Galen sighed to see the muddy track he left behind as he stepped clear of the roundel. He knew that if he left the chamber and came back a minute later, he would find the dirt gone; there were unseen creatures here, more efficient than the most dedicated servant, who seemed to treat the slightest mess as a personal affront. Or they would if they had any sense of self; as Galen understood it, they had very few thoughts at all, scarcely more than the faerie lights that lined the delicate columns along the walls. Still, he wished for a boot-scraper on which to clean his feet, so he would not trail bits of mud around so miraculous a place.
No help for it. Galen was about to abandon his concerns and proceed, when a sudden swirl of air tugged at the hem of his cloak.
Another figure descended from the aperture in the ceiling, dropping swiftly before floating to a halt on the roundel. Galen’s own muddy prints were obliterated by an enormous smear as the dripping and filthy figure shifted, slipped, and landed unceremoniously on his backside.
“Blood and Bone!” the figure swore, and the voice was far too high to be male. Galen leapt forward, reflexively offering his hand, and promptly ruined his glove when the newcomer took the assistance to rise.
That she was a faerie, he could be certain; the delicacy of her hand—if not her speech—made anything else unlikely. But he could discern little more; she seemed to have rolled in the mud for sport, though some of it had subsequently been washed off by the rain. Her hair, skin, and clothes were one indeterminate shade of brown, in which her eyes made a startling contrast. They held a hundred shades of green, shifting and dancing as no human irises would.
She in turn seemed quite startled by him. “You’re human!” she said, peering at him through the dripping wreck of her hair.
What polite answer could a gentleman make to that? “Yes, I am,” he said, and bent to pick up the satchel she had dropped.
The faerie snatched it from him, then grimaced. “Sorry. Someone has already tried to take this from me once tonight. I’d rather carry it myself, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Galen said. Sighing in regret, he pulled off the ruined glove and the clean one both, dropping them to the floor. The unseen servants might as well take those, too, when they came to mop this up. “May I escort you to your chambers? This marble is treacherous for wet feet.”
He thought she might be a sprite, under all that mud; she didn’t carry herself with the courtly grace of an elfin lady. Slinging the bag over her shoulder, she sat down again—this time deliberately—and pulled off her dripping boots, followed by her stockings. The feet beneath were incongruously pale, and as delicate as her hands. She set them down on a clean patch of floor, then levered herself to her feet. “I’ll drip,” she said, making a futile effort to wring out the hem of her coat, “but it’s better than nothing.”
Her efforts with the coat revealed a pair of knee breeches beneath. Galen suppressed a murmur of shock. Fae viewed human customs, including notions of proper dress, as entertaining diversions they copied or ignored as they pleased. And he supposed knee breeches more practical in this weather; had she been wearing skirts, she would not have been able to move for all the sodden weight. “Still, please allow me. I would be a lout if I abandoned you in such a state.”
The sprite took up her bag once more and sighed. “Not to my chambers; I don’t believe I have any, unless Amadea’s kept them for me all this time. But you can take me to see the Queen.”
This time the murmur escaped him. “The Queen? But surely—this mud—and you—”
She drew herself up to her full height, which brought her muddy hair to the vicinity of his chin. “I am Dame Irrith of the Vale of the White Horse, knighted by the Queen herself for services to the Onyx Court, and I assure you—Lune will want to see me, mud and all.”
The hour was late, but that scarcely mattered to the inhabitants of the Onyx Hall, for whom the presence or absence of the sun above made little difference. This, after all, was London’s shadow: a subterranean faerie palace, conjured from the City itself, where neither sun nor moon ever shone.
Which meant, unfortunately, that people were around to see the unlikely progress of Irrith and the young man at her side. She carried herself defiantly, ignoring them all, and telling herself it wouldn’t help much if she did go in search of a bath first; given the tangled layout of the Onyx Hall, she would pass as many folk on her way there as she would going to see the Queen. At least the observers were common subjects, not the courtiers whose biting wit would find her disheveled state an easy target. They bowed themselves out of her way, and stepped carefully over her muddy trail once she passed.
Her intention was to go first to the Queen’s chambers, in hopes of finding her there, but something stopped her along the way: the sight of a pair of elf-knights standing watch on either side of two tall, copper-paneled doors. Members of the Onyx Guard, both of them, and as such they owed salutes to only two people in the whole of the court.
They saluted the young man at her side. “Lord Galen.”
Lord— Too late, Irrith realized the bows on the way here had not been for her. Of course they hadn’t—how long since she’d been in the Onyx Hall? And who would recognize her beneath the drying shell of mud? Turning to the gentleman, she said accusingly, “You’re the Prince of the Stone!”
He blushed charmingly and muttered something half-intelligible about having forgotten his manners. More likely, Irrith thought, he was too self-conscious to bring it up. New, no doubt. Yes, she remembered hearing something about a new Prince. The Queen’s mortal consorts came and went, as mortals so often did, and this one clearly hadn’t been in his position long enough to grow accustomed to anyone calling him “Lord.” She pitied him a little. To be consort to a faerie queen, living proof of her pledge to exist in harmony with the mortal world, was no small burden.
“Irrith?” That came from the guard on the right. Dame Segraine peered at her, pike drifting to one side.
“Yes.” Irrith shifted uncomfortably. If Segraine and Sir Thrandin were on watch at this door, then it meant the Queen was on the other side of it. Irrith couldn’t remember what room lay beyond, but it wasn’t Lune’s chambers, where she’d have some hope of a private audience, or at least one with only a few ladies in attendance. Common sense said she should wait.
Common sense, however, was for hobs and other such careful creatures. “I have something for the Queen—two things, in truth. Both of them important. The Prince, being a gentleman, offered to escort me.”
Segraine eyed her dubiously. The lady knight had always been one of Irrith’s closest friends among the fae of the Onyx Court, but she cared more about propriety than the sprite bothered to. “You’ll ruin the carpet,” she said.
Which was, Irrith had to admit, more than a simple matter of propriety. In the Vale, the “carpets” were of ground ivy and wild strawberries, which did not mind a little dirt. Here, they were likely to be embroidered with seed pearls or some other foolishness. She settled the matter by stripping off her coat and wringing the last of the water from her hair onto the damp heap of cloth. “Give me a handkerchief to wipe my feet, and I’ll be safe enough.”
Galen averted his eyes with another furious blush, and Segraine’s fellow guard was staring. Irrith had to admit she’d done it on purpose; she had a reputation in the court for being at best half-civilized, and it amused her to live up to it.
Or down to it, one might rather say.
Standing barefoot on the marble, in nothing more than a damp pair of knee breeches and a linen shirt, she had to struggle not to shiver. Then a square of white lace appeared in her vision: a handkerchief, offered by the Prince, who still would not look directly at her. Irrith dried her feet, looked ruefully at the dirty lace, and scrubbed a little at the bottoms of her breeches to discourage further dripping. The Prince was hardly going to take the handkerchief back after that, so she deposited it gently atop her filthy coat and said, “I’m sure someone can return that after it’s
been cleaned. May I see the Queen now?”
“You’d best,” Segraine said, “before you scandalize Lord Galen any further.” She knocked at the door. After a moment, it cracked open, and she conferred in a brief whisper with someone beyond. Irrith could hear noise: the lively murmur of conversation, and a clinking she couldn’t identify. Then Segraine nodded and swung the door wider, and the usher on the other side announced, “The Prince of the Stone, and Dame Irrith of the Vale!”
Galen offered his arm, and together they went in.
Irrith cursed her choice the moment she walked inside. What purpose that chamber had served before, she couldn’t recall; but now it held a long table well filled with silver and crystal and porcelain dishes, and well lined with the favored courtiers of Lune’s realm. A formal dinner, and Irrith in her bare feet and damp shirt, come to face the Queen of the Onyx Court.
Who sat in a grand pearl chair at the head of the table, eyebrows raised in honest surprise. Diamonds and gems of starlight glittered across the stomacher of Lune’s dress, brilliant against the midnight blue of her gown. Her silver hair was swept up into a flawless coiffure, crowned by a small sapphire circlet. Even had Irrith been dressed in her finest, Lune would have made her feel shabby, and the sprite was far from fine. If she could have fallen through the floor right then, she would have done it.
But the Onyx Hall did not oblige her with a pit, and so she had to walk forward, following the guidance of Galen’s arm. Past the seated ranks of the courtiers, elf-lords and elf-ladies, and the ambassadors of other faerie courts, down the length of the impossibly long table, to a respectful distance from Lune’s chair, where Irrith dropped to one knee while Galen went forward and kissed the Queen’s hand.
“Dame Irrith.” Lune’s voice, silver as the rest of her, was unreadable. “What brings you to London?”
There was nothing for it but to offer up the bag she still clutched. “Your Grace, I bring payment from Wayland Smith, King of the Vale of the White Horse. In exchange for two clocks, one telescope, and one thing I’ve forgotten the name of, as delivered by the hob Tom Toggin.”
“An armillary sphere,” Galen said, accepting the bag on behalf of the Queen. The oilcloth was as filthy as its bearer, but he opened the flap, wiped his hand clean on a second handkerchief, and pulled out a small loaf of bread.
Lune took it from him and inhaled the scent as if appreciating a fine wine. Irrith understood the impulse; one could almost smell the mortality in the bread. A peculiar heaviness, but it attracted as much as it repelled. In that simple mix of flour, water, and yeast lay safety from the human world, tithed to the fae by human hands. The food on her courtiers’ plates was for pleasure, but this, in its way, was life: the ability to go among mortals without fear of iron or other banes.
Nodding, Lune handed the loaf back to Galen. He surrendered the bag to the usher, who took it in white-gloved hands and bowed his way out of the room. “We thank you, Dame Irrith,” the Queen said, with just enough dryness to hint that she hadn’t the faintest notion why Irrith had interrupted their dinner with a simple delivery.
Irrith wasn’t about to admit she’d done it merely to live up to that rash declaration of her own importance. She glanced up enough to see that yes, everyone was watching her; the Lord Keeper, Valentin Aspell, had his thin mouth curled in disdain. “I have something further to tell you, that maybe should be said in private.”
“Very well,” Lune said after a moment’s consideration, and rose. Chairs slid back all down the room as her guests rose in echo. “Please, continue your meal. Lady Amadea, Lord Galen, if you please.”
Galen waved one hand at Irrith, and she followed him, Lune, and the Lady Chamberlain into an adjoining room. It seemed to be a parlor of sorts, with chairs grouped for intimate conversation, and the carpet—while lacking in seed pearls—was luxuriously soft against Irrith’s feet. Amadea murmured a brief charm at the door, so their words wouldn’t be overheard by those in the next room, and then they were alone.
Lune seated herself. She made no gesture for anyone else to do so, but in this more private setting, her expression showed greater warmth. “Irrith. This is an unexpected pleasure; I had no idea you were returning to London. Amadea, if her state bothers you, then have a cloth brought to protect the carpet.”
Amadea went to the far door as Irrith curtsied, feeling a proper clown. “Tom Toggin convinced me to bring Wayland’s payment back for him. What in the name of most ancient Mab has been going on in this place, your Majesty? There’s houses out by Tyburn gallows, and the River Fleet has vanished!”
Amusement danced in Lune’s silver eyes. “The Fleet is still there, just underground. They built a culvert over it, oh, how long ago, Galen?”
The Prince thought it over. “The most recent stretch? Not long after I was born. Perhaps nineteen years? The river can still be seen, Dame Irrith, from Ludgate to the Thames.”
Which gave her some idea of how long she’d been gone. “And how does Blacktooth Meg feel about that?”
Lune’s amusement faded. “As you might expect. River hags are not pleasant creatures under the best of circumstances, and these are rather worse.”
Irrith had seen the hideous creature once before, well before the culverting of the river. Shuddering, she said, “I’m just as glad I didn’t have to cross her, then. But that isn’t what I need to tell you—” A hob popped through the door, interrupting her, and laid down a piece of sturdy canvas, all but lifting Irrith’s feet so the cloth could be placed more quickly. The carpet duly protected, she waited until the hob was gone, then said, “You almost didn’t get that bread. A black dog ambushed me at Tyburn and tried to steal it.”
“What?” The Queen came to her feet in a swift rustle of silk.
“I didn’t roll in the mud for fun—madam.” She added the courtesy address belatedly. Being in the Onyx Hall was bringing back the old manners she’d forgotten in the Vale. “He leapt out at me near the gallows, and tried to take the bag. Fortunately, Wayland gave me leave to take a bite of the bread when I neared London, so I could enter the City unharmed; the black dog wasn’t so lucky. I escaped when the church bells rang.”
Lune pressed one slender hand to her brow, then lowered it. “We do not begrudge you that grant from your King. Did you recognize the dog?”
Irrith shook her head. “Maybe if I’d seen his other face. But it was raining; I can’t even tell you what kind he was—padfoot, skriker, or what.”
The Queen exchanged a glance with her Prince. Irrith didn’t miss Galen’s helpless shrug. New, indeed. But there was something more in his manner, that she didn’t have the time to puzzle out; she didn’t want to compound her rudeness by staring at the Prince. Not in front of Lune.
Well, she’d done her duty, handing over the mortal bread the Onyx Court relied on, and telling of the one who’d tried to steal it. Few people in the vicinity of London tithed bread or milk to the fae any longer; Lune had to trade human curiosities to more distant courts, in exchange for their surplus. Those fae with the sense to live in places less riddled with iron and churches had much less need for protection.
But Irrith knew it didn’t end there. Nineteen years since the Fleet was culverted, the Prince said. Tom had hinted at the passage of time, but Irrith had refused to ask for a number. Now she couldn’t hold the question in. “Your Majesty—how long until the comet gets here?”
The Queen sank into her chair, as if suddenly weary, and gestured for her Prince to answer. Galen said, “We don’t know exactly. ‘Getting here’ . . . we know the time of the comet’s perihelion, but not the point at which the Dragon will make its leap.”
What Irrith knew about astronomy would fit into an acorn cap, so she merely rephrased her question. “How much time do you have left?”
“A year and a half,” he said. “Maybe less.”
She shivered. So little time. They’d had more than fifty years, when the seer’s warning first came. Where had it all gone?
“It
will be enough,” Lune whispered. She sounded as if she believed it, and perhaps she did; the Queen of the Onyx Court had faced down challenges before. Her face, however, was more than usually pale. Irrith couldn’t imagine what it must be like, living under such a threat for decades, counting the time like a mortal. Knowing that it was running out. Fifty years of that could, it seemed, sap the life from even a faerie queen.
Seeing that weakness, even for a moment, made Irrith uneasy. “With your permission, madam,” the sprite said, “I should like to clean myself up now. I didn’t want to delay getting that bread to you—”
“I appreciate your care,” Lune said, straightening in her chair, either banishing or hiding her weariness. “Amadea will provide you with a suitable chamber. Unless you intended to return to the Vale?”
Irrith thought about the culverted Fleet, and the houses around Tyburn, and the court under the patronage of a new and inexperienced Prince. So many changes. And little more than a year until the comet returned, possibly bringing this all to an end. “I will stay, at least a while.”
“Good.” Lune smiled, but it was a tense thing, carrying a tremendous weight of care. “This court needs all the friends it can find.”
When the muddy and half-clad sprite was gone with Lady Amadea, leaving Galen alone with the Queen, Lune rose once more. Instead of returning to the dining room, though, she went to the fireplace, and laid her hand upon the stone.
“So,” she said, her voice musical and quiet. “How did your evening go?”
Galen wished Dr. Johnson could see her now, shining with all the regal glory so absent from Britain’s Hanoverian King. There was transcendence in the polished gleam of her hair, and a portraitist might have wept for the opportunity to render her serene likeness on canvas. She was the reason he dwelt between worlds, the hidden Prince of a hidden court—despite the threat they faced.