crouched low with a knife at hamstring height. “Come on!” she shouted, and snatched without success at the handle of the cabin door.

She got out of the way just in time to avoid Galen’s rush. He hit the door with the shoulder bruised last fall, and felt the jolt all the way across his body, but the cabin was a flimsy thing. The latch snapped, dropping Galen through into the room beyond.

He knew what he would see even before he regained his feet. Valentin Aspell, leaping in front of Galen with a hiss. Dr. Andrews, looking like Death itself in the cold faerie light.

And Lune, chained by rowan to the table on which she lay, naked and vulnerable to the knife.

The faerie lights dimmed without warning. Aspell flinched involuntarily, one hand flying to shield his face, as three small, dark spheres struck him and fell to the boards. In that moment Galen leapt; he’d lost his sword somewhere, but he still had his weight, and it was enough to send Aspell crashing backward in the cramped space, into Dr. Andrews.

They went down in a heap, all three of them, and the knife clattered loose. Then someone else was there—Peregrin, dragging Aspell free and wrestling him to the boards, snarling curses in his ear.

No one had to do the same to Andrews. The mortal lay gasping, too weak to even cough. Galen crawled off him and stood, glaring down without pity. Only by a supreme effort of will did he keep from stamping on the hand that had held the knife.

But a whimper distracted him from vengeance. Lune twitched weakly against her bonds, until Irrith crawled forward and retrieved the three iron bullets she’d thrown at Aspell, stowing them once more in their hawthorn case. Galen shrugged out of his tattered coat and flung it over the Queen, giving her a measure of decency as he found and pulled free the pins that held her rowan chains.

The barge shifted beneath his feet. Someone had retrieved the jotun ice; the river was beginning to thaw once more. Galen helped Lune to her feet, supporting her out onto the open deck, and gave her reluctantly to Sir Cerenel, whose tatterfoal would carry her to immediate safety. They’d clearly fed her no bread, needing her faerie soul pure, and Galen suspected Andrews had done something more; the Queen’s knees were as weak as a newborn child’s. But she had the strength to press her lips to Galen’s cheek and murmur half-coherent thanks, before she was gone.

He turned back to see Irrith sprawled in the cabin doorway, hawthorn box dangling loosely from her fingers. The sprite turned dulled eyes up to him and said, “We did it.”

Galen was too weary to do more than nod. Looking past Irrith to the huddled form of Dr. Andrews, he thought, Yes. We saved Lune.

But we’ve lost the philosopher’s stone.

The weak rasp of Dr. Andrews’s breathing was the only sound in the room. Outside, the world went on, heedless of the comet in the sky above, and the acts it had inspired. The clouds still held, but imperfectly; the protection they had given these long months was failing at last.

The man in the bed would not live to see it end.

Galen said, “Why did you do it?”

He thought at first that Andrews was coughing. It turned out to be a laugh, bitter as gall. “Why. You stand there, watching me die, and you ask why.”

To save his own life, of course. “For that, you would murder an innocent woman. And not just her, but Savennis, Podder—”

“I tried everything, Mr. St. Clair.” Andrews lay limp beneath his sheets, unable even to lift his hands now. “If I could have done it some other way, I would have. But the sands of my hourglass had nearly run out. When the Lord Keeper came to me, offering his aid…” He had to pause for breath. “The others were tests of my method. I had to be sure it would work. Once I was—then yes. To save myself, and this city, and all of mankind, I would kill. Who would not?”

Galen thought of what Lune had said. That the Dragon would bring perfection through destruction. How many would such a creature truly save?

It didn’t matter. “I wouldn’t,” Galen said. “No moral man would.”

Andrews didn’t answer. After a few moments of waiting, Galen realised he would not speak again. The Prince stood and watched in silence as the wasted chest rose and fell, until it moved no more.

Then he went downstairs to tell Dr. Andrews’s faithful, unquestioning servants that their master was dead at last.