It had seemed like a brilliant idea; he was therefore crushed when Gertrude shook her head. “Folk have died of disease there, Galen. One of your predecessors used to keep patients in the Billingsgate warren, because the space was clean and quiet. Some got better, it’s true, but not all.”
He should not have said it in front of Dr. Andrews. The man’s expression showed the broken pieces of hope, and the powerful desire to cling to what remained of them. “Still—” He paused as if he was going to cough, but drew a clear breath and forged on. “Part of my difficulty is the encroachment of weakness, and some of that is age. Even if it offered me only small help . . .”
“It would be better than nothing,” Galen agreed. “Come, Gertrude—is it not worth a try?”
“You know the risks,” Gertrude said in an urgent whisper. “Dr. Andrews, surely they warned you; to stay too long below brings its own kind of weakness.”
If she thought that would dissuade anyone, she was wrong. Andrews merely said, “I would trade that risk for the one I face now.”
The brownie bit her lip uncertainly, turning the empty cup around in her hands. Galen willed her to see the man lying in his nightshirt, pale and burnt thin by disease, the man in whom he had placed his hopes of a solution against the Dragon. The fae were Andrews’s one hope of survival, and at the moment, he was theirs. If this had the smallest chance of extending his life, and therefore the time in which they might find solutions to their problems . . .
“Isn’t for me to decide,” she said at last, taking refuge in lack of authority. “It’s yours, Lord Galen, and the Queen’s. If you think it worth trying, and she agrees, then so be it.”
“I will consult with her immediately,” Galen said, before Andrews could even ask. The pieces of hope were beginning to knit themselves back together. Fear of them breaking again, however, made him add, “The Queen has more experience of this than I. If she says it would do more harm than good, I’ll have to heed her.”
Andrews sagged back against his pillows. “I understand.”
They left him then, for whatever good the draught had done him, he still needed rest. No servants scurried guiltily away when Galen opened the door, so it seemed their imprudently direct words had not been overheard. Gertrude waited until they reached the square, though, before she took him by the sleeve.
“I have experience of this, too, Lord Galen,” she said. Her face was suited for merriment, not somberness, but her eyes made up all the difference. “If you do bring him below—not just for an afternoon here, a day there, but for days on end—you must watch him carefully. Mortal minds don’t fare well among us, and it is his mind, as much as his body, that you need.”
Once it had felt peculiar, addressing a woman who scarcely came up past his waist; now it felt even more peculiar, seeing Gertrude under a glamour of height. Though it should not have, the difference lent weight to her warning. “I won’t forget it, Gertrude. I’ll watch him myself; he’s my responsibility, after all, and my friend beyond that.”
It didn’t erase her worry, but she nodded. “That’s the best anyone can ask for, then.”
The Onyx Hall, London: August 29, 1758
With the theft of the tripod from the British Museum’s collections, few barriers remained between the fae and the creation of a veil to conceal England from the comet. Galen, considering that business all but done, had almost forgotten the debt he owed—until Edward brought him a letter written in a flowing, foreign hand.
The genie.
Galen cursed. Mrs. Carter had confirmed the inscription on the bowl; it was an adaptation of some Arabic invocation, summoning clouds and rain. Lune had given Irrith permission to use it, which meant Abd ar-Rashid had done them a genuine service. Now Galen must do him one in turn.
At least he had an easy means of discharging his duty. Galen wrote to Dr. Andrews, whose health had improved distinctly since his removal to the Onyx Hall. The man was sleeping below more nights than not, with Podder to see to his needs; it was simple enough to arrange a meeting between him and Abd ar-Rashid.
The genie was too polite to complain of the delay, beyond the gentle nudge of that one letter. Galen was rather more worried about Dr. Andrews. Given the man’s new familiarity with the fae, it seemed silly to disguise Abd ar-Rashid as anything other than what he was; but how would the doctor respond to an Arab? Would that strangeness be just one more drop in the sea that was the Onyx Hall, or would it be one too many?
Andrews seemed composed enough, and even friendly, when Podder showed them in. He was sitting up in a chair, dressed properly once more, and if he didn’t rise to greet them, that was easily explained by his health. “You will forgive me, I hope, Mr. Abd ar-Rashid,” the doctor said, indicating his seated position, and the genie hastened to assure him of it. “Mr. St. Clair tells me you come here for learning.”
“It is so,” the genie said, settling into his own chair. “Heard I of your Royal Society, and wish to converse with its Fellows upon many topics. A physician, you are?”
Andrews smiled ruefully. “I was, until my illness forced me to retire from such work. But I daresay I could spare the effort for a bit of tutoring; indeed, with instruction, I expect you could assist me in basic tasks, which would be a great boon to the work Mr. St. Clair has asked me to do.”
All Galen’s happy satisfaction drained down to his stomach and congealed into something more like embarrassed horror. Oh, God. He misunderstood me completely.
Abd ar-Rashid’s excellent manners kept him from saying anything immediately offensive, but his back stiffened. Choosing his words with care Galen suspected had nothing to do with his imperfect English, the genie said, “I fear there is a . . . confusion? A physician I am already, studying the medical arts since the days of Ibn Sina.”
“Yes, well, we’ve come on a bit since Avicenna,” Andrews said with a dismissive wave. “He was good enough for his time, I suppose, but after seven hundred years anyone would be a trifle . . . hmm . . . outdated?”
“O doctor,” the genie replied in that same, even tone, “wrote Ibn Sina, seven hundred years ago, in the Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb, that the disease afflicting you can go to others—but maybe the physicians of England forget, as I see you do not keep away from the healthy.”
Andrews went from patronizing to affronted with remarkable speed. “Contagion? Balderdash; that’s as great a piece of nonsense as the innkeeper who thought it was caused by faeries. They have assured me it is not so.”
Once Galen belatedly found his tongue, the words poured out. “My apologies to you both; I fear the misunderstanding here is entirely of my doing. Dr. Andrews, Lord Abd ar-Rashid is a traveling scholar, who spent the last several years among the academies of Paris. He asked me to provide him with an introduction to the scholars of the Royal Society, and given his . . . nature, I thought it best to begin with you. I do beg your pardon for giving the wrong impression, but he wishes to exchange ideas. I have no doubt that English and Arabic physicians both have learned many useful things over the years, which each of you could benefit from—and surely, gentlemen, you share more than you differ. The four humors, for example—”
They shared something indeed, turning on him. “We physicians of learning are finished with that idea,” Abd ar-Rashid said, his accented reply interweaving with Andrews’s heated, “Only quacks and unlettered country doctors still follow that notion.” Then they both stopped, each eyeing the other like a pair of wary tomcats.
“Paracelsus,” Dr. Andrews said, as if testing something.
The genie nodded. “Iatrochimie—I do not know it in English—though little was the understanding of chemistry to guide him, and he went wrong often.”
Which was perfectly incomprehensible to Galen, but Andrews nodded grudgingly in return. Though the two embracing each other as brothers in medicine seemed unlikely, at least Andrews was no longer regarding the Arab as he might a precocious child. “A different perspective might be refreshing, I suppose,” the doctor allow
ed. “I would be interested to hear what you learned in Paris, sir. My correspondence with gentlemen there has fallen sadly by the wayside during my illness.”
Which left the genie, who had recovered a kind of blankness that Galen suspected meant his thoughts were not fit to be shared. “Lord Abd ar-Rashid,” Galen said, “if you would consent to work with Dr. Andrews, addressing a certain philosophical problem we face, then her Grace and I would be most grateful. We could offer you lodgings within the Onyx Hall, and the protection of mortal bread, should you need it.”
The genie thawed a bit at the offer of hospitality—or perhaps it was the philosophical problem. If he was half so curious as reports made him out to be, then that would be like the scent of game to a bloodhound. And he’d made some acquaintances among the fae of the Onyx Hall; if he didn’t already know of the comet, he would soon. Galen had judged, and Lune agreed, that there wasn’t much to be gained in trying to keep that secret from the foreigner. Much better to offer him honesty, and see if they could gain his help.
“O Prince,” Abd ar-Rashid said at last, “the lodgings and the bread I need not. But I appreciate the offer. If Dr. Andrews agrees, so, too, do I.”
It was the best he was likely to get. Galen could only hope this partnership would grow less thorny over time. Abd ar-Rashid might make a valuable addition to their scholarly circle. He had, after all, studied in foreign lands, where many strange things were known.
“Good,” Galen said, with heartier cheer than he felt. “Then I shall leave you to your conversation, gentlemen, and see about fetching you a salamander.”
The Onyx Hall, London: September 1, 1758
Irrith held the pole at arm’s length, walking with slow care to ensure the brass box swinging from the wood didn’t accidentally brush into her. Even with that precaution, she could feel the heat radiating from the metal. The salamander had been most unhappy when she slammed the lid shut on its head.
She had to bang the end of the pole into the door in lieu of a knock. Podder opened it, and shied back when he saw her burden. Edging past the nervous hob, Irrith came into Dr. Andrews’s laboratory.
The mortal man was waiting for her, along with Galen and a dark foreigner she’d seen around the Onyx Hall. He must be the Arabic genie Segraine had mentioned, Abdar-something. “Ah, my dear, very good,” the doctor said, waving her forward, toward a contraption Irrith recognized as being one of Niklas von das Ticken’s discarded Dragon-cages. It stood well above the bare floor, on a slab of stone, with a bucket of water waiting at each corner. “In here, if you would.”
She dropped the brass box inside and slid the pole free. “He’s been burning since I grabbed him,” she said by way of explanation. “Can’t touch the latch, but if you have something long enough to reach through . . .”
Their servant Podder fetched a thin-bladed knife and handed it to Galen, who approached the cage warily. After some fumbling, he succeeded in lifting the latch, and the salamander immediately poured free of its prison. The creature hissed and spat sparks when it discovered the new confinement of the cage.
“Take good care of that one,” Irrith said, leaning on her pole. “It was a right bastard to catch; I don’t fancy going after another.”
Dr. Andrews was peering through the bars, drawing closer and closer; he leapt back when a lick of flame almost singed his nose. Rubbing his hands with undisguised eagerness, he said, “I fear we may need several, my dear. The chances of our correctly extracting pure phlogiston on the first attempt are dubious at best.”
“Pure what?”
“Phlogiston.” Galen smiled at her. He looked happy, she realized; he truly enjoyed this sort of thing, poking and prodding at creatures to learn what made them go. Far more than he enjoyed politics, and she could understand that very well. “Fire—in its pure form.”
Irrith grinned back. “I can spare you the effort, then. Here’s your flodgy-thing.” She prodded the salamander with the end of her pole. It attacked the wood with astonishing speed; fast as she drew back, she didn’t save the tip from catching fire. “See?”
With two delicate fingers, Galen guided the burning end down into a bucket, where it died in a hiss of steam. “We know the nature of the salamander, Irrith; that’s why we asked you to catch one. But we need to separate the fire from the creature.”
“But the fire is the creature,” Irrith told him. Clearly he did not understand, whatever he claimed. “That’s what a salamander is: elemental fire.”
“That is an outdated theory, my dear,” Andrews said. She was beginning to grit her teeth every time he called her that. Irrith didn’t need her title, but she would have appreciated the simple courtesy of her name—especially coming from someone whose entire span, cradle to grave, was scarcely a flicker of her own. “Robert Boyle showed the insufficiency of the classical elements as a means of describing the world, so that now we think there are many more elements, though so far the definition of them has proved beyond us. Phlogiston may be one of them, but it is not elemental fire, and this creature cannot be composed of it.”
Irrith had forgotten the Arab, standing silent watch over this exchange; she jumped when he spoke. “The lady is correct. Created were my kind out of smokeless fire. This salamander is the same, perhaps.”
Andrews’s mouth took on a sour cast, and Irrith smirked at him. “See? Faeries are different.”
The mortals against the immortals. Galen was even standing next to Dr. Andrews, though the genie was a little distance away, half-aloof. In mollifying tones, the Prince said, “It doesn’t work that way, Irrith. The whole object of natural philosophy is to discover the laws of the world—laws that must and do apply in all places equally.”
“The world! But we’re in a different one, aren’t we? Or halfway between two, I suppose.” She gestured with the charred pole, skimming it over the cage in a shallow arc just for the pleasure of watching Dr. Andrews twitch apprehensively. “I bet you have a law saying time has to pass at the same speed everywhere, but faerie realms don’t obey that one, either.”
Galen hesitated, but Dr. Andrews did not. “Let me demonstrate something to you, my dear. I haven’t yet devised an experiment to investigate the illusions spoken of at Midsummer, but I can show you something simpler.”
He went to one corner of the room, where various prisms, lenses, mirrors, cards, and other items were piled on a table. “Mr. St. Clair, are you familiar with the basics of optics? Excellent. Then if you would aid me—I intend to conduct Newton’s experimentum crucis. That should be enough to begin with.”
Together the men set up a pair of prisms and two cards, one with a small hole pierced in it. “Now,” Andrews said, holding up a small box, “this contains a faerie light, which we may use as our source. In Newton’s time, there were two competing theories of light: one being that a prism creates its rainbow effect by ‘tinging’ the light as it passes through, and the other being that it merely bends the light, separating its different components by the different angles of their passage. That latter is the true theory, as I will now show. If we pass our source through the first prism—” Lifting the box’s hinged flap, he created a rainbow against the first card. Podder whispered to the faerie lights around the room, so that they dimmed and the rainbow appeared more clearly. “Thank you, Podder. Now, if we position this card so that the hole permits the violet light through, we may send that portion through a second prism, and when it strikes the second card—Mr. St. Clair, if you would—”
Galen moved the pieces into position. A moment later, the card fluttered from his hand, whispering to a halt on the stone.
But not before everyone had seen a second, stranger rainbow cast across its white face.
In the near darkness, Dr. Andrews stuttered, “I—it should have—”
“Been violet.” The genie’s accented voice lent a touch of strangeness to an already strange scene. “As in Newton’s essay ‘Of Colours.’ But he used sunlight.”
Not a faerie light. Irrit
h heard a creak: Andrews collapsing into a chair, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Podder hastily brightened the room again, revealing the doctor white as a sheet, and hardly breathing.
“Our world is different,” Irrith said, and thought it very virtuous of herself that she let only a little of her smugness show through.
The urge to gloat faded, however, when she saw Galen. He was still on his feet, but he looked almost as appalled as Dr. Andrews, as if someone had come along and told him Heaven was empty, with no one watching over him. “What?” Irrith said, uncertain now. “Isn’t this good? You have what you were after.”
Galen’s head moved side to side, blindly; it might have been stirred by the wind. “No. It isn’t good. Because if nature as we understand it does not operate the same here . . .”
Dr. Andrews’s whisper would have been inaudible in a less-silent room. “Then nothing we know is of any use.”
“I do not think so.”
That came from the genie. Abd ar-Rashid, that was his name. He looked from Andrews to Galen to Irrith, then went on in a more judicious manner. “It is only my idea, uncertain in truth. But I am wondering, for some time . . .” His sharp-tipped fingers played against each other, a nervous gesture that made him seem much more familiar than foreign. “That which is right in your world, appears to be wrong in ours. Perhaps that which is wrong in your world becomes right, in places such as this.”
“Earth, water, air, and fire,” Irrith said. She pursed her lips in doubt. “For salamanders and sylphs and the like, maybe—but we aren’t all elemental creatures.”
“No. But mixtures of those four, perhaps, as not true of mortal substances.”
Andrews was still white and unreassured. “But there have been many wrong ideas—more wrong ideas than right. How are we to know which ones apply?”
Galen exhaled sharply; it might have been a laugh. Certainly a faint, mad light was growing in his eyes. “Even as Boyle did, and Newton, and all the others. We experiment. At great speed, I should think; though once the Dragon is disposed of, we’ll have greater leisure to explore the laws of faerie science.”