A Star Shall Fall

EPILOGUE

Frederick Parsons stepped away from the eyepiece and grinned. “And there it is. Just like it was seventy-six years ago.”

His companion raised both eyebrows dryly. “Not just like, I should think. May I see?”

Frederick waved him forward. His companion had to bend farther to reach the eyepiece, but despite the discomfort, stayed in that position for a long time, studying the heavens above.

Far in the distance—unimaginably far, though not incalculably so—a “star” blazed across the sky. They weren’t the only curiosity-seekers at Greenwich, come to observe the return of Halley’s famed comet, but they were the only ones to bring their own telescope. The Royal Observatory yet remained far enough outside of London’s gaslights and filthy smoke to be a good point from which to see such wonders.

Other comets came and went, of course, but they didn’t interest Frederick as this one did. He’d been born only twenty-four years before: far too recently to have seen its last apparition, and far too long ago to have any hope of seeing the next one. This was his only chance to observe the comet that had nearly destroyed London.

His companion had watched it from France, though. Yvoir had spied on the great Charles Messier himself, and sneaked an opportunity to use the astronomer’s own equipment one night when Messier lay coughing in bed. He claimed to have sensed the malevolent presence of the Dragon, but Frederick thought the faerie was making it up.

“We should figure out some way to drag Master Ktistes up here,” Frederick said, bored with watching Yvoir watch the sky. “You could put a glamour on him, to hide the horse body.”

“Hiding it doesn’t make it go away,” Yvoir said, still hunched over. “I don’t fancy putting him on a steamboat for a jaunt down the river. Besides, it hardly matters now. This is a historical curiosity, nothing more. The academy has other concerns.”

Frederick sniffed, doing his best impression of a stuffy old man. “There’s no respect for history nowadays—not even for our poor martyred founder.” He dug a stone out of the dirt with the toe of his shoe. “They say he haunts the Hall, you know. But I don’t believe it.”

“Lady Delphia believed,” the French faerie told him. “And since she was the patroness of the Galenic Academy, I would say you’re the one with no respect for history, my friend.” He straightened at last, with faerie suppleness that even Frederick’s young joints could envy.

At least until impatience banished it. Frederick said, “Very well; we’ve seen the comet. Now can we go back? Wrain claims he finally has a working model of his aetheric engine, and I don’t want to miss the chance to laugh at him when it fails again.”

Together the faerie and the mortal packed up their telescope and then raced down the steep slope of the observatory’s hill, running by the light of the full moon and the stars, and the wandering star of the comet, trailing its bright banner across the sky.