Midnight Never Come

Act Three

They dance in intricate patterns, coming together and parting again, skirts and long sleeves swaying a counterpoint to their rhythm. But his ears cannot hear the music, or the sound of their laughter. His world has wrapped him in silence. To his eyes, those around him are ghosts: they dance beneath the earth, which is the realm of the dead, and the dead have no voices with which to speak. Aeneas fed his ghosts blood, and Odysseus, too, but no such heroes exist here. There is no blood that might quicken their voices to life once more.

He hovers against a pillar, entranced and afraid, and the other ghosts stare at him. No — not ghosts. He remembers now. They are alive. They speak, but he cannot hear them. Only whispers, ghost sounds, unreal.

They wonder why he does not speak to them. That is what the living do; they talk, they converse, they prove their existence with words. But where Tiresias was blind, the man who bears his name is mute. He cannot — dares not — speak.

His jaw aches from being clenched tightly shut. Words beat within him like caged birds, terrified, desperate, fighting to break free, and when he keeps them trapped within, they stab at him with talons and beaks, until he bleeds from a thousand unseen wounds. He cannot speak. If he makes a sound, the slightest sound—

Are you real? He is desperate to know. If they are real… if he could be sure, then perhaps he would have the courage.

No. No courage. It died, broken on the rack of this place. He sees too much of what will come — or what came, what might come, what could never be. He no longer believes in a difference. A difference would mean his choices matter. His choices, and his mistakes. Everyone’s mistakes.

Fire. Fire and ash and blood fill his vision. The dance vanishes. The walls are broken open, stones shattered, the sky brought down to fight the earth. He presses his hands against his head, his eyes, harder, harder, slams himself against the pillar — did he cry out? Fear grips him by the throat. No sound. No sound. Certain words are the wrong words; the only safe words are no words.

They stare at him and laugh, but he hears nothing.

The silence chokes him. Perhaps he should speak, and be done with it.

But no. He cannot do it; he lacks the strength. Too much has been lost. The man he needs is gone, gone beyond recall. Alone, mute, he has no will to act.

She has seen to that.

He curls up on the stone, not knowing where he lies, not caring, and wraps his trembling hands around his throat. The birds want to fly. But he must keep them safe, keep them within, where they will harm no one but him.

None of this is real. But dreams have the power to kill.

THE TOWER OF LONDON: April 9, 1590

The light hurt Lune’s eyes, but she refused to let it show. “Tiresias. The Queen’s seer. Will you bid—” No, not bid. She had no right to demand such things. “Will you beg him to visit me?”

A harsh laugh answered her. Sir Kentigern Nellt’s voice rumbled an octave below his sister’s, and was twice as ugly. It matched the rest of him, from his rough-hewn face to the cruelty of his spirit. Whether he even bothered to pass along her requests, Lune did not know, but she had to ask.

Vidar first; she was already in debt to him, but she would have promised more to get out of this cell. He did not come, though. Nor did Lady Nianna, which was no surprise. Lune had been on good terms with the previous Welsh envoy, the bwganod Drys Amsern, but the Tylwyth Teg changed their ambassadors regularly; they did not like anyone to remain for too long under the corrupting influence of the Onyx Court. Amsern was gone. And the Goodemeades had no political influence with which to aid her.

The seer was the last person she could think to ask for.

At a gesture from Sir Kentigern, her goblin jailers heaved on the heavy bronze door of her cell and swung it shut once more.

The resulting blackness was absolute. Her protection against human faith had long since worn off; beyond that, she could not tell how long she had been there. Nor when, if ever, she would get out. The Onyx Hall did not extend beyond the walls of London, but the Tower lay within those walls, and it, too, had its reflection below. These cells were used for people Invidiana was very displeased with. And while a mortal died quickly if you deprived him of food — even more quickly, without water — it was not so with fae. Wasting away might take years.

Sitting in the darkness, Lune thought, Sun and Moon. When did I become so alone?

She missed… everything. The entire false life she had constructed for herself, torn away in an instant. She missed Anne, which made no sense; Anne had never been real.

But it reminded her of memories long buried. Not just her recent time at Elizabeth’s court; that distant, mist-shrouded age — how long ago?- — before she came to the Onyx Hall. Lune could no longer recall where she lived then, nor who was around her, but she knew that life had been different. Gentler. Not this endless, lethal intrigue.

She was so very tired of intrigue. Tired of having no one she could honestly call “friend.”

“Too much mortal bread,” Lune whispered to herself, just to break the silence. A year of it had changed her, softened her. Made her regret the loss of such mortal things as warmth and companionship. She was inventing memories now, losing herself in delusion like Tiresias, pining for a world that could never be.

It wasn’t true, though. There were fae like that, fae who could be friends. The Goodemeades were living proof of its possibility.

Not in the Onyx Hall, though.

And if Lune wanted to survive, she could not afford to indulge such fancies. She gritted her teeth. To escape the intrigue, first she had to scheme her way free. The only way out was through.

Keys rattled outside her cell. The lock clanked and thunked, and then the familiar protest of the hinges as the door swung open. Light flooded through. Lune stood, using the wall to steady herself, and looked flinchingly toward the opening, raising her gaze a degree at a time as her eyes could bear the light.

A figure came through. Not twisted enough for a goblin. Not tall enough for Kentigern. But not Tiresias, either. The sihouette had a broad, triangular base: a woman, in court dress.

“Leave the door open,” an accented and melodious voice said. “She will not flee.”

The goblin outside bowed, and stepped back.

Lune’s eyes were adjusting at last. Her visitor moved to one side, so she was no longer backlit, and with a confused shock Lune recognized her. “Madame,” she said, and sank into a curtsy.

The ambassador from the Cour du Lys seemed all the more immaculate for her dirty surroundings, wearing a crystalline gown in the latest fashion, her lovely copper hair curled and swept up under a pert little hat. Malline le Sainfoin de Veilée eyed Lune’s filthy skin with distaste, but inclined her head in greeting. “The chevalier has given me permission to speak with you, and a promise of discretion.”

Kentigern would probably keep that promise, if only because he was not subtle enough to seek out a buyer for his information. “Is discretion needed, madame ambassadrice?”

“If you choose to accept the bargain I offer you.”

Lune’s mind felt as rusty as the door hinges. That the French envoy was offering her help, she could understand, but why? And what did she want in return?

Madame Malline did not explain immediately. Instead she snapped her jeweled fingers, and when a head appeared in the doorway — a sprite belonging to the embassy, not the goblin jailer — she spoke imperiously in French, demanding two stools. A moment later these were brought in, and Madame Malline arrayed herself on one, gesturing for Lune to take the other.

When they were both seated, and Madame Malline had arranged her glittering skirts to her satisfaction, she said, “You may know I am in negotiations with your Queen, regarding the conflict with the Courts of the North, and which side my king will take. You, Lady Lune, are not valuable enough as a bargaining piece to be worth much in that debate, but you are worth a little. I am prepared to offer Invidiana certain concessions of neutrality — minor ones, nothing more — in exchange for your freedom from this cell.”

“I would be in your debt, madame,” Lune said reflexively. Sitting in the light, on a cushioned stool, had warmed up the stiff muscles of her mind. She remembered now how she might repay that debt.

She hoped the ambassador meant something else.

“Indeed,” the French fae murmured. “I know of you, Lady Lune, though we have not spoken often. You have more between your ears than fluff; you would not have survived for so long were it not so. You know already what I will ask.”

Lune wished desperately for a bath. It seemed a trivial thing, her unwashed state, when laid against her political predicament, but the two were not unconnected; grimy, with her hair straggling around her face in strands dulled from silver to gray, she felt inferior to the French elf. It would undermine her in the bargaining that must come.

But she would do her best. “My Queen,” Lune said, “also knows what you will ask. I would be foolish indeed to betray her.”

Madame Malline dismissed this with a wave of one delicate hand. “Certainement, she knows. But she, knowing, permitted me to come here. We may therefore conclude that she does not see it as a betrayal.”

“What we may conclude, madame ambassadrice, is that it amuses her to grant me enough rope with which to hang myself.” Lune gestured at the walls of her cell. “That I have been kept here means she has not made up her mind to destroy me. This might be her way of making her decision: if I tell you more than she wishes me to, then she will declare it treason and execute me.”

“But then the bird would already have flown, non? I would have the information she does not wish me to have. Unless you suggest she would strike you dead even as you speak.”

Invidiana could do it, with that black diamond jewel. But she had not used it on Lune, and the envoy had a point; by the time Lune was dead, the information would already have been passed on. And despite everything, Lune did not think Invidiana would breach protocol so inexcusably as to kill a foreign ambassador on English soil. She often bent the rules of politics and diplomacy until they wept blood, but to break them outright — especially during such negotiations — would ensure an alliance against her that even the Onyx Court could not survive.

It was a slim enough thread on which to hang her life. But what was her alternative? Invidiana might yet decide to kill her anyway — or worse, forget her. One day the door would cease to open, and then Lune would dwindle to nothingness, alone in the dark, screaming away her final years inside a stone box.

“I am willing to negotiate,” she said.

“Bon!” Madame Malline seemed genuinely pleased. “Let us speak, then. I will have wine brought, and you will tell me—”

“No.” Lune cut her off as the French elf raised her hand to summon a servant again. She stood and straightened her skirts, resisting the urge to brush dirt off them. It wouldn’t help, and it would make her look weak. “You secure my release, and then I tell you what I know.”

The warmth in the ambassador’s smile dwindled sharply at the insinuation. She could not be surprised, though; distrust and suspicion were the daily bread of the Onyx Court. And indeed, she played the same card in return. “But once you are free of this cell, what is to reassure me I will have what I seek?”

Lune had not expected so obvious a trick to succeed, but it had been worth a try. “I will tell you some things now, and more once I am free.”

Madame Malline pursed her full lips, considering it. “Tell me, and I will see to it you are moved to a better cell, and so on from there.”

The alternative was to give her word, and Lune’s half of the bargain was necessarily too vague for that to work. “Very well.”

Servants appeared again. One sprite poured the wine, while another bowed deeply and presented Lune with a platter of fresh grapes. She made herself eat these slowly, as if she did not really need them. Negotiations were not over. She still could not afford to look weak.

“The folk of the sea,” she said when the sprites had bowed and retreated to the edge of the room. “They take offense if you call them fae, and in truth I do not know if they are. ’Tis a question for philosophers to debate. I went among them for politics.”

Madame Malline nodded. “The mortal Armada, yes.”

“They are a secretive people; they do not welcome commerce with outsiders, and reckon themselves to have little care what goes on above the surface of the water. Indeed, in some cases they bear hostility toward those who live on land.” Such as, for example, the Cour du Lys, the strongest faerie court in the north of France. Lune did not know what offense had been committed there, but she knew there had been one. She would have to be careful not to offer the ambassador any information that might be useful in healing that breach.

But her explanations had to seem natural and unaffected. “They would not speak directly to anyone who lives on the surface,” Lune said, “but they will talk to our river nymphs, sometimes. We had occasional contact through the estuary at Gravesend. It was through this that Invidiana arranged for my embassy. They agreed to let me come among them; I do not know what she promised them for that concession.”

“Did you go alone?” the envoy asked.

“Two of the estuary nymphs accompanied me, their tolerance for saltwater being higher than their riverbound sisters. Beyond that, I was served by the folk of the sea.”

“And how did you go among them?”

She could still feel the air whistling past her cheeks, the gut clench of fear that this had all been some cruel jest of Invidiana’s. Lune closed her eyes, then made herself open them and meet Madame Malline’s gaze. “I leapt from the cliffs of Dover. And that, madame ambassadrice, is all I will say for now.” She rose, stepped clear of her stool, and spread her soiled skirts in a curtsy. “If you would know more, then show me what you can do on my behalf.”

Madame Malline studied her, then nodded thoughtfully. “Oui, Lady Lune. I will do so. And I look forward to hearing the continuation of your tale.”

A moment later she was gone, and the door closed again, blocking out all light. But a stool stayed behind, a promise of assistance to come.

ST. JAMES’ PALACE, WESTMINSTER: April 10, 1590

The report crumpled abruptly in Deven’s hand; he made his fingers unclench. Laying the paper on the table, he smoothed it out, and suppressed the urge to fling it in the fire.

Walsingham was barely in his tomb, and already the Catholics were rejoicing, and spreading damnable rumors in their glee. They made of the Principal Secretary’s death something so utterly vile—

The paper was creasing again. Deven snarled and turned his back on it.

He did so in time to see Beale enter the room. The older man looked as if he had not slept well the previous night, but he was composed. Beale’s gaze flicked past Deven to the battered report.

“They saw him as their chief persecutor,” he said quietly, brushing a strand of graying hair out of his eyes. “So terrible a figure cannot die like an ordinary man, and so they invent stories, which confirm their belief that he was an atheist and font of rank corruption.”

Deven’s jaw ached as he moved it, from having been clenched so tight. “No doubt there will be a festival in Spain, when the news reaches Philip.”

“No doubt.” Beale came farther into the room, sought out a chair and sank into it. “While here we mourn him. The English Crown has lost a great supporter. A great man.”

At the moment when we need him the most.

The thought was casual, reflexive — and then the implications struck him.

His jerk of movement drew Beale’s eye. “Indeed,” Deven said, half to himself. “The Catholics are very glad of it. But he said he did not think the guilty party was Catholic.”

Beale frowned. “‘Guilty party’?”

Deven turned to face him, driven by a sudden energy. “He must have spoken of it to you- — he held you in great trust. A hidden player, he told me, scarcely a month gone. Someone with a hand in our court, who operates in secret.”

“Ah,” Beale said, and his frown deepened. “Yes.”

“Do you doubt him?”

“Not entirely.” Beale’s hands moved to straighten the papers scattered over the desk, as if they needed something to do while his brain and mouth were otherwise occupied. “He told you of the Queen of Scots, I presume? In that matter, I agree with him. I was closely involved with certain parts of that affair, and I do believe someone was influencing the Queen. Regarding the recent events with Perrot… I am not so sure.”

Disregarding this latter part, Deven said, “But you do believe there is such a player.”

“Or was. He may be gone now.”

“Walsingham set me to hunt this man. He hoped fresh eyes might see what his could not. And now he’s dead.”

The paper shuffling stopped, as Beale saw the mark he aimed at. “Deven,” he said, clearly choosing his words with care, “Sir Francis has — had been sick for a long time. Think of his absence last year. This is not a new-sprung development, risen out of nowhere in the last month.”

“But if the hidden player is still around, and is involved with the Irish matter—”

“If, if,” Beale said impatiently. “I am not convinced of either. And even were it so, why not eliminate you? After all, you are the one up to your eyebrows in the trouble surrounding Perrot. If anyone was about to uncover the secret, it would be you.”

Deven snorted. “I do not have so high an opinion of myself as to think I pose a greater threat than Walsingham. If I did not uncover it, someone else would, and pass it along to him.”

Beale rose and came around the corner of the table to take him by the shoulders. “Michael,” the older secretary said, soft but firm. “I know it would be easier to believe that someone poisoned or cursed Sir Francis, and brought about his untimely death. But he was a sick man, one who had shaken off illness often before in his determination to continue his work. He could not do so forever. God willed it that his time should end. That is all the explanation there is.”

The grip on his shoulders threatened his self-control. Just a short month before, Deven had seen before himself a bright and intriguing future, with both a patron and a wife to lend it purpose. Now he had no prospect of either.

All he had was the duty the Principal Secretary had laid upon him.

Deven stepped back, out of Beale’s hands. His voice came out steadier than he expected as he said, “No doubt you are right. But it does not answer the matter of this hidden player. You do not know if he is still around, but you also do not know that he is gone. I intend to find out. Will you help me?”

Beale grimaced. “As I may. Sir Francis’s death has put matters into disarray. If anything is to be preserved of the work he has done, the agents and informers he acquired, I’ll have to find someone else to take them on.”

This broke through the desolate fog that had gripped Deven’s mind. He had not thought of that, but of course Beale was right; only someone well placed on the privy council could make good use of Walsingham’s people. “Did you have someone in mind?”

“Burghley has made overtures, which I expected. But Essex also expressed an interest.”

“Essex?” Deven knew it was disrespectful, but he could not repress a snort. “He hasn’t the patience for intelligence work.” Or the mind.

“No, he hasn’t. But he married Sir Francis’s daughter.”

“What?”

Beale sighed heavily, sitting once more. “In secret. I don’t know when, and I don’t know if Sir Francis knew. But Essex told me, as a means of strengthening his position.” His tired eyes shifted back up to Deven. “Do not tell the Queen.”

“And risk her throwing a shoe at me? I think not.” Essex had been her favorite since his stepfather Leicester’s death, though God alone knew why. The Queen’s affection was easy enough to understand; she was in her late fifties, and Essex not yet twenty-five. But Deven did not believe the man held much affection for his sovereign. Elizabeth might still be admired for her wit and political acumen, but not for her beauty, and Essex did not seem the type to love her mind. His affection would last precisely as long as the tangible rewards of her favor.

“Unfortunately,” Beale went on, “when all is said and done I cannot pass on everything intact, even if Burghley or Essex concedes the ground to the other. Too much of it was in Sir Francis’s head, and never committed to writing. Even I do not know who all his informants were.”

With that, Deven could not help. Walsingham had never shared all his secrets with anyone, and now, without a proper patron, Deven lacked the influence to be of use politically. He would have to scrabble hard for favor and preferment.

Unless…

If Walsingham was right, and the hidden player had occasional direct access to the Queen, then Elizabeth certainly knew who it was. But was she pleased with that situation? Knowing her distaste for being managed by her councillors, no. If Deven could uncover the man’s identity, and use the knowledge to break his influence….

He hadn’t Essex’s beauty. But he did not want the burden of being Elizabeth’s favorite; all he wanted was her favor.

This might earn it for him.

Deven settled himself back into his chair, and shoved the report of Catholic rumors aside without looking at it. “Tell me,” he said, “what you know of the hidden player.”

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: April 9–12, 1590

The improvements to her circumstances came one tantalizing step at a time. First it was the stool, left in her cell, followed shortly by a torch and a pallet on which to sleep. Then removal to a better cell, one that did not lie at the roots of the White Tower. To earn that one, Lune had to tell Madame Malline of her leap from the cliffs of Dover, plummeting three hundred feet into the choppy waters of the English Channel. It was no jest: the strangely shimmering pearl she’d been given to swallow permitted her to survive underwater, though not to move with the grace of her nymph escorts, or the merfolk who waited for her below.

The merfolk. The roanes. The evanescent sprites born from the spray of the crashing waves. Stranger things, in deeper waters. She did not see the Leviathan itself, but lesser sea serpents still occasionally haunted the Channel between England and France.

Were the folk of the sea fae? What defined fae nature? They were alien, enchanting, disturbing, even to one such as Lune. No wonder mortals told such strange stories of them.

But they were little touched by human society. That, she told Madame Malline, was the most difficult thing about them. Those fae who dwelt in the cracks and shadows of the mortal world did so because of their fascination with humans and human life. The Onyx Court was only the most vivid proof of that fascination, the most intensive mimicry of mortal habits. The folk of the sea were more like the inhabitants of deeper Faerie, less touched by the currents of change. But at least those who dwelt in Faerie breathed air and walked on the earth; beneath the waves lay a world where up and down were little different from north or east, where events flowed according to inscrutable rhythms.

Even speaking of them, she fell back into the metaphors of speech she had acquired there, likening everything to the subtle behavior of water.

That information got Lune into a more comfortable cell. A primer on the diplomacy of underwater society took her back to her own chambers, where she lived under house arrest, with Sir Prigurd Nellt instead of Sir Kentigern commanding the guards that bracketed her door.

Then came the final negotiation, the one she had been anticipating for some time.

“Now,” Madame Malline said when they had dispensed with the pleasantries, “you know what I wish to hear. Stories of how you went to the sea, what you found there — these are interesting, and I thank you for them. But I have shown you my goodwill in helping you thus far, and the time has come for you to repay it.”

They were seated by the fire in Lune’s outer chamber, with glasses of wine at hand. Not the fine French vintage Vidar had offered the day he set Lune on Walsingham’s trail, but a good wine nevertheless. Lune could almost ignore the way her chambers had been ransacked after her downfall, her charms breached, her jewels and her little store of mortal bread stolen away by unknown hands.

“Au contraire, madame ambassadrice,” Lune said, dropping briefly into the envoy’s own tongue to soften the rudeness she was about to offer. “Secure my freedom; have the guards removed from my door. Then I will give you the information you seek.”

Madame Malline’s smile was beautiful and utterly without warmth. “I do not think so, Lady Lune. Should I do so, there would be nothing save gratitude that binds you to help me further. And though grateful you may be, when weighed against your fear of angering Invidiana… ” She lifted her wine goblet in one graceful, ringed hand, and her smile turned just the faintest bit malicious. “Non. You will tell me, and take your chances with your Queen.”

All as Lune had expected. And, in a way, as she had needed.

“Very well,” she said, letting the words out reluctantly. “You wish to know, then, what I agreed to. What price I offered them, in exchange for their assistance against the Spanish Armada.”

“Oui.”

“Peace,” Lune said.

One delicately plucked eyebrow arched upward. “I do not understand.”

“The folk of the sea do not ignore everything that goes on in the air. I do not know who spread the rumors; perhaps a draca or other water spirit eavesdropped on someone’s indiscreet conference, then spoke to another, and so on until the news flowed downriver and reached them. Invidiana intended to make war against the folk of the sea. And the concession I offered them was an agreement to abandon that course.”

Madame Malline studied her, eyes narrowed and full lips pursed. At last she said, meditatively, “I do not believe you.”

Lune met her gaze without flinching. “It is true.”

“Your Queen has an obsession with mortal ways, mortal power. Even her wars against the Courts of the North have their origin in mortal affairs, the accusation that she sabotaged the Queen of Scots. There is no human court out on the water. Why should Invidiana desire power over the folk of the sea? What cares she for what they do beneath the surface?”

“She cares nothing for it,” Lune said. “But she cares a great deal for what the folk of the sea can do about mortals on its surface. Had her Majesty’s plans moved more quickly, we would not have had to negotiate for their assistance against the Armada, but she was not yet fully prepared to assert sovereignty over the undersea. If she had done so… imagine what she could do, were they bound to obey her.” Lune paused, to let Madame Malline consider it. Break the back of Spanish shipping. Give fair weather to English vessels, and foul to their enemies. Strike coastal areas with crippling storms.

The ambassador’s mind quickly moved ahead to the next complication. “But you have told me yourself that they are not organized, they have no Grand Roi — that you had to bargain with a dozen nobles of one sort or another to reach any agreement. Even the Courts of the North have unified themselves more than that. Your Queen could not hope to control the oceans.”

“She would not need to. A small force would do. They are highly mobile, the folk of the sea, and adapt with speed; a few dedicated, obedient groups would be able to wreak quite enough havoc to suit her purposes.”

Lune took advantage of the pause to reach for her own wine and conceal her face behind the rim. Madame Malline was staring into the fire, clearly working through the ramifications of this. Searching for a way to turn it to the benefit of the Cour du Lys. They had their own conflicts with Spain, with Italy, with heathen fae across the Mediterranean Sea.

Surely Madame Malline could work out why Lune would fear Invidiana’s retaliation, once she had spoken.

The French elf’s eyes finally moved back to Lune’s face. “I see,” the ambassador said, her voice slightly breathless. “I thank you, Lady Lune. Your Queen has listeners on this room, of course, but I have paid them off. For your honesty, I will do more than have you freed; I will also protect you from her retaliation. She will hear from her spies that you told me a persuasive lie. I cannot promise it will be enough, but it is all I may do.”

Lune smoothed the lines of worry from her own face. Rising from her seat, she curtsied to the envoy. “You have my most humble thanks, madame ambassadrice.”

THE STRAND, OUTSIDE LONDON: April 13, 1590

The list Beale gave Deven was depressingly short.

Gilbert Gifford had been granted a handsome pension of a hundred pounds a year for his work in passing along the letters of the Queen of Scots, but Thomas Phelippes had reported more than two years ago that he’d been arrested by French authorities and slung in prison. So far as Beale knew, Gifford was still there. By all accounts, he was as untrustworthy and mercenary a man as Walsingham had ever hired; rumors said he’d later tried to arrange Elizabeth’s murder with Mendoza, the former Spanish ambassador to England. He might well have been serving another master. But Deven could not very well question him when he was in a French jail. And his cousin among the Gentlemen Pensioners, though a dubious character in his own right, was not useful to Deven.

Henry Fagot was another informer Walsingham had suspected of coming too easily to hand, but he was even less accessible than Gifford; no one knew who he had been. He had passed information out of the French embassy some six or seven years before, but hid behind a false name. The potential suspects, of course, were long gone from England.

And those were his two strongest prospects. From there, the list degenerated even more. Some individuals were dead; others were gone; others weren’t individuals at all, but rather suspicions of “someone in the service of Lord and Lady Hereford,” or leads even less concrete than that.

This was the information Walsingham had not given him, for fear of prejudicing his mind and leading his thoughts down paths others had already explored. Having considered it, Deven had to agree; the past would not give him the answer. He had to look at the present. If Walsingham was right, and the player was still active, with a hand in the Irish situation… a great many ifs, as Beale said. But what other lead could he follow?

Nothing save his suspicions about Walsingham’s death. And Beale had argued well against those.

Carrying a message from a council meeting at Somerset House to St. James’ Palace, his cloak pulled tight around him in feeble protection against a driving rainstorm, Deven abruptly remembered Beale’s words.

“I know it would be easier to believe that someone poisoned or cursed Sir Francis…”

Poison, no. But Deven could think of at least one man who might have the capacity to bring about a man’s death through infernal magic.

Doctor John Dee.

He raised his head, heedless of the water that streamed down his face, and stared blindly through the gray curtain of rain. Dee. A necromancer, they said, who trafficked with demons and bound spirits to his will. But also Walsingham’s friend; would Dee have betrayed him so foully?

There were other problems. Dee had been on the continent for six years — six crucial years, in the tale of the Queen of Scots. But Fagot’s work in the embassy had begun around the time that Dee departed. And Gifford, too, had conveniently shown up in that time.

Could they have been working for the astrologer, while he was abroad?

Someone had persuaded Elizabeth, possibly by meeting with her in person. Dee could not have done that, unless someone had gone to a great deal of effort to fabricate rumors about his travels with Edward Kelley. It was a stretch to imagine the man working so effectively through intermediaries. And what would Dee care about events in Ireland?

Deven shook his head, sending water flying. Beneath him, his bay gelding kept stolidly putting one foot down after another, ignoring both the rain and the preoccupation of his rider. Too many questions without answers — but it was the strongest possibility yet. Before his departure for the continent, Dee had spun out grand visions of England’s destiny in the world, with Elizabeth upon the throne. The Queen of Scots would have been an obstacle to those visions, one he might take steps to remove.

And perhaps his difficulties now stemmed, at least in part, from Elizabeth’s disillusionment over how she’d been managed into killing her Scottish cousin.

What did Deven know about Dee’s activities now, the positions and benefits for which he was petitioning the Crown?

The answers came obediently to mind — and with them, something else. The reason why he knew those answers.

Anne.

“’Tis listening, not spying, and you are not asking me. I do it of my own free will.”

Yes, she had volunteered information on Doctor Dee quite eagerly. Deven knew all about the man’s penury, the theft of books and priceless instruments from his house at Mortlake, the dispute with his wife’s brother over the ownership of that house. Even Burghley’s attempts to get Dee’s confederate Edward Kelley back to England, so he could put his Philosopher’s Stone to work producing gold for Elizabeth. Information Deven had taken in and set to one side, because he could not see what to do with it.

The thought of Anne twisted like a knife in him. They hadn’t spoken since that confrontation in the orchard; shortly thereafter, according to the Countess of Warwick, Anne had begged and received permission to leave her service. Deven did not know why, nor had he asked; the subject was too painful, the unresolved questions between them too sharp. These thoughts, however, cast the entire situation in a new and unpleasant light.

What she could possibly be doing in Dee’s service, he did not know. But if Dee were the player…

More ifs. He had so few names to chase, though. And going after Dee directly would not be wise.

Was he thinking of this because he truly suspected Anne, and thought finding her would accomplish something? Or did he just wish to see her again?

“A bit of both,” he admitted out loud, to no one in particular. The gelding flicked his ears, scattering droplets of rain.

By the time he arrived at St. James’ Palace, drenched and shivering, he had made up his mind. He stopped to change clothes only because it would not do to drip on the floor of a peer.

The Countess of Warwick frowned when Deven asked what reason Anne had given for leaving. “She did not speak of your argument, though I suspect that played a part. No, she named some other cause….”

Deven stood in his wet hair and dry clothes, and tried not to chafe with impatience.

“’Tis hard to recall,” the countess admitted at last, looking embarrassed. “I am sorry, Master Deven. An ailing family member, perhaps. Yes, I remember, that was it — her father, I believe.”

“I have no father,” Anne had said, when he asked her why she could not marry.

So either she had lied to the countess, or to him. And she had lied to him before.

He put on a look of solicitous concern. “I am very sorry to hear it. Perhaps it was concern for her father that led to our troubles. Do you know where her family lives? I have been given a leave of absence from my duties; I might call upon her, to offer my sympathies if nothing else.”

The countess’s confusion melted away, and she smiled indulgently at him, no doubt thinking of young love. “That would be very kind of you. She is London-born, from the parish of St. Dunstan in the East.”

Little more than a stone’s throw from Walsingham’s house, south and west along Tower Street. Deven would have ridden to Yorkshire, but he need not go far at all.

“I thank you, my lady,” Deven said, and left with all the haste decency would allow.

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: April 14, 1590

Though almost everything of value had been stripped from Lune’s chambers following her disgrace, her gowns remained. No one, apparently, wanted to be seen wearing the clothing of a traitor imprisoned beneath the White Tower.

She dressed herself in raven’s feathers, simple but elegant, with an open-fronted collar and cuffs that swept back from her hands in delicate lacework. Now, of all times, she wanted to show her loyalty to Invidiana by wearing the Queen’s colors. The plain pins holding up her silver hair were her only adornment; humility, alongside loyalty, would be her watchword tonight.

When she was ready, she took a steadying breath, then opened the door to her chamber and stepped outside.

“Are you ready?” Sir Prigurd asked in his resonant bass voice, and waited for her brief curtsy. “Come along, then.”

Two guards accompanied them through the palace. Lune was not taken to the presence chamber. A good sign, or a bad one? She could only speculate. Prigurd led her onward, and soon Lune knew where they were going.

The Hall of Figures was a long gallery, sunken below the usual level of the rooms by the depth of a half-flight of stairs. Statues lined it on both sides, ranging from simple busts to full figures to a few massive works large enough to fill a small chamber on their own. Some were made by mortal artisans, others by fae; some had not been crafted at all, unless the basilisk could be called a crafter.

Lune prayed the stories were not true, that Invidiana kept a basilisk in some hidden confine of the Onyx Hall.

Prigurd and the guards stayed on the landing at the top of the stairs. Lune went down alone. As her slipper touched the floor, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye; she flinched despite herself, thinking of basilisks.

No monster. In her distraction, she had simply taken the man for a statue. The mortal called Achilles had more to recommend him to Invidiana than just his battle furies; his nearly naked body might have been a sculpted model for the perfection of the human form.

He took her by the arm, his hard fingers communicating the violence that always trembled just below the surface. Lune knew better than to think it directed at her, but she also knew better than to think herself safe from it. She offered no resistance as Achilles led her down the gallery, past the watching statues.

A chair had been placed partway down the Hall of Figures, and a canopy of estate erected above it. Before Lune came anywhere near it, she sank gracefully to her knees — as gracefully as she could, with Achilles still holding one arm in an iron grip.

“Bring her closer.”

The mortal hauled Lune to her feet before she could stand on her own, towed her forward a few steps, and shoved her down again.

The moments passed by in silence, broken only by breathing, and a scuff at the entrance to the gallery as Sir Prigurd shifted his weight.

“I am given to understand,” Invidiana said, “that you have been telling Madame Malline lies.”

“I have,” Lune said, still kneeling in a sea of raven feathers. “More than she realizes.”

A few more heartbeats passed; then, on some unspoken signal from the Queen, Achilles released Lune’s arm. She remained kneeling, her eyes on the floor.

Invidiana said, “Explain yourself.”

There was no point in repeating the early steps of it; Invidiana knew those already. She might even know what Lune had said at the end. But that was the part she wished to hear, and so Lune related, in brief, honest outline, the lie she had told the ambassador. “She believed me, I think,” Lune said when she was done. “But if she does not, ’tis no matter; the lie tells her nothing she can use.”

“And so you gained your freedom,” Invidiana said. Her voice was as silken and cold as a dagger of ice, that could kill and then melt away as if it had never been. “By slandering your own sovereign.”

Lune’s heart thudded painfully. “Your Majesty—”

“You have spread a lie that will damage my reputation in other lands. You have given the ambassadrice du Lys information about the undersea that might be turned against England. You have sold details of a royal mission, for the sake of your own skin.” The whip crack of her words halted. Invidiana murmured the next part softly, almost intimately. “Tell me why I should not kill you.”

Feathers crumpled in her fingers, their broken shafts stabbing at her skin. Lune’s heart was beating hard enough to make her body tremble. But she forced herself to focus. Invidiana was angry, yes, but the anger was calculated, not heartfelt. A sufficiently good reply might please the Queen, and then the rage would vanish as if it had never been.

“Your Majesty,” she whispered, then made her voice stronger. “When those in other lands hear that you dream of extending your control over the folk of the sea, they will fear you, and this is no bad thing. As for Madame Malline, indeed, I hope she tells her king what I have said, and he attempts to pursue it; if he threatens war undersea, thinking to win himself some concession thereby, then we will have the pleasure of watching those proud and powerful folk destroy him. Moreover, by satisfying her with this lie, I have ended her prying questions, that might otherwise have uncovered the truth of my embassy, and the secrets I have kept on your Grace’s behalf.”

Having offered her political reasons, Lune risked a glance upward. A flash of white caught her eye, and she found herself meeting an unfocused sapphire gaze. Tiresias knelt now at Invidiana’s feet, leaning against her skirts as a hound might, with her spidery fingers tangled in his black hair. He wore no doublet, and the white of his cambric shirt blazed in the darkness of the hall.

She swallowed and lifted her chin higher, fixing her attention just below Invidiana’s face. “And if I may be so bold as to say it, your Majesty — no fae who cannot find a way to benefit herself while also serving the Onyx Throne belongs in your court.”

Invidiana considered this, one hand idly stroking Tiresias’s hair. He leaned into the touch, as if there were no one else present.

“Pretty words,” the Queen said at last, musingly. She tightened her grip on Tiresias, dragging his head back until he gazed up at her, mouth slackened, throat exposed and vulnerable. The Queen gazed down into her seer’s eyes, as if she could see his visions there. “But what lies behind them?”

“Your Grace.” Lune risked the interruption; silence might kill her just as surely. “I will gladly return to the service I left. I told Dame Halgresta I had other options available to me; give me my freedom, and I will discover all you wish to know about Walsingham.”

Tiresias laughed breathlessly, still trapped by Invidiana’s hand. “A body in revolt, the laws of nature gone awry. It cannot happen. Yet the stories say it did, and are not stories true?” One hand rose, as if seeking something; it faltered midair, came to rest below the unlaced collar of his shirt. “Not those that are lies.”

His words hardened Invidiana’s black eyes. She trailed one fingernail down the seer’s face; then her hand moved to hover near the jewel in the center of her bodice, the black diamond edged by obsidian and mermaid’s tears. The sight transfixed Lune with fear. But when the Queen scowled and returned her attention to Lune, she left the jewel where it was pinned. “Walsingham is no longer a problem. You may be. But I am loathe to cast aside a tool that may yet have use in it, and so you will live.”

Lune immediately bent her head again. “I am most grateful for—”

“You will live,” Invidiana repeated in honeyed, venomous tones, “as a warning to those who might fail me in the future. Your chambers are no longer your own. You may remain in the Onyx Hall, but for hospitality you will be dependent upon others. Anyone giving you mortal food will be punished. If hands turn against you, I will turn a blind eye. Henceforth you are no lady of my court.”

The words struck like hammer blows on stone. Lune’s hands lay slack and nerveless in her lap. She might have wept — perhaps Invidiana wanted tears, begging, a humble prostration on the floor, a display of sycophantic fear. But she could not bring herself to move. She stared, dry eyed, at her Queen’s icy, contemptuous face, and tried to comprehend how she had failed.

“Take her,” the Queen said, her voice now indifferent, and this time Achilles truly did have to drag Lune to her feet and out of the hall.

MEMORY: April 6, 1580

It began as a trembling, a rattling of cups and plates on sideboards, a clacking of shutters against walls.

Then the walls themselves began to shake.

People fled into the streets of London, fearing their houses would fall on them. Some were killed out there, as stones tumbled loose and plummeted to the streets. Nothing was exempt: a masonry spire on Westminster Abbey cracked and fell; the Queen felt it in her great chamber at Whitehall; across all of southern England, bells tolled in church steeples, without any hand to ring them.

God’s judgment, the credulous believed, was come to them at last.

The judgment, though, did not come from God — nor was it intended for them.

Out in the Channel, the seabed heaved and the waves rose to terrifying heights. The waters swamped all under, with no respect for country; English, French, and Flemish, all drowned alike as their ships foundered and sank.

Some few were close enough to see the cause of the tremor, in the short moments before their death.

The bodies struck the waves with titanic force. Those few, hapless sailors saw colossal heads, hands the size of cart horses, legs thicker than ancient trees. Then the waters rose up, and they saw nothing more.

At Dover, a raw white scar showed where a segment of the cliff had cracked and fallen in the struggle.

In the days to come, mortals on both sides of the Channel would feel the aftershocks of the earthquake, little suspecting that beneath the still unsteady waves, terrible sea beasts were tearing at the corpses of Gog and Magog, the great giants of London, who paraded in effigy through the streets of the city every Midsummer at the head of the Lord Mayor’s procession.

Rarely did the conflicts of fae become so publicly felt. But the giants, proud and ancient brothers, had long refused to recognize any Queen above them, and Invidiana did not take kindly to rebellion. Some said she had once been on friendly terms with them, but others scoffed; she had no friends. At most, they might have once been useful to her.

Now their use had ended.

Giants could not be disposed of quietly. She sent a legion of minions against them, elf knights and hobyahs, barguests and redcaps from the north of England, and the brutal Sir Kentigern Nellt to lead them. On the cliffs of Dover the battle had raged, until first one brother and then the other fell to their opponents. In a final gesture of contempt, Nellt hurled their bodies into the sea, and shook the earth for miles around.

While the mortals cowered and prayed, the warriors laughed at their fallen enemies. And when the waves had subsided and there was no more to see, they retired to celebrate their bloody triumph.

TOWER WARD AND FARRINGDON WITHOUT, LONDON: April 15, 1590

A monumental stone Elizabeth gazed down on Deven as he rode up Ludgate Hill toward the city wall, making him feel like a small boy that had been caught shirking his duties. He had leave from the lieutenant of the Gentlemen Pensioners to be absent that day, but still, he breathed more easily when he and Colsey passed through the gate, with its image of the Queen, and into London.

The rains that had deluged the city of late had washed it moderately clean for once. The smaller streets were still a treacherous sludge of mud, but Deven kept to wider lanes, where cobbled or paved surfaces glistened after their dousing. Only when he turned north onto St. Dunstan’s Hill did he have to be careful of his horse’s footing.

In the churchyard, he halted and tossed his reins to Colsey. He cleared the steps leading to the church door in two bounds, passing a puzzled laborer who was scrubbing them clean, and went inside.

The interior of the church was murky, after the rain-washed brilliance outside. Deven’s eyes had not yet adjusted when he heard a voice say, “How may I be of service, young master?”

The words came from up ahead, on his left. Deven turned his head that way and said, “I seek a parishioner of yours, but I do not know where the house lies. Can you direct me?”

“I would be glad to. The name?”

His vision had cleared enough to make out a balding priest. Deven said, “The Montrose family.”

The priest’s brow furrowed along well-worn lines. “Montrose… of this parish, you said?”

“Yes. I am searching for Anne Montrose, a young woman of gentle birth, who was until recently in service to the Countess of Warwick.”

But the priest shook his head after a moment of further thought and said, “I am sorry, young master. I have no parishioners by that name. Perhaps you seek the church of St. Dunstan in the West, outside the city walls, near to Temple Bar?”

“I will ask there,” Deven said mechanically, then thanked the priest for his assistance and left. The countess would not have confused the two parishes. Yet some vain hope made him ride a circuit around St. Dunstan’s, asking at all the churches that stood near it, then cross the breadth of the city again to visit the other St. Dunstan’s, which he had passed on his way in from Westminster that morning.

Only one church, St. Margaret Pattens, had any parishioners by the surname of Montrose: a destitute family with no children above the age of six.

Colsey stayed remarkably silent through this entire enterprise, given how Deven had told him nothing of the day’s purpose. When his master emerged from St. Dunstan in the West, though, the servant said tentatively, “Is there aught I can do?”

The very hesitance in Colsey’s voice told Deven something of his own expression; in the normal way of things the man never hesitated to speak up. Deven made an effort to banish the blackness he felt to somewhere less public, but his tone was still brusque when he snapped, “No, Colsey. There is not.”

Riding back along the Strand, he wrestled with that blackness, struggling to shape it into something he could master. Anne Montrose was false as Hell. She had lied to her mistress about her home and her family. Doubtless she was not the only one at court to have hidden inconvenient truths behind a falsehood or two, but in light of the suspicions Deven had formed, he could not let the trail die there.

The ghost of Walsingham haunted his mind, asking questions, prodding his thoughts. So Anne was false. What should be his next step?

Trace her by other means.

ST. JAMES’ PALACE, WESTMINSTER: April 16, 1590

Hunsdon looked dubious when he heard Deven’s request. “I do not know… Easter will be upon us in a week. ’Tis the duty of her Majesty’s Gentlemen Pensioners to be attendant upon her during the holiday. All of them.”

Deven bowed. “I understand, my lord. But never in my time here has every single member of the corps been present at once, even at last month’s muster. I have served continually since gaining my position, taking on the duty periods of others. This is the first time I have asked leave to be absent for more than a day. I would not do so were it not important.”

Hunsdon’s searching eye had not half the force of Walsingham’s, but Deven imagined it saw enough. He had not been sleeping well since the Principal Secretary’s death — since his rift with Anne, in truth — and only the joint efforts of Colsey and Ranwell were keeping him from looking entirely unkempt. No one could fault him in his performance of his duties, but his mind was elsewhere, and surely Hunsdon could see that.

The baron said, “How long would you be absent?”

Deven shook his head. “If I could predict that for you, I would. But I do not know how long I will need to sort this matter out.”

“Very well,” Hunsdon said, sighing. “You will be fined for your absence on Easter, but nothing more. With everyone — or at least most of the corps — coming to court, finding someone to replace you until the end of the quarter should not be difficult. You have earned a rest, ’tis true. Notify Fitzgerald if you intend to return for the new quarter.”

If this matter occupied him until late June, it was even worse than he feared. “Thank you, my lord,” Deven said, bowing again.

Once free of Hunsdon, he went straightaway to the Countess of Warwick again.

She had taken Anne on as a favor to Lettice Knollys, the widowed Countess of Leicester, who had last year married for the third time, to Sir Christopher Blount. A question to her new husband confirmed that his wife, out of favor with Elizabeth, was also out of easy reach; she had retired in disgrace to an estate in Staffordshire. Blount himself knew nothing of Anne Montrose.

Deven ground his teeth in frustration, then forced himself to stop. Had he expected the answer to offer itself up freely? No. So he would persist.

Inferior as Ranwell’s personal services were to Colsey’s, the newer servant could not be trusted with this. Deven sent Colsey north with a letter for the countess, and made plans himself to visit Doctor John Dee.

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: April 18, 1590

Lune’s own words mocked her, until she thought she heard them echoing from the unforgiving walls of the palace: No fae who cannot find a way to benefit herself while also serving the Onyx Throne belongs in your court.

It was true, but not sufficient. Lune did not believe for an instant that Invidiana was angry at the lie she had given Madame Malline; that was simply an excuse. But the Queen had set her mind against Lune before that audience ever happened — before Lune ever went to the Tower. Would anything have changed that?

Ever since she went undersea, her fortunes had deteriorated. The assignment to Walsingham had seemed like an improvement, but only a temporary one; in the end, what had it gained her?

Time among mortals. A stolen year, hovering like a moth near the flame of the human court. A lie far preferable to the truth she lived now.

Living as an exile in her own home, hiding in shadows, trying to keep away from those who would hurt her for political advancement or simple pleasure, Lune missed her life as Anne with a fierce and inescapable ache. Try as she did to discipline her mind, she could not help thinking of other places, other people. Another Queen.

Elizabeth had her jealousies, her rages, and she had thrown her ladies and her courtiers in the Tower for a variety of offenses. But for all that her ringing tones echoed from the walls of her chambers, threatening to chop off the heads of those who vexed her, she rarely did so for anything short of genuine, incontrovertible treason.

And despite those rages, people flocked to her court.

They went for money, for prestige, for connections and marriages and Elizabeth’s reflected splendor. But there was more to it than that. Old as she was, contrary and capricious as she was, they loved their Gloriana. She charmed them, flattered them, wooed them, bound them to her with charisma more than fear.

What would it be like, to love one’s Queen? To enjoy her company for more than just the advantage it might bring, without concern for the pit beneath one’s feet?

Lune felt the eyes on her as she moved through the palace, never staying long in one place. A red-haired faerie woman, resplendent in a jeweled black gown that spoke of a rapid climb within the court, watched her with a sharp and calculating eye. Two maliciously leering bogles followed Lune until to escape them she had to dodge through a cramped passageway few knew about and emerge filthy on the other side.

She kept moving. If she stayed in one place, Vidar would find her. Or Halgresta Nellt.

Without mortal bread, going into the city was impossible. But when she heard a familiar, heavy tread, she ran without thinking; the nearest escape lay in the Threadneedle Street well, one of the exits from the Onyx Hall.

Luck afforded her this one sign of favor; with no sense of what hour it was in the mortal city, Lune found herself above ground in the dead of night. She wasted no time in flinging a glamour over herself and dodging into the shadows of a tiny lane, where she waited until she was certain the giantess had not followed.

It was a dangerous place to be. One of the nearest things to an inviolable rule in the Onyx Hall forbade drawing too much attention among mortals. Night allowed more freedom of movement than day, but without bread or milk, she would be limited to a goblin’s skulking mischief.

Or she could flee.

Like a needle pointing to the north star, her head swiveled unerringly to look up Threadneedle, as if she could see through the houses to Bishopsgate and the road beyond. Out of London.

Invidiana wanted her to stay and suffer. But did she have to?

Wherever Lune had been before she came here, London was her home now. Some few fae migrated, even to foreign lands, but she could no more leave her city to live in Scotland than she could dwell among the folk of the sea.

She looked back at the well. Dame Halgresta lacked the patience to lie in wait; whether she had been chasing Lune, or simply passing by, she would be gone now.

Lune stepped back out into Threadneedle Street, laid her hand on the rope, and descended down the well, back into the darkness of the Onyx Hall.

MORTLAKE, SURREY: April 25, 1590

Deven rode inattentively, his eyes fixed on the letter in his hand, though he knew its contents by heart already.

Colsey was no fool. He knew why his master had searched London from one end to the other; he asked the next logical question before he left Staffordshire, knowing that otherwise he would have to turn around and go back. The answer was waiting in the letter.

The manservant had that answer waiting, too. “No Rolfords, either. Not there, nor in Fleet Street. I checked already.”

No Margaret Rolford. No Anne Montrose. Deven wondered how Margaret had come into Lettice Knollys’s service, but it wasn’t worth sending again to Staffordshire to ask; he no longer believed he would uncover anything useful by that route. Anne seemed to have come from nowhere, and to have vanished back to the same place.

He scowled and tucked the letter into his purse.

Cottages dotted the land up ahead, placid and pastoral, with a modest church spire rising above them. Had he reached the right village? Deven had given both his servants a day’s liberty and ridden out alone; Colsey would not approve of him coming here. So he himself had to flag down a fellow trudging along the riverside towpath with a basket on his back and ask, “Is this the village of Mortlake?”

The man took in his taffeta doublet, the velvet cap on his head, and bowed as much as the weight of the basket would allow. “Even so, sir. Can I direct you?”

“I seek the astrologer Dee.”

He half-expected his words to wipe the pleasant look from the man’s face, but no such thing; the fellow nodded, as if the scholar were an ordinary citizen, not a man suspected of black magic. “Keep along this road, sir, and you’ll find him. There’s a cluster of houses, but the one you want is the largest, with the extra bits built on.”

The villager caught the penny Deven tossed, then quickly sidestepped to regain control of his burden as it slipped.

Deven soon saw what the man had meant. The “extra bits” were extensions easily as large as the house to which they had been added, making for a lopsided, rambling structure that encroached on the cottages around it. Flagstone paths connected that building to several nearby ones, as if they were all part of the same complex. And none of it was what Deven expected; nothing about the exterior suggested necromancy and devilish conjurations.

He dismounted, looped his horse’s reins around a fence post, and knocked at the door. It was opened a moment later by a maidservant, who promptly curtsied when she found a gentleman on the step.

A twinkling later he was in the parlor, surreptitiously eyeing the unremarkable furnishings. But he did not have long to look; soon an older man with a pointed, snow-white beard entered.

“Doctor Dee?” Deven offered him a polite bow. “I am Michael Deven, of the Queen’s Gentlemen Pensioners, and formerly in service to Master Secretary Walsingham. I beg your pardon for the imposition — I should have sent a letter in advance — but I have heard much of you from my master, and I hoped I might beg assistance from such a learned man.”

His nerves hummed as he spoke. If his suspicions were correct, he was foolish to come here, to expose himself thus to his quarry. But he had not been able to talk himself out of this journey; the best he could do was to deliberately omit to send a letter, so that Dee would have no warning of his coming.

But what did he expect to find? There were no mystic circles on the floor, no effigies of courtiers awaiting burial at a crossroads or beneath a tree. And Dee did not flinch at Walsingham’s name. The man might be the hidden player, but it was increasingly difficult for Deven to believe he might have killed Walsingham by foul magic.

“Assistance?” Dee said, gesturing for Deven to take a seat.

Deven contrived to look embarrassed; he might as well put his flush to use. “-I — I have heard, sir, that you are as able an astrologer as dwells in England. I am sure your time is much occupied by working on behalf of the Queen’s grace, but if you might spare a moment to help a young man in need….”

Dee’s alert, focused eyes narrowed slightly at this. “You wish me to draw up a horoscope? To what end?”

Glancing away, Deven permitted himself a nervous, self-deprecating laugh. “-I — well, that is — you see, there’s a young woman.”

“Master Deven,” the astrologer said in unpromising tones,“I do occasionally calculate on behalf of some of her Majesty’s court, but not often. I am no street corner prophet, predicting marriage, prosperity, and the weather for any who pass by.”

“Certainly not!” Deven hastened to reassure the man. “I would not even ask, were it simply a matter of ‘will she or won’t she.’ But I have run into difficulty, and having tried everything at my disposal, I am at a loss as to how to proceed.” He had to skirt that part carefully; he did not want to give Dee any more information than necessary. Assuming the man had not already heard his name from Anne. “I am sure you have many more important researches to occupy your time — I would be more than happy to fund them in some small part.”

The words were perfectly chosen. Dee would have taken offense at the suggestion of being paid for his work; no doubt the man wanted to distinguish himself as no common magician. But an offer of patronage, no matter how fleeting and minor, did not go amiss, especially given the astrologer’s financial difficulties.

Dee’s consideration did not take long. “A horary chart is simple enough to draw up. I imagine, by your flushed complexion, that the matter is of some urgency to you?”

“Indeed, sir.”

“Then come with me; we can answer your question directly.”

Deven followed his host through the cottage and into one of the extensions, where he stopped dead on the threshold, awed into silence by the sight that greeted him. The room was lined with shelves, a great library that dwarfed those held by even the most learned of Deven’s own acquaintances. Yet it had an air of recent abuse, that called to mind what Anne had said about Dee’s troubles; there were blank stretches of shelving, scars on the woodwork, and a conspicuous lack of reading podiums or other accoutrements he expected of a library.

Dee invited him over to the one table the room still held, with a stool on either side of it and a slew of paper on top. The papers were swept away before Deven could attempt to read them, and fresh sheets brought out, with an inkwell and a battered quill.

“First,” Dee said, “we pray.”

Startled, Deven nodded. The two men knelt on the floor, and Dee began to speak. His words were English, but they did not come from the Book of Common Prayer; Deven listened with sharp interest. Not Catholic, but perhaps not entirely Church of England either. Yet the man apparently considered prayer a requisite precursor to any kind of mystical work.

None of it was what he had expected.

When the prayer was done, they sat, and Dee sharpened his quill with a penknife. “Now. What is the question you wish answered?”

Deven had not formulated its precise wording in his mind. He said, choosing his words with care, “As I said, there’s a young gentlewoman. She and I have had difficulties, that I wish to smoothe over, but she has gone away, and despite my best efforts I cannot locate her. What…” He reconsidered the question before it even came out of his mouth. “How may I find her again?”

Dee sat with his eyes closed, listening to this, then nodded briskly and began marking out a square on the paper that lay before him.

After watching the astrologer work for a few minutes, Deven said hesitantly, “Do you not wish to know my date of birth?”

“’Tis not necessary.” Dee did not even look up. “For a horary chart, what matters is the moment at which the question was formulated.” He selected a book from a stack on the floor behind him and consulted it; Deven glimpsed orderly charts of numbers and strange symbols, some of them marked in red ink.

He waited, and tried not to show his relief. That had worried him the most, the prospect of giving Dee such information about himself. A magician might do a great deal with that knowledge. As it stood now, he might be any ordinary gentleman, asking after any ordinary woman; he had not even mentioned Anne’s name.

But had she mentioned his?

Dee worked in silence for several minutes, examining the chart in the book, making calculations, then noting the results on the square horoscope he sketched out. It did not take long. Soon Dee leaned back on his stool and studied the paper, one hand idly stroking his pointed white beard.

“Be of good cheer, Master Deven,” Dee said at last in absent, thoughtful tones at odds with his words. “You will see your young woman soon. I cannot say when, but look you here — the Moon is in the Twelfth House, and the Stellium of Mars, Mercury, and Venus — her influence has not yet passed out of your life.”

Deven did not look where the ink-stained finger pointed; instead he watched Dee. The chart meant nothing to him, while the astrologer’s pensive expression meant a great deal. “Is there more?”

The sharp eyes flicked up to meet his. “Yes. Enemies threaten — her enemies, I think, but they may pose a danger to you as well. The gentlewoman’s disposition is obscure to me, I fear. Conflict surrounds her, complicating the matter. Death will send her into your path again.”

Death? A chill touched Deven’s spine. Was that a threat? He did his best to feign the concern of the lovestruck man he pretended to be, while searching for any hint of malice in the other’s gaze. Perhaps the chart really did say that. He wished he knew something of astrology.

Deven bent over the paper, lest Dee read too much out of his own expression. “What should I do?”

“Be wary,” the philospher said succinctly. “I do not think the woman means you harm, but she may bring harm your way. Saturn’s presence in the Eighth House indicates authority is set against this matter, but the Trine with Jupiter…” He shook his head. “There are influences I cannot read. Allies, perhaps, where you do not expect them.”

It might be nothing more than a trick, something to send him running in fear. But at the very least, it did not sound like the kind of horoscope an impatient man might invent to placate a lovelorn stranger. Either it was a coded warning, or it was genuine.

Or both.

“I thank you, Doctor Dee,” he said, covering his thoughts with courtesy. “They say knowledge of the stars helps prepare a man for that which will come; I only hope it shall be so with me.”

Dee nodded, still grave. “I am sorry to have given you such ill tidings. But God guides us all; perhaps ’twill be for the best.”

Recalling himself, Deven removed his purse and laid it on the table. It was more than he had meant to pay, but he could not bring himself to fish through it for coins. “For your researches. I pray they lead you to knowledge and good fortune.”

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: April 25, 1590

A clutch of chattering hobs and pucks passed through the room, laughing and carefree. All the fae of England were abuzz with the preparations for May Day, and the courtiers were no exception. Every year they took over Moor Fields north of the wall, enacting charms and enchantments that would keep mortals away. And if a few strayed into their midst, well, May Day and Midsummer were the two occasions when humans might hope for kindlier treatment at fae hands. Even the cruelty of the Onyx Court subsided for a short while, at those great festivals.

Lune watched them go from her perch high above. The chamber had a great latticework of arches supporting its ceiling, and it was upon one of these that she rested, her skirts tucked up around her feet so they would not trail and attract notice. It was an imperfect hiding place; plenty of creatures in the palace had wings. But it gave her a brief respite both from malicious whispers, and from those who sought to harm her.

When all around her was silent, she lowered herself slowly to the floor. Her gown of raven feathers was suitable for hiding, and she had long since discarded her velvet slippers; the pale skin of her bare feet might betray her, but it was much quieter when she moved. She lived like a rat in the Onyx Hall, hiding in crevices, stealing crumbs when no one was looking.

She hated every heartbeat of it.

But hatred was good; anger was good. They gave her the energy to keep fighting, when otherwise she would have given up.

She would not let her enemies defeat her like this.

Lune slipped barefoot out of the chamber, down a passageway that looked all but disused, lifting the ragged hem of her skirts so they would not leave traces in the dust. Until she began her rat’s life, she had never realized how many forgotten corners the palace held. It was enormous, far larger than any mortal residence, and if it served the function of both hall and city to the fae that dwelt therein, still it was more than large enough for their needs.

Up a narrow staircase and through a door formed of interwoven hazel branches, and she was safe — as safe as she could get. No one seemed to know of this neglected chamber, which meant she had already bypassed one part of Invidiana’s sentence upon her, that she be dependent on others for a place to lay her head. This place was hers alone.

But someone else had found it.

Lune’s body froze, torn between fight and flight, assuming on the instant that it was Vidar. Or Dame Halgresta. Or one of their servants. Her hands flexed into claws, as if that would be of any use, and her bare feet set themselves against the dusty floor, ready to leap in any direction.

She saw no one. But someone was there.

Lune knew she should run. That was life these days; that was how she survived. But the chamber’s scant furnishings, some of them scavenged from elsewhere in the palace, could not possibly be concealing the tall, heavy form of the Captain of the Onyx Guard, and if it were just some goblin minion…

She should still run. Lune was no warrior.

Instead she moved forward, one noiseless step at a time.

No one crouched behind the narrow bed, with its mattress stuffed with straw. No one stood in the shadow of a tall mirror that had been there when Lune found the room, its crystalline surface so cracked and mazed that nothing could be seen in its depths. No one waited between the cobwebbed, faded tapestries and the stone walls.

She paused, listening, and heard nothing. And yet…

Guided by instinct, Lune knelt and looked into the space beneath the bed.

Tiresias’s face stared back at her, pale and streaked with tears.

Lune sighed in disgust. Her tension did not vanish entirely, but a good deal of it evaporated; she had never once seen the madman attack anyone. And he did not look like he was spying; he looked like he was hiding.

“Come out from under there,” she growled. How had he fit? Small as he was, she never would have expected the seer could curl up in that narrow space. He shook his head at her words, but the violation of even this tenuous sanctuary angered Lune; she reached under the bed and dragged him out bodily. Invidiana was unlikely to execute her simply for manhandling one of her pets.

Emerging into the dim light, Tiresias gave her a twisted smile that might have been meant to be bright. “Not everything is found so easily,” he said gravely. “But if one’s cause is good… you might do it.”

“Get out,” Lune spat. She barely restrained herself from striking him, venting the anger she dared not release on anyone else in the Onyx Hall. “You are one of her pets, her tools. For all I know, she sent you to me — and anything you say might be a trap she has laid. Everything is a trap, with her.”

He nodded, as if she had said something deeply wise. “One trap begets another.” Hiding under the bed had sent his hair into disarray, strands tangling with the tips of his eyelashes, twitching when he blinked. “Would you like to break the traps? All of them?”

Lune laughed bitterly, retreating from him. “Oh, no. I will not hear you. One deranged, pointless quest is enough — or would this be the same one? Will you tell me again to seek Francis Merriman?”

Tiresias had begun to turn toward the door, as if to wander off mid-conversation, but his motion arrested when she said that, and he pivoted back to face her. “Have you found him?”

“Have I found him,” she repeated, flat and unamused. “No. I have not. He is no one at the mortal court — no gentleman or lord, no wealthy merchant, no officer serving in any capacity. He is not a poet or playwright or painter in the city, nor a prisoner in the Tower. If he lives in some future time that you have foreseen, then I doubt me I will be here to see him come, unless my fortune changes a great deal for the better. If he lives now, then he is no one of any note, and I have no reason to seek him.” She glared at him, full of fury, as if all her fall in station were his fault. It was not, but she could and did blame him for how long she had spent chasing a vain, false hope. “I believe you invented Francis Merriman, out of your own mad fancies.”

“Perhaps I did.” It came out unutterably weary, heavy with resignation. He glanced down, his delicate shoulders slumping under a familiar weight of pain. “Perhaps only Tiresias is real.”

The words stole the breath from her body. Anger died without warning, as his meaning became clear. “You,” Lune whispered, staring at him. “You are Francis Merriman.”

His eyes held lifetimes of wistful sadness. “Long ago. I think.”

Invidiana’s pets, with their classical names, each one collected for a special talent. Lune had given little thought to where they came from, who they were before they fell into the shadows of the Onyx Court. And how long had Tiresias been there? After so many years, who would bother to recall Francis Merriman?

Except him. And not always then. “Why?” Lune asked, hands lifting in wordless confusion. “You scarcely even remember who you were. What changing tide brought you to speak that name again?”

He shook his head, hair falling forward like a curtain too short for him to hide behind. “I do not know.”

“’Twas in my chamber,” Lune said, remembering. “I was considering my situation. I asked myself how I might better my standing in the Onyx Court — and then you spoke. Do you remember?”

“No.” A tear glimmered at the edge of his sapphire eye.

A swift step brought her close; she took him by the arms and shook him once, restraining the urge to violence. Could she have avoided her downfall, had she seen what lay under her very eyes? “Yes, you do. Madman you may be, but ’twas no accident you said those words. You said you knew what she did. Who?”

“I cannot.” His breath caught raggedly in his throat, and he twisted in her grip. “I cannot. If I—” He shook his head, convulsively. “Do not ask me. Do not make me do this!”

He tore himself free and stumbled away, catching himself against the wall. Lune studied his back for a moment, noting in pitiless detail the trembling of his slender shoulders, the whiteness of his fingers where they pressed against the stone. He feared something, yes. But her life hung in the balance; she could not stay ahead of her enemies forever.

If the price of her survival was forcing him to speak, then she would not hesitate.

“Francis Merriman,” she said, enunciating the name with soft precision. “Tell me.”

The name stiffened his whole body. He might have done anything in that moment; Lune tensed, wondering if he would strike her. Instead he whispered, almost too faint to hear, “Forgive me, Suspiria. Forgive me. ’Tis all I can do for you now. Forgive me…”

His voice trailed off. Francis Merriman lifted his head and turned back to face her, and Lune saw the transcendent effort of his will push back the fogs and shadows of untold years among the fae, leaving his eyes drawn and strained, but clear. The resulting lucidity, the determination, frightened her more than his madness ever had.

With a deliberate motion, he reached out and gripped Lune’s arms, fingertips digging into the thin tissue of her sleeves.

“Someone must do it,” he said. “I have known that for years. You have asked, and you have little left to lose; therefore I lay it upon you. You must break her power.”

Lune wet her lips, willing herself not to look away. “Whose power?”

“Invidiana’s.”

The instant he spoke the name, a paroxysm snapped his head back, and his hands clenched painfully on Lune’s arms. She cried out and reached for him, thinking he would collapse, but he kept his feet and brought his head down again. Six points of red had blossomed in a ring on his brow, flowers of blood, and they poured forth crimson ribbons as he spoke rapidly on, through gritted teeth. “I saw, but did not understand — and neither did she. ’Tis my fault she formed that pact, and we have all suffered for it, fae and mortals alike. You must break it. ’Twas not right. She is still c—”

The words rasped out of him, ever wilder and more strained, until the only thing keeping him on his feet was their mutual grip and the splintering remnants of his will. Now his voice died in an agonized cry, and his legs gave way. He slipped free of Lune’s hands and crumpled bonelessly to the floor, his face a mask of blood.

The only sound in the room was the pounding of Lune’s heart, and the ragged gasping of her own breath as she stared down at him.

I cannot, he had said, when she demanded he speak. If I —

If I do, I will die.

Lune remembered where she was. In a chamber of the Onyx Hall, with the Queen’s mad seer lying bloody and dead at her feet.

She ran.

MORTLAKE AND LONDON: April 25, 1590

A man might not be thought strange if he took an early supper before riding the eight miles back to London, nor if he spoke cheerfully of his purpose in coming to Mortlake. Deven’s observations on his way in were true; though some in the village were suspicious of Dee’s conjurations, casual chatter over his food revealed that the astrologer often served as a mediator in local problems, settling disputes and offering advice.

Deven was not sure what to think.

The delay meant a late start back to London, though, and full dark came well before he reached the Southwark end of London Bridge. The bankside town offered many inns, but without a manservant it would be irritating, and Deven was in no mood to stop yet; his mind was too full of thoughts. Though the great bell at Bow had long since rung curfew, he bought his way through the Great Gate House that guarded the bridge, trading on his coin and his status as a gentleman and a Gentleman Pensioner.

Dee could not have murdered Walsingham by black magic. Deven simply did not believe it. But did that mean that Walsingham had died of purely natural causes, as Beale insisted, or merely that Deven had pinned his suspicions on the wrong man? The astrologer might still be the hidden player, without being a murderer. Was he working with Anne, or not? And if so, how much stock — if any — should Deven put in the man’s predictions?

He thought he was keeping at least marginally alert for movement around him. Cloak Lane was deserted, empty of others who like him were braving the curfew, but there might be footpads; alone, without a manservant, Deven had no intention of being taken by surprise.

Yet he was, when a figure stumbled abruptly out of the blackness of a narrow alley.

The bay horse reared, as surprised as his rider, and Deven fought to control the beast with one hand while reaching for his sword with the other. Steel leapt free, his gelding’s hooves thudded into the unpaved street, and he raised his blade in readiness to strike—

—then the figure lifted its face, and Deven recognized her.

“Anne.”

She shied back from him, hands raised as if to defend herself. The sword was still in his hand. Deven scanned Cloak Lane quickly, but saw no one else.

Dee had spoken of enemies and conflict.

He had said that death would send Anne into his path again.

She was backed against the shuttered wall of a shop, like an animal brought to bay. The sight slipped under his defenses, sparking sympathy against his will. Deven compromised; he dismounted, so as not to loom over her, but kept the sword out, relaxed at his side. “Anne. ’Tis me — Michael Deven. Is someone chasing you? Are you in trouble?”

She had changed, since last he saw her; the bones of her face stood higher, as if she had lost weight, and her hair looked paler than ever. Her clothing was a sad imitation of a gentlewoman’s finery, and — she must be running from someone — she stood barefoot in the dirt.

“Michael,” she whispered. The whites of her eyes stood out starkly in her stricken face. She started to say something, then shook her head furiously. “Go. Leave me!”

“No,” he said. “You are in trouble; I know it. Let me help you.” A foolish offer, yet he had to make it. He extended his left hand, as if toward a wild horse that might bolt.

“You cannot help me. I have told you that already!”

“You have told me nothing! Anne, in God’s name, what is going on?”

She flinched back at his words, hands flying up to defend her face, and Deven’s blood froze as she changed.

-Hair — silver. Gown — black feathers, trembling with her. And her face, imperfectly warded by her hands, refined into otherworldly beauty, high-boned and strange, with silver eyes wide in horror and fear.

The creature that had been wearing Anne Montrose’s face stood a moment longer, pressed against the wall like she expected to be struck down on the spot.

Then she cried out and fled into the darkness of the city.

THE ANGEL INN, ISLINGTON: April 25, 1590

The veil of glamour she threw over herself as she ran covered her imperfectly, a bad attempt at a human seeming, until she was nearly to Aldersgate. Then the bells tolled and it shredded away like mist, leaving her exposed. Lune fled the city as if the Wild Hunt were at her heels.

She fled north, without pausing to consider her course, and arrived panting at the rosebush behind the Angel Inn.

What she would tell them, she did not know. But she cried out until the doorway revealed itself, then threw herself down the steps to the room below.

Both of the Goodemeades were there, Rosamund catching her as she came through. “My lady,” the brownie said in surprise, then looked up at her face. All at once her expression changed; the concern stayed, but steely determination rose up behind it. “Gertrude,” she said, and the other brownie moved.

At a gesture, the rushes and strewing herbs covering the floor whisked away into tidy piles, revealing the worn wooden boards beneath. Then these groaned and flexed aside, and where they parted Lune saw more stairs, with lights blooming into life below. She had no chance to ask questions, and no mind to frame them; the hobs hurried her through this secret door, and the boards grew shut behind them.

The room below held two comfortable beds and a hearth now flickering with fire, but no other inhabitants. Rosamund led her to one bed and got her to sit, putting Lune at eye level with the little brownie. Her face still showed concern, and determination, and a sharp-eyed curiosity that was new.

“Now, dear,” she said in a gentle voice, holding Lune’s hands, “what has happened?”

Lune drew in a ragged, shuddering breath. She hadn’t thought about what to say, what story she would offer them to explain her distracted state; too much had happened, Invidiana, the seer, Michael. All her wary instincts failed. “Tiresias is dead.”

Soft gasps greeted her statement. “How?” Rosamund whispered. Her plump fingers trembled in Lune’s. “Who killed him?”

Lune could not suppress a wild, short laugh. “He did. He knew it would mean his death, yet still he spoke.”

The sisters exchanged startled, sorrowful looks. Tears brimmed in Gertrude’s eyes, and she pressed one hand to her heart. “Ah, poor Francis.”

“What?” Lune snatched her hands from Rosamund’s, staring at Gertrude. “You knew who he was?”

“Aye.” Gertrude answered her, while Rosamund pressed one kind hand against Lune’s shoulder, to keep her from rising. “We knew. Francis Merriman… we remember when he bore that name, though precious few others do. And if he died as you say…”

Rosamund finished her sentence. “Then he has betrayed her at last.”

The brownie did not have to try hard to keep Lune in place; her knees felt like water, trembling from her headlong flight, with Deven’s oath and the tolling of the bells still reverberating in her bones. Lune dug her fingers into the embroidered coverlet. “-How—”

“The jewel,” Rosamund said. “The one she wears on her bodice. We’ve suspected for ages that she laid it on him, not to speak of certain things, on pain of death. ’Twas the only explanation we could find for his silence. And we could not ask him to speak — not when it would carry such a price.”

Lune remembered the six points of blood appearing on his brow, where the claws of the jewel had touched. Never before had she seen its power strike home.

She swallowed down the sickness in her throat. She had asked him to speak. Forced him.

“Lass,” Gertrude said, coming forward to lay a hand on Lune’s other shoulder, so she was hemmed in by both sisters. “I would not question you, so soon after his death, but we must know. What did he say?”

His blazing, lucid eyes swam in her vision. Lune shivered, feeling suddenly closed in; the brownies let her go when she tried to rise, and she went toward the hearth, as if its flames could warm the cold spot in the pit of her stomach. “He told me to break her power. That she… that she had formed some kind of pact. And that it was harming everyone, both mortal and fae.”

She did not see the sisters exchange a glance behind her back, but she felt it. Standing in the hidden room beneath their home, Lune’s sense finally gathered itself enough for her to wonder. The Goodemeades helped those in need — that was why she had come to them — but otherwise they stayed out of the politics of the Onyx Court. Everyone knew that.

Everyone who had not heard their questions, had not seen the alert curiosity in Rosamund’s eyes.

They paid more attention than anyone credited.

“This pact,” Rosamund said from behind Lune. “What did he tell you about it?”

Lune shivered again, remembering his hoarse voice, desperately grinding out words through the pain that racked him. “Very little. He… he could barely speak. And it struck him down, the — the jewel did — before he could tell me all. She misinterpreted some vision of his.” Hands wrapped tightly around her elbows, she turned and faced the Goodemeade sisters. “What vision?”

Gertrude shook her head. “We do not know. He never spoke of it to us.”

“But this pact,” Lune said, looking from Gertrude to Rosamund. Their round, friendly faces were unwontedly solemn, but also wise. “You know of that, don’t you?” The sisters exchanged glances again, a silent and swift communication. “Tell me.”

A flicker of wings burst into the room before they could speak. Lune twitched violently at the motion; her nerves were frayed beyond endurance, and the fear-inspired energy that drove her this far had faded. But the little brown bird settled on Gertrude’s hand, flirting its reddish tail, and she saw it was merely a nightingale — not even a fae in changed form.

But it must have been touched by fae magic, for it chirped energetically enough, and the brownies both nodded as if they understood. They asked questions of it, too, questions that stirred more fear in Lune’s heart — “Who?” and “How many?” and “How long before they arrive?”

And then, after another burst of birdsong, “Tell us what he looks like.”

Finally Gertrude nodded. “Thank you, little friend. Keep watch still, and warn us when they draw near.”

The nightingale launched itself into the air, flew to an opening in the wall Lune had not attended to before, and vanished.

Rosamund turned once more to Lune. “They are searching for you, my lady. A half-dozen soldiers, and that horrible mountain Halgresta. They cannot know you are here, I think, but they always suspect us when someone’s in trouble. Never fear, though; we are good at turning their suspicions aside.”

“But it also seems,” Gertrude added, “that we have a visitor skulking around our rosebush. Tell me, are they aware of that nice young man you were with at the mortal court?”

“Nice young…” Lune’s heart stuttered. “Yes, they are.”

Gertrude nodded decisively. “Then we must take care of him, too.”

LONDON AND ISLINGTON: April 25, 1590

Delay had cost him any hope of keeping the silver-haired creature in sight. But she left a trail: raven feathers, shed from her gown as she fled.

Deven followed them through the cramped and twisted streets of London. The woman eschewed Watling Street, Old Change, Cheapside, instead making her way northwest by back lanes, until he found a feather beneath the arch of Aldersgate itself.

The gate should have been shut for the night, but the heavy doors hung open, the guards there blinking and disoriented.

The trail led north. Mounted now, Deven should have lost sight of the black feathers in the night, but their faint glimmer drew his eye. By the time he reached Islington, he had a fistful of the things, iridescent and strange.

The last feather he found impaled on the thorn of a rosebush behind the Angel Inn.

Light showed here and there along the inn’s back wall, and he knew they would still welcome a traveler at the front. But the woman could not have gone that way—

Unless, his mind whispered uneasily, she put on Anne’s face again.

The feathers rustled in his fist. Despite himself, Deven paced around the rosebush, as if he would find some other sign. The thorned branches stood mute.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose. Deven glanced up at the sky, but it stood clear from one horizon to the next, with not a cloud in sight. Why, then, did he feel a thunderstorm approaching? He drew his blade again, just for the comfort of steel, but it did him little good. Something was coming, and every nerve screamed at him to run.

“Master Deven! This way, quickly!”

He spun and saw a woman beckoning from a doorway that glowed with warm, comforting light. He was on the staircase before he realized the doorway stood in the rosebush, in the comfortable tavern before he considered that he had just passed underground, through the opening in the floor before he asked himself, Who is this woman? And why did you just follow her?

“There,” a northern accent said with satisfaction, from somewhere in the vicinity of his belt. “I wouldn’t normally resort to charms, but we couldn’t rightly stand there and argue. My apologies, Master Deven.”

The sword trembled in his hand.

The woman who had lured him below was joined by a second, just as short, and alike as only a sister could be. They wore tidy little dresses covered with clean, embroidered aprons, and their apple-cheeked faces spoke of friendliness and trust — but they came only to his belt, and were no more human than the figure silhouetted in front of the fire, her hair shining like silver washed with gold.

“Michael,” she breathed.

He retreated a step, risked a glance over his shoulder, saw that the floor had grown shut behind him. Leveling his swordpoint at the three of them, Deven said, “Come no closer.”

“Truly,” one of the little women said, the one with roses embroidered on her apron, “there’s no need for that. We brought you below, Master Deven, because there are some rather unpleasant people coming this way, and you will be safer down here. I promise, we mean no harm.”

“How in God’s name am I supposed to believe that?”

All three cringed, and one of the women gave a muffled squeak — the one with the daisies on her apron. “Now, now,” the rose woman said, a trifle more severely. “That isn’t very gentlemanly of you. Not to mention that we shouldn’t like to see our house pop up out of the ground without so much as a by-your-leave, or an apology to the folk above. We are fae, Master Deven; surely you must know what that means.”

Ominous thudding answered before he could; all four of them looked up. “They’re at the rosebush,” the daisy woman said, and then a snarl reverberated through the chamber, deep and hard, like thunder in an ugly storm.

“Open, in the name of the Queen.”

The two short ones exchanged glances. “I am the better liar,” the daisy woman said, and the rose woman answered, “but they will be suspicious if they do not see us both.” She fixed Deven with a stare that was no less effective for coming from a creature so small. “You will put up your sword, good master, and refrain from invoking certain names while in our house. We are protecting you from what’s above, which is good for both you and us. Once we have gotten rid of these nuisances, we shall answer any question you have.”

“As many as we know the answers to,” the daisy woman corrected her. “Come, we must hurry.”

Upon which the two of them whisked off their aprons, mussed their hair, yawned theatrically, and hurried up the stairs, looking for all the world as if they had just been roused from bed.

The floor stretched open to let them pass, then shut again, like a cellar without a door.

Deven said, half to himself, “What…”

“Hush,” the silver-haired creature hissed. She had not spoken since uttering his name, and now her attention was not more than half on him; she still looked upward, listening as heavy boots clomped across the floor.

“Where is she?” The voice he had heard before. It made Deven feel as if his bones were grinding together.

“I beg your pardon, Dame Halgresta—” The words were punctuated by a yawn. “We had just retired for the night. Would you like some mead?”

A clanking splash, as of a metal tankard being knocked to the floor. “I would not. Tell me where she is.”

The other sister: “Who?”

“-Lady—” The deep voice cut off in a noise something between a growl and a laugh. “Lady no more. The bitch Lune.”

Deven glanced across the hidden room at his involuntary companion. The silver-haired woman shivered unconsciously, her hands rising to cup her elbows. Upstairs, the two sisters parried the stranger’s questions with a masterful blend of innocence, confusion, and well-timed misdirection. No, they had not seen the lady — beg pardon, the woman Lune. Aye, of course they would say if they had; were they not the Queen’s loyal subjects? No, they had not seen her in some time — very rarely at all, since she went to the mortal court.

At that, finally, the fae woman looked across the room at him. Her eyes shone unmistakably silver, no common gray… but the set of them was familiar, from many a fond study.

Neither of them dared speak, with danger so near above. Instead they stared at each other, until the fae woman — Lune — broke and turned away.

He had not listened to the rest of the conversation above. More heavy footsteps, lighter voices trying to press the departing visitor to take some sweetmeats, or ale for the ride back to the city. Then silence, and the feeling of oppression lifted.

Deven decided to risk it. Crossing the floor, he approached Lune as closely as he dared, and in a voice pitched to carry no further than her ears, he said, “What has become of Anne Montrose?”

The pointed chin lifted a fraction. Her voice equally soft, Lune said, “She was always thus, beneath the mask.”

He turned away, realized the sword was still in his hand, sheathed it. And then they waited for the sisters to return.

“Dame Halgresta’s gone,” Rosamund said to Lune, when they came downstairs again. “I presume you listened? They know nothing of Francis’s death; someone saw you flee the palace, is all. Be careful, my lady. She very much wishes to kill you.”

Gertrude nudged her sister in the ribs while tying her daisy-flowered apron back on. “Manners, Rosamund. Now that we haven’t got that awful giantess breathing down our necks, we should take care of our guest.”

“Oh! Of course!” Rosamund made a proper curtsy to Deven. “Welcome to our house, Master Deven. I am Rosamund Goodemeade, and this is my sister Gertrude. And this is the Lady Lune.”

Ever since she and Deven had lapsed into silence, Lune’s attention had been fixed on the fireplace, the safest target she could find. Now she said wearily, “He knows.” She turned to find the brownies wide-eyed and a little nervous. Relaxing her arms from their tight positions across her body, she added, “He drove the glamour from me when I was on my way here.”

His blue eyes might have been shuttered against a storm, so little could she read out of them. Walsingham’s service had taught him well — but he had never used such defenses against her before. Well, she could not blame him. “So there you have it, Master Deven,” Lune said to him, hearing her own voice as if it belonged to a stranger. “There are faeries at the mortal court. Though most of them come in secret, and do not disguise themselves as I did.”

A muscle worked in his jaw. When Deven spoke, it sounded almost nothing like his natural voice, either. “So ’twas you all along. I suspected Dee.”

Gertrude said in confusion, “She was what all along?”

“The hidden player,” Lune said, still looking at Deven. “The secret influence on English politics that his master Walsingham has begun to suspect.”

Bitterness twisted the corner of his mouth. “You were under my eyes, the entire time.”

Lune matched him with her own sour laugh. “’Tis a night for such things, it seems. You are both right and wrong, Master Deven. I was a lead to your hidden player — not the player herself. There are two Queens in England. You serve one; you seek the other.”

Her words broke through the stoic facade he had constructed while they waited, revealing startlement beneath. “Two Queens…”

“Aye,” Rosamund said. “And that may be the answer to the question you asked us, Lady Lune, before we were interrupted.”

It was enough to distract her from Deven. “What?”

Gertrude had scurried off to the far end of the room while they spoke. Something bumped the back of Lune’s farthingale; she looked down to see the brownie pushing a stool almost as tall as she was. “If we’re going to have this conversation,” Gertrude said, with great firmness, “then we will sit while we do so. I’ve been on my feet all day, baking and cleaning, and you two look about done in.”

“I have not said I will stay,” Deven said, with another glance over his shoulder to the sealed top of the staircase.

Lune smiled ironically at him. “But you will. You want answers — you and your master.”

“Walsingham is dead.” In the time it took him to say that, two strides ate up the distance between them and Deven was in her face, his anger beating at her like the heat from the fire. “I suppose I have you to thank for that.”

Her knees gave out; she dropped without grace onto the stool Gertrude had put behind her. “-He — what? Dead? When?”

“Do not pretend to be innocent,” he spat. “You knew he was looking for you, for evidence of your Queen’s hand. He was a threat, and now he’s dead. I may be the world’s greatest fool — you certainly played me as such — but not so great a fool as that.”

Rosamund’s hand closed over the silk of his right sleeve, drawing his fingers back from the sword hilt they had unconsciously sought. “Master Deven,” the brownie said. The man did not look down at her. The uneven shadows of firelight turned his face monstrous, warping the clean lines of his features. “Lady Lune was imprisoned when your master died. She could not have killed him.”

“Then she gave the order for it to be done.”

Lune shook her head. She could not hold Deven’s gaze; she felt naked, exposed, confronting him while wearing her true face. He would not have glared at Anne with such anger and hate. “I did not. But if he’s dead… how?”

“Illness,” Deven said. “Or so it was made to seem.”

Walsingham had often been sick. He might have died by natural means. Or not. “My task,” she said, staring fixedly at the battered feathers of her skirt, “was to watch over Walsingham, to know what he was about. And, if I could, to find a means of influencing him.”

Deven met this with flat disgust. “Me.”

“He is — was — an astute man,” Lune said, dodging Deven’s implicit question. She could not explain her choice, not now. “I believe my Queen feared he was coming near the truth. You may be right to blame me, Master Deven, for I told Vidar — a fae lord — what the Principal Secretary was about. After I was taken from Oatlands, he may have taken steps to remove that threat. But I never ordered it.”

Gertrude had Deven’s other sleeve now, and the gentle but insistent tugging from the brownies got him to back up a step, so that he no longer towered over Lune on the stool. “Why?” Deven asked at last. Some of the anger had gone from his voice, replaced by bewilderment. “Why should a faerie Queen care what happens in Ireland, or what became of Mary Stewart?”

“If you will sit,” Gertrude said, returning with patient determination to her point of a moment before, “we may be able to answer that question.”

When they were all seated, with mugs of mead in their hands — the brownies’ family name, Deven realized, was more than mere words — the rose-flowered woman, Rosamund, began to speak.

“My lady,” she said, bobbing her curly head at Lune. “How long have you been at the Onyx Court?”

Lune had straightened the remnants of her feathered gown and smoothed her silver hair, but her bare feet were still an incongruous note, the slender arches freckled with mud. “A long time,” she said. “Not so long as Vidar, I suppose, but Lady Nianna and Lady Carline are more recently come than I. Let me see — Y Law Carreg was the ambassador from the Tylwyth Teg then….”

It reminded Deven powerfully of his early days at Elizabeth’s court. A flood of names unknown to him, currents of alliance and tension he could not read. Somehow it made the notion more real, that there truly was another court in England.

When Lune’s recitation wound down, Rosamund said, “And how long has Invidiana been on the throne?”

The elfin woman blinked in astonishment. “What manner of question is that?” she said. “An age and a day; I do not know. We are not mortals, to come and go in measured time.” And indeed, Deven realized, in all her explanation of her tenure at court, she had not once named a date or span of years.

The sisters looked at each other, and Gertrude nodded. Rosamund said, with simple precision, “Invidiana became the Queen of faerie England on the fifteenth day of January, in the mortal year fifteen hundred and fifty-nine.”

Lune stared at her, then laughed in disbelief. “Impossible. That is scarcely thirty years! I myself have been at the Onyx Court longer than that.”

“Have you?” Gertrude said, over the top of her mead.

The elfin woman’s lips parted, at a loss for words. Deven had been quiet since they sat down, but now he spoke. “That is the day Elizabeth was crowned Queen.”

“Just so,” Rosamund answered.

Now he was included in Lune’s disbelieving stare. “That is not possible. I remember—”

“Most people do,” Gertrude said. “Not specific memories, tied to specific mortal years — no, you’re quite right, we do not measure time so closely. Perhaps if we did, more fae would notice the change. The Onyx Court as such has only existed for thirty-one years, perhaps a bit longer, depending on how one considers it. Vidar has been there longer. But all your memories of Invidiana’s reign do not go further back than that. You just believe they do, and forget what came before.”

Rosamund nodded. “My sister and I are some of the only ones who remember what came before. Francis was another. She let him remember on purpose, I believe, and we were with him when it happened; he kept us from forgetting. Of the others who know, every last one now rides with the Wild Hunt.”

Lune’s silver eyes widened, and she set her mug down with careful hands. “They claim to be kings.”

“And they were,” Gertrude confirmed. “Kings of faerie England, one corner of it or another. Until Elizabeth became Queen, and Invidiana with her. In one day — one moment — she deposed them all.”

Deven had not forgotten where the conversation began. “But why? This cannot be usual for your kind.” It was not usual for his kind, to be sitting in a hidden cellar of a faerie house, speaking with two brownies and an elf. His mead sat untouched on the table before him; he knew better than to drink it. “Why the connection?”

“We are creatures of magic,” Rosamund said, as casually as if she were reminding him they were English. “And in its own way, a coronation ceremony is magic; it makes a king — or a queen — out of an ordinary mortal. Gertrude and I have always assumed Invidiana took advantage of that ritual to establish her own power.”

Lune’s voice came from his right, unsteady and faint. “But she did more than that, didn’t she? Because there was a pact.”

“‘Pact?’ ” The word chilled Deven. “What do you mean?”

For a moment, he thought he perceived both sorrow and horror in her expression. “Do you recall me asking after a mortal named Francis Merriman?” Deven nodded warily. “He was under my eyes, as I was under yours. He… died tonight. He told me of a pact formed by Invidiana, my Queen, that he said was harming mortals and fae alike. And he begged me to break it.”

Deven said, “But a pact…”

“Must be known to both parties,” Rosamund finished for him. “Any fae with an ounce of political sense knows that Invidiana regularly interferes with the mortal court, and uses that court to control her own people. And from time to time a mortal learns that he or she has dealings with fae — usually someone enough in thrall that they will not betray it. But if what Francis said is correct… then someone on the other side knows precisely what is going on.”

The words were trembling in Deven’s throat. He let them out one by one, fearing what they meant. “The Principal Secretary… he told me of a hidden player. And he believed that player did — not often, but at times — have direct access to her Majesty.”

He missed their reactions; he could not bring himself to look up from his clenched fists. The suggestion was incredible, even coming from his own mouth. That Elizabeth might know of faeries — not simply know of them, but traffic with them….

“I believe it,” Lune whispered. “Indeed, it makes more sense than I like.”

“But why?” Frustrated fear and confusion boiled out of Deven. “Why should such a pact be formed? What would Elizabeth stand to gain?”

An ironic smile touched Lune’s thin, sculpted lips. “The keeping of her throne. We have worked hard to ensure it, at Invidiana’s command. The Queen of Scots you have already named; Invidiana took great care to remove her as a threat. Likewise with other political complications. And the Armada…”

Her sentence trailed off, but Gertrude finished it, quite cheerfully. “You have Lady Lune to thank for those storms that kept the Spanish from our shores.”

The bottom dropped out of Deven’s stomach. Lune said, “I negotiated the treaty only. I have no power to summon storms myself.”

He desperately floundered his way back to politics, away from magic. “And your Queen gained her own throne in return.”

The black feathers he’d collected along the way had fallen from his hand at some point after he came downstairs. Lune had the broken tip of one in her fingers, and with it was tracing invisible patterns on the tabletop, her gaze unfocused. “More than that,” she said, distant with thought. “Elizabeth is a Protestant.”

Rosamund nodded. “Whereas Mary Tudor and Mary Stewart were both Catholics.”

“What means that to you? Surely you cannot be Christian.”

“Indeed, we are not,” Lune said. “But Christianity can be a weapon against us — as you yourself have seen.” Nor had Deven forgotten; he would use it again, if necessary. “Catholics have rites against us — prayers, exorcisms, and the like.”

“As does the Church of England. And many puritan-minded folk call your kind all devils; surely that cannot be to your advantage.”

“But the puritans are few in number, and the Church of England is a new-formed thing, which few follow with any ardor. ’Tis a compromise, designed to offend as few as possible as little as possible, and it has not existed long enough for its rites to acquire true power. The Book of Common Prayer is an empty litany to most people, form without the passionate substance of faith.” Lune laid the feather tip down on the table and turned her attention to him. “This might change, in years to come. But for now, the ascendancy of your Protestant Queen is a boon to us.”

He could taste his pulse, so hard was his heart beating. The chessboard in his mind rearranged itself, pieces of new colors adding themselves to the fray. Walsingham had surely never dreamed of this. And when Beale heard…

If Beale heard.

In personal beliefs, Walsingham had been a Protestant reformer, a “puritan” as their opponents called them; he would have loved to see the Church of England stripped of its many remaining papist trappings. But Walsingham was also a political realist, who knew well that any attempt at sweeping reformation would provoke rebellion Elizabeth could not survive. Beale, on the other hand, was outspoken about his beliefs, and often agitated for puritan causes at court.

Should Beale ever hear that Elizabeth, the great compromiser of religion, had formed a pact with a faerie queen—

England was already at war with Catholic powers. She could not fight another one within her own borders.

Deven looked from Rosamund, to Gertrude, to Lune. “You said this Francis Merriman of yours begged you to break the pact.”

Lune nodded. “He said it was a mistake, that both sides had suffered for it.” Her hesitation was difficult to read; the silver eyes were alien to him. “I do not know the effects of this pact, but I know Invidiana. I can imagine why he wanted me to break it.”

“Do you intend to do so?”

The question hung in the air. This deep underground, there was no sound except their breathing, and the soft crackling of the fire. The Goodemeade sisters had their lips pressed together in matching expressions; both of them were watching Lune, whose gaze lay on the broken feather tip before her.

Deven had known Anne Montrose — or thought he had. This silver-haired faerie woman, he did not know at all. He would have given a great deal to hear her thoughts just then.

“I do not know how to,” Lune said, very controlled.

“That is not what I asked. I do not know the arrangements of your court, but two things I can presume: first, that your Queen would not want you to interfere with this matter, and second, that you are out of favor with her. Else you would not be here, barefoot and in hiding, with her soldiers hunting you out of the city. So will you defy her? Will you try to break this pact?”

Lune looked to the Goodemeades. The brownies’ faces showed identical resolution; it was not hard to guess what they thought should be done.

But what he was asking of her was treason.

Deven wondered if Walsingham had ever felt such compunctions, asking his agents to betray those they professed to serve.

Lune closed her eyes and said, “I will.”

MEMORY: January 14–15, 1559

Despite the cold, people packed the streets of London. In the southwestern portions of the city, in the northeast — in all those areas removed from the center — men wandered drunkenly and women sang songs, while bonfires burned on street corners, creating islands of light and heat in the frozen air, banners and the clothing of the wealthy providing points of rich color. Everywhere in the city was music and celebration, and if underneath it all many worried or schemed, no such matters were permitted to stain the appearance of universal rejoicing.

The press was greatest in the heart of the city, the great artery that ran from west to east. Crowds packed so tightly along the route that hardly anyone could move, save a few lithe child thieves who took advantage of the bounty. Petty Wales, Tower Street, Mark Lane, Fenchurch, and up Gracechurch Street; then the course straightened westward, running down Cornhill, past Leadenhall, and into the broad thoroughfare of Cheapside. The cathedral of St. Paul awaited its moment, and then the great portal of Ludgate, all bedecked with finery. From there, Fleet Street, the Strand, and so down into Westminster, and every step of the way, the citizens of London thronged to see their Queen.

A roar went up as the first members of the procession exited the Tower, temporarily in use once more as a royal residence. By the time the slender figure in cloth of gold and silver came into view, riding in an open-sided litter and waving to her people, the noise was deafening.

The procession made its slow way along the designated route, stopping at predetermined points for pageants that demonstrated for all the glory and virtue of the new sovereign. No passive spectator she, nor afraid of the chill; when she could not hear over the noise of the crowd, she bid the pageant be performed again. She called responses to her loyal subjects, touching strangers for a moment with the honor and privilege of royal attention. And they loved her for that, for the promise of change she brought, for the evanescent beauty that would all too soon fade back to show an architecture of steel beneath.

She reached Westminster late in the day, exhausted but radiant from her ordeal. The night passed: in drunkenness for the people of London, in busy preparation for the great officials in Westminster.

Come the following morning, when she set forth again, a shadow mirrored her elsewhere.

In crimson robes, treading upon a path of blue cloth, one uncrowned woman passed from Westminster Hall to the Abbey.

In deepest black, moving through subterranean halls, a second uncrowned woman passed from the Tower of London to a chamber that stood beneath Candlewick Street.

Westminster Abbey rang with the sonorous speeches and ceremony of coronation. Step by step, a woman was transformed into a Queen. And a few miles away, the passages and chambers of the Onyx Hall, emptied for this day, echoed back the ghostlike voice of a fae, as she stripped herself of one name and donned another.

A sword glimmered in her hand.

The presiding bishop spoke traditional words as the emblems of sovereignty were bestowed upon the red-haired woman. The sound should not have reached the Onyx Hall, any more than the shouts of the crowd should have, but it was not a matter of loudness. For today, the two spaces resounded as one.

Then the fanfares began, as one by one, a succession of three crowns were placed upon an auburn head.

As the Onyx Hall rang with the trumpet’s blast, the sword flashed through the air and struck a stone that descended from the ceiling of the chamber.

Drunken revelers in London heard the sound, and thought it a part of the celebrations: the tolling of a terrible, triumphant bell, marking the coronation of their Queen. And soon enough the bells would come, ringing out in Westminster and spreading east to the city, but this sound reached them first, and resonated the most deeply. Sovereignty was in that sound.

Those citizens who were on Candlewick Street at the time fell silent, and dropped to their knees in reverence, not caring that the object they bowed to was a half-buried stone along the street’s south edge, its limestone surface weathered and scarred, unremarkable to any who did not know its tale.

Three times the stone tolled its note, as three times the sword struck it from below, as three times the crowns were placed. And on the third, the sword plunged into the heart of the stone.

All mortal England hailed the coronation of Elizabeth, first of her name, by the Grace of God, Queen of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, et cetera; and all faerie England trembled at the coronation of Invidiana, Queen of the Onyx Court, Mistress of the Glens and Hollow Hills.

And a dozen faerie kings and queens cried out in rage as their sovereignty was stripped from them.

-Half-buried in the soil of Candlewick Street, the London Stone, the ancient marker said to have been placed there by the Trojan Brutus, the mythical founder of Britain; the stone upon which sacred oaths were sworn; the half-forgotten symbol of authority, against which the rebel Jack Cade had struck his sword a century before, in validation of his claim to London, made fast the bargain between two women.

Elizabeth, and Invidiana.

A great light and her great shadow.