She could feel the ease between them now, the connection that bound them through their shared realm. It was unlike what she had shared with Antony, as it would be unlike her bond with his successor, whoever that might be. Each mortal felt slightly different, like the same note struck on a variety of instruments.
Jack shook his head as if to clear it, opened his mouth, and choked on a sound. Lune nodded. “It will fade; you have my word. In time you will be able to call on your divine Master again.”
He swallowed, like a man swallowing his own tongue. When he could speak, he said, “I suppose I’m grateful it’s Tuesday, then. That gives me time.”
The reminder of religion put Lune on edge. She was vulnerable, out here; she had not wanted to go through the coronation and this ritual while shielded against mortality. Soon, though, a bell might ring, and there was iron enough to make her shiver regardless. And they were expected in Moor Fields.
Holding out her hand again, she said, “Shall we go back down? Our escort awaits us there.”
THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: August 30, 1666
“Your Majesty,” Valentin Aspell said, “an ambassador has arrived, and begs a grant of safety while he delivers his message to you.”
Safety? Lune’s curiosity came alight. I can think of few who would need to remind me of the safe conduct owed an embassy. And Valentin looks like he’s swallowed a wasp. “An ambassador from where?”
The Lord Keeper bowed, as if afraid she would strike him for his answer. “From the Gyre-Carling in Fife.”
It startled her more than angered. Startled, and somewhat encouraged: since when did Nicneven send ambassadors? Unless this was some diversion, meant to distract from an attack elsewhere—but that was the sort of thing Vidar would have planned, and he was firmly out of the Unseely Queen’s reach. “Is the ambassador here? ”
Valentin shook his head. “He waits beyond the border of your realm, and sent a gruagach in his stead.”
Politeness, even—or perhaps just prudence. Either way, the surprises continued. “Grant him passage,” she said, “and have him meet me...” Where? The great presence chamber would be the best place to awe him, but that would also make it far more public than she wanted. “In the lesser presence chamber. Have it cleared; we shall speak in private. No sense giving rise to more rumors than we must.”
Bowing, Aspell began to retreat. “Also,” Lune said, before he could vanish out the door, “send word to Jack Ellin, requesting his attendance.” He needed more seasoning in politics, and she had every intention of forcing the Fife ambassador to acknowledge the Prince’s existence. Just because Nicneven had chosen civil conversation was no reason for Lune to back down from those things the Gyre-Carling most hated.
With the Lord Keeper gone, Lune flew to her preparations, summoning her ladies to help her change into a more formal gown and adorn her curls with a crown. Sun and Moon, I hope Aspell’s messenger tells Jack what is afoot, and the man has the sense to dress for it. Surely he had learned that much already.
She knew to a nicety the time it would take a traveler to reach the wall from any northern approach, and the distance to all the closest entrances. Lune might have insisted on meeting the ambassador above, but beginning with an insult would hardly be auspicious—and besides, there was little to gain in hiding the doors to her realm. Nicneven knew them all by now.
Examining her own thoughts, Lune found in them no small amount of fear. Attacks, she understood and anticipated; the Gyre-Carling was trying something new. She had no idea what to expect from this.
Jack was waiting for her in the chamber, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps someone had taken clothes to him, for he had changed with tremendous speed. “Do you recall what I told you of Nicneven?” she asked, settling into her chair of estate.
He recited the basic facts back to her in a crisp tone that concealed any nerves he might feel. The man’s memory was well trained; he missed nothing. “Do not hesitate to speak if this ambassador says anything touching on the people of London,” Lune said when he was done, “but beyond that, I expect to handle this myself. The ambassador will acknowledge your presence, even if I must force him, but I doubt he will deign to speak to you.”
A hint of relief was in his nod. And that was all they had time for; Aspell entered, received Lune’s nod, and threw the door open. “From the Gyre-Carling of Fife, her ambassador, Sir Cerenel.”
Only her preformed determination to keep a serene countenance, no matter what happened, kept Lune from staring. It was no trick: her own former knight entered, approached the dais, and made his formal bow. To them both, she saw; whether it was in his instructions or not, Cerenel included Jack in the reverence.
“Be welcome to the Onyx Hall, Sir Cerenel,” she managed, and he rose. “We hope you are well?”
“I am, your Majesty.” He, too, must have resolved before coming that he would keep the whole encounter polite. Did he feel hostility toward her? Bitterness? Fear? The violet eyes showed no hint.
He had bowed to Jack; Lune decided to press that. “You have not met John Ellin, who is now Prince of the Stone.”
A slight tightening of Cerenel’s lips, maddeningly unreadable. “I had heard that Lord Antony died. Please allow me to offer the compliments of my condolence for your loss.”
His condolence; not theirs. So Nicneven had not been replaced by some soft-hearted human changeling. Oddly, Lune found it reassuring. She made the expected reply to his words, and indicated subtly to Jack that he should do the same; the physician exchanged empty courtesies with the knight, while Lune tried to glean any further clues from Cerenel’s manner. He dressed as a Scot again, but that might not mean much.
Or it might mean a great deal. Why was he, of all fae, Nicneven’s ambassador?
Cerenel at least did not keep her wondering long. “Madam,” he said, “my lord—I have been sent hither to bear you a message from my Queen.”
The phrase stung, even though she expected it. Nicneven is his Queen now. “We are pleased to receive it,” Lune said, and waited.
“She bid me say this: that although there has been much strife between your two realms, she will lay that aside and offer you peace, in simple exchange for the person of Ifarren Vidar.”
Not a demand. An offer. Trade. Jack was alive with curiosity; he knew Vidar’s name, but not all the tortuous details of that war. The man’s thirst for knowledge never ended, but now was not the time to sate it. Lune said to Cerenel, “You understand the cynical response this occasions, I trust. Nicneven’s hatred preceded Vidar’s arrival at her court. Why should she relinquish it now?”
A faint smile ghosted across Cerenel’s lips. “If I may speak plainly, madam—this very matter is why I begged her Majesty to send me as her emissary. I understand your suspicion. But the Gyre-Carling is a creature of passions, not politics. Her hatred was born the day the mortal Queen of Scots died, manipulated onto the scaffold in part by the machinations of this court. But Charles Stuart is dead as well, and her revenge complete; what cares she any longer for such matters? Her hatred now is reserved for another.”
“Ifarren Vidar.”
“He betrayed her, and she does not forgive that lightly. At his urging, she surrendered the Sword of Nuada to the Irish, believing they would help her destroy this place. And in the taking and retaking of the Onyx Hall, she lost warriors—fae she cared for, as any Queen must.”
The bitterness Lune might have expected in that last touch was not there. She found, to her surprise, that she sincerely wanted to lay aside this embassy, and speak to Cerenel in his own right. Perhaps they could mend the breach she had created. But Nicneven could not be laid aside, and so Lune answered his point. “I have no doubt of her hatred for Ifarren Vidar. But the substance of the Gyre-Carling’s words to me have not changed, have they? She may couch it in terms of offered peace, but that is simply the other face of the original coin. If I do not give her the traitor, then it is war between us once more, and the threatened des
truction of the Onyx Hall.”
Reluctantly, Cerenel nodded.
“Then my answer is unchanged,” Lune said. “I have sentenced Vidar to eternal imprisonment, and there he shall stay.”
She could sense Jack’s uncertainty; no doubt Cerenel could, as well. Her new Prince did not yet understand these matters, for all he learned as quickly as he could. This was a poor time for him to come among them, as it would have been for any man. Cerenel’s reaction was the one that surprised her: disappointment, and worry. Even fear? He came because he wanted this to succeed, and trusted no other with it. And now he has failed.
“Madam,” Cerenel said, going unexpectedly to one knee, “I do not wish to bear you these words, but my Queen’s instructions were clear. I am to tell you that the Gyre-Carling will have him, by one means or another.”
The threat had never been so deeply concealed, after all. “Has she more soldiers, then?” Lune asked, with contemptuous bravado. “What other treasures has she sold to the Irish, for their aid? It does not matter. The Onyx Hall rose to fight them once before, and it can do so again. Let her waste their lives, if she will.”
“Not soldiers, madam.” Cerenel’s fingers whitened against the carpet, and desperation laced his voice. “She has another ally—one you cannot fight. Even now she comes. Give over Vidar, and your realm will be left unharmed. Remain obstinate, and all will suffer, from you down to your humblest subject.”
She could not begin to imagine what he meant, but neither would she ask. Cerenel could not be allowed to know it troubled her. Jack was already showing too much, gaze flicking between the kneeling ambassador and the Queen at his side, hands curling on the arms of his chair. But Lune felt the weight of the Onyx Hall upon her shoulders, the mantle of her sovereignty, and knew herself at the precipice. Whatever ally Nicneven had found, Lune could not acknowledge it as her superior, as a force that held power over her realm.
If only Nicneven had not threatened, she thought with grim resignation. If I could make this decision on some ground other than coercion.
But even then, no. She remembered Vidar’s words: It is what Invidiana would have done. She would not let the Gyre-Carling kill him, just to protect her own power.
Lune rose to her feet, towering over Cerenel; a belated instant later, Jack mirrored her, following the gesture she made behind her back. “We do not fear the Gyre-Carling or her minions,” Lune said, pronouncing it with razor clarity. “Return that message to her. Tell her Vidar shall stay imprisoned until it is our pleasure to release him. Tell her that if our presence here, our dealings with mortals, trouble her so greatly, then we invite her to retire from this world into the deep reaches of Faerie, where she need not concern herself with such matters. No threat from her shall shift us from our course.”
Bleak with disappointment, but fighting not to show it, Cerenel bowed his head, rose, and backed from the chamber, leaving Lune and Jack Ellin alone.
“What—” the Prince said, after a moment of staring silence.
“Another time,” Lune cut him off, sinking exhausted into her chair and rubbing her brow with one hand. There must be some way to end this threat, without sacrificing myself and the Onyx Hall to the Gyre-Carling of Fife. “There is more you should hear, but I have not the will for it now. Please.”
He hovered for a moment, obviously frustrated by all he wanted to ask, but finally he nodded. “As you wish.” Then he, too, left her, and Lune sagged wearily in her chair, listening to the shadowed silence of her home.
She thought at first she imagined it—the stir of a curl against her cheek. Then it came again, for longer this time, bringing with it a chilling whisper of age and death.
Wind, in the unmoving air of the Onyx Hall.
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 5, 1666
The Battle for London
“Let water flow from every eye,
Of all good Subjects in the Land,
Mountains of fire were raised high,
Which Londons City did command;
Waste lye those buildings were so good,
And Ashes lye where London stood.”
—“The Londoners Lamentation”
The City still burns.
The wind has fallen to deathly calm, but in its absence the flames do not simply wink out. Yet at Temple Bar, and Holborn Bridge, and all about the fringes of London, men bend their backs with renewed will, determined to overmaster at last the beast that has driven them so far.
Gunpowder still shatters the air with its detonations, clearing space the sparks, robbed of their ally the wind, cannot leap. Though at Cripplegate the battle yet rages in strength—led by the Lord Mayor, eager to redeem his earlier ignominy—much of the leveled ground now lies smoking, such that when daybreak comes men will walk across its embers, and see what they have lost.
An unfortunate few see more than that.
On the heights around the cathedral, where the ashes of the books still blow, little tongues of flame race along the ground.
They seek one another, blending together like droplets of water, merging into a greater whole. Salamanders crawl atop each other, the larger consuming the smaller, and growing ever more, until a coiling body takes shape, crusted with black cinders like scales, that crack to reveal the fiery flesh beneath.
It is legion, and too powerful to be slain so simply. Calling all its children from across the City, the Dragon lifts its head from the ashes, and scents its prey once more.
THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: one o’clock in the morning
Armored in the fine clothes he’d worn for his creation as Prince of the Stone, Jack Ellin went forth to do battle.
Only now, when the breath of the Cailleach Bheur had subsided at last, did he realize how much the Blue Hag’s touch had worn on him, too. Even if age and the slow decay of flesh were natural to his kind, no one liked to be reminded for days on end of how he would, in time, fall to dust. Free now of that ominous whisper, he felt a tiny surge of life infusing his weary limbs. Enough, he hoped, to see him through this confrontation with the Gyre-Carling.
And before that, a confrontation with Lune.
He found her still dressing in her wardrobe. Her ladies fussed around her, smoothing the fashionably wide neckline of her gown, kneeling to place silver shoes on her feet. Two miniature sprites hovered in the air, tucking the scorched ends of her hair out of sight, until her coiffure gleamed like polished metal under the faerie lights of the chamber. The melting frost on the walls steamed in the warmer air.
“Good, you are prepared,” Lune said when she saw him. Nianna dabbed color on her lips between phrases, trying and failing to conceal her vexation with the Queen’s insistence on speaking. “Nicneven should be at Aldgate soon.”
“What should I expect of her?”
She gave a tiny shrug, so as not to interfere with Carline sliding an earring into her lobe. “As much as a mouse might. You are beneath her notice. I would say to make her acknowledge you if you can, but tonight of all nights, we might be better served not to annoy her.”
If saving what remained of London meant lying down on the presence chamber floor and letting Nicneven walk over his face, he would do it. But Jack had something of far greater use in mind. “Allow me,” he said, claiming Lune’s rings from Amadea without waiting for the chamberlain to respond. “I would speak with her Majesty alone.”
Amadea raised her eyebrows at him again; he wondered if Antony had not claimed private audiences so much. Perhaps the old Prince had not minded public confrontations.
The ladies curtsied and took their leave. When the door closed, Jack came forward and began sliding the rings onto Lune’s fingers. She had the bones of a bird, and her skin was cool to the touch. “Do you intend to give her Vidar?” he asked.
“No.”
“Why?”
Her fingers curled around his. Jack met the silver gaze squarely, rings clutched in his free hand. Lune stared at him for a moment, then shook her head, curls dancing. “I have not the time to
explain.”
“You have time for nothing else. This is the thread upon which your kingdom hangs, Lune. Your people cannot endure more of the Cailleach’s assault—and why should they? For the sake of a creature I know to be your enemy?”
The point edging her sleeve shivered briefly; then she pulled free of his grasp. “Not for his sake,” Lune said. “For the sake of the Onyx Hall.”
Now it was Jack’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “The same Onyx Hall that twice almost became a Dragon’s meal? This is how you protect it?”
Lune winced. “I never anticipated that. Had it been just the Cailleach...”
“Then London would not have burnt. But it has, and the Onyx Hall very nearly joined it. So tell me, Lune, just how you are protecting anything by protecting Ifarren Vidar.”
She bowed her head, half-ringed hand closing over the gloved one. “Because that is how faerie sovereignty works,” she said, weary and flat. “I cannot bend to Nicneven’s will and still be Queen. If she had threatened something other than my realm, perhaps. If she had threatened me. But the Onyx Hall is the lever she would use to move me. And if I succumb, then I acknowledge her power over it. I admit that she could destroy it, and give in to prevent that. Which means I surrender it to her.”
Lune lifted her gaze at last, and he saw to his great shock that tears rimmed the lids of her eyes. I did not think she could weep. “She would obliterate this place. But resistance, it seems, will bring about the same end.”
Some day, when the two of them sat at peace before a comfortable fire, Jack would question her more; Lune’s explanation opened up a wealth of ideas he had never considered before. But he wanted that comfortable fire to be inside the Onyx Hall, and that meant finding a way out of this trap.
“Let me do it,” he said, with sudden inspiration. “Let me give her Vidar. Then you acknowledge nothing—it is all my doing!” And if it cost him his title, so be it. He didn’t mind, so long as he could still come among the fae.