“Thank you,” Rosamund said, and it sounded heartfelt. “But unfortunately, while bread helps, it can’t solve our problems.”
Gertrude gestured at the rustic comfort of their home. “Rose House isn’t the only place of this sort in London. There’s another one, much bigger than this, but it’s falling apart; all the changes in the City are destroying it. Soon enough, all the fae who live there now will have to go somewhere else. Out of London. Maybe out of this world entirely.”
“Flitting,” Lady Wilde said. “Collectors of folklore have been gathering the stories for years.”
Rosamund nodded. “But some folk are determined to stay. The two of us certainly are, and we’ll take in whoever we can. We know that someday, though, our house may face the same problem. Likely it will. So we have to think about what we can do to prevent that.”
She drew in a deep breath, then held it, as if unwilling to release the words it bore. Gertrude did it for her. “Rose and I have wondered for a long time now if maybe it wasn’t a mistake, keeping our presence here secret. What might have happened if we showed our faces, right from the start, and been a part of the city as it grew. An open part. We can’t go back and change that, of course—but there’s always the future, isn’t there? And we’re thinking of telling the world that we’re here.”
Again, none of the fae were surprised. It was, as Rosamund had said, a notion they had in mind when they formed this society. But among Myers’s fellow mortals …
“It has been done a bit in Ireland,” Lady Wilde said, while everyone else gaped. “When my late husband withdrew to Moytura and began collecting the local folklore, two Connemara faeries came to him and told him their stories. He never published them, and I myself have not yet decided what to do with the tales. But in Ireland, ’tis still common for people to know about the faeries nearby—if not as common as it once was.”
Myers found his tongue at last. “Are you not afraid that this might be even more dangerous to you?”
“Of course we are,” Gertrude said, with a touch of sharpness. “That’s why we’re being careful. The public meetings to see who’s interested, and then these private meetings for the ones we decide we can trust; and now we’re going to discuss it until we’re blue in the face.”
“And no matter what we decide, we aren’t doing anything yet,” Rosamund added. “Admitting our presence in London won’t save the Onyx Hall—that’s the other place we mentioned—and not everyone there thinks we should do this.” By the faint embarrassment in her tone, the opposition was in a clear majority. “But we intend to talk to the ones who do end up staying in London—especially the ones staying with us—and we’d like to be able to present them with a plan. Some notion of how this might be done, as safely as possible, with the best chance of success.”
Excitement of an unfamiliar sort was building beneath Myers’s ribs. Nothing had fired his imagination like this in years, not even his work with mediums. Annie would have been delighted, he thought. It brought with it a familiar lance of pain—but not as sharp as he would have expected. For the first time since she died, he found himself eager to pursue something that was not about communicating with her spirit. Eager, and guilty, as if he were somehow betraying her by thinking of other things.
Mrs. Chase rescued him from these thoughts by addressing him. “What do you think your friends in the Society for Psychical Research would make of this, Mr. Myers?”
Henry Sidgwick meeting faeries. The very notion made his head hurt. But— “It falls outside the purview of our usual work,” Myers admitted. “Then again, most of our members view fairy tales as a literary matter rather than a scientific one. If I were to write an article, or speak at one of our meetings—”
“Not yet,” Lady Amadea cautioned him.
“No, of course not. What I mean is, once aware of the situation, I imagine they would be eager to investigate.” He laughed ruefully. “They would probably make a new committee, and force me to be in charge of it. But if faeries are willing to meet with them, and show proof of their—your—natures and capabilities, then my colleagues will establish this field of study so quickly, it will make your head spin.”
“Will they be friendly?” the Irish faerie asked bluntly.
Myers blinked. “Why would they not be?”
“What I mean is, sure I don’t fancy being tossed in a cage like some kind of ape for folk to gawp at—”
“Eidhnin,” Rosamund said. Mild though her voice was, it hushed him. “Nobody will do anything until we’re sure. And if we can’t be sure, we won’t do it. But don’t gallop to meet future difficulties before you must. Mr. Myers, please continue. You mentioned committees; what exactly would this one do?”
By fits and starts, with contributions from fae and mortals alike, the London Fairy Society laid plans for a future beyond the death of the Onyx Hall.
Cromwell Road, South Kensington: May 19, 1884
For days the storm built, an unsubtle tension that put all the Kitterings’ servants on their toes, jumping at shadows. Mrs. Fowler struck anyone, maid or footman, who fell short in their duties; even the usually pleasant butler, Mr. Warren, began to employ the sharp side of his tongue. Little Sarah, the scullery maid, ceased to speak to anyone, and more than once Eliza caught Ann Wick looking through the “help wanted” advertisements in newspapers.
The source of the storm, of course, was Mrs. Kittering. Not her daughter; no, the creature pretending to be Louisa seemed the only one unaffected. She flitted through the house like a butterfly, delighting in the smallest things—when she was there at all. Her absences were frequent, despite her mother’s attempts to curb them, and that was the source of Mrs. Kittering’s fury; never tractable at the best of times, Louisa had become a wild thing indeed, and threatened to overturn every plan her mother had for her future.
When at last the thunder came, it was almost a relief. Almost—but not quite, for instead of breaking upon Louisa, the cause of all this trouble, it broke upon the servants.
Eliza’s fears took on sharper form the moment the bell rang on the downstairs wall, as if she could hear doom in that brassy, imperious sound. It signaled the drawing room, a place usually unoccupied at this hour of the morning, and Mrs. Fowler went to answer it. Within two minutes the housekeeper was downstairs again, her brows drawn together like those of an unpitying magistrate, and she ordered every last one of them up to the first floor.
Everyone: not just the maids, but Cook, the footmen, even the gardener and the grooms from the stables. Mrs. Fowler and Mr. Warren lined them all up against the north wall, facing the windows; the curtains had been drawn back, and despite that brilliant light, the gas lamps had also been lit. The effect reminded Eliza of a theater she’d gone to once, when she and Owen had a little money to spare; the searing limelights there had illuminated the actors for all to see. She did not think the staff had been assembled to entertain anyone, though.
Mrs. Kittering was an ominous shadow against the left-most window, looking out over the back terrace into the garden. The missus’s hands were locked above her bustle, and her spine was even more rigidly straight than her stays demanded. Unlike many women who had borne a large number of children, her aging body had not run to fat, and in her dark dress she looked like a skeletal, ravenous crow.
An impression that did not change when Mrs. Fowler murmured that all the servants were present, and Mrs. Kittering turned to face them at last. Eliza could see nothing of the missus’s expression—which was, she was sure, exactly as Mrs. Kittering wanted it. With slow, deliberate strides, the woman paced the length of the room, studying them all; then she pivoted by the grate and came back along their lines. Only when that was done did she speak.
“I want to know,” she said, carving each word into the air as if with a knife, “what has possessed my daughter.”
At the word possessed, Eliza tried not to jump. Fortunately, Mrs. Kittering’s attention was on Ned Sayers at that moment, so she did not notice her und
er-housemaid going rigid.
“It is not possible to keep secrets in this house,” Mrs. Kittering went on. This time, Eliza was better able to hide her reaction. You like to think that—or maybe you think that by saying it, you can make it be true. “I will discover what Louisa is hiding. Whatever you know, speak up now. I will be very grateful to the one who assists me in this matter.”
Keeping her mouth shut was no difficulty at all. Mrs. Kittering wanted an answer, but she didn’t want the truth; if Eliza spoke, the best she could hope for was a beating and immediate dismissal. Though part of her wanted to do it, just to see the incredulous look on Mrs. Kittering’s face. Your daughter’s gone, and I’m the only hope you’ve got for ever bringing her back.
Her own thought startled her. Bring Louisa Kittering back? Eliza scarcely cared two pins for the girl; had this been some other kind of trouble, she would have abandoned the silly chit to it, and good riddance. But she couldn’t save Owen and leave Louisa behind. Not if she had a chance to rescue both.
She might not. Among the few things Eliza was certain of, one was that the faerie who’d taken Louisa’s place was not the one who had stolen Owen, seven years ago. To begin with, this one was undoubtedly female. But there could not be many faeries in London; it beggared belief to think the changeling and the thief were not connected in some fashion. Find Louisa, find Owen—and then find a way to bring them back. If she could. Should it come to one or the other, Eliza would choose Owen in a heartbeat, and anyway there might not be a choice: in some of the tales it took true love to win a prisoner free, in which case Louisa was out of luck. But Eliza would cheat the faeries of both if she could.
Fortunately, cheating was another thing that happened in the tales.
With a start, she realized Mrs. Kittering was standing in front of her. In a cold voice, the woman said, “Anyone caught keeping secrets on Louisa’s behalf will regret it most acutely.”
Eliza disciplined her face, trying not to look as though her thoughts had been wandering. After a moment, Mrs. Kittering moved on, to stop in front of the coachman and his grooms. “Where has Louisa asked you to drive her, these last few months? I want to know every destination.”
Hearn began to stammer out a list, naming off dressmakers and dancing masters, museums and friends’ houses. He gave dates when he could, and Eliza wondered if Mrs. Kittering heard what she did, that the pattern had changed in recent days. The faerie had different interests than Louisa—strange ones, a fascination with matters that a human considered mundane or distasteful. What well-bred young lady wanted to tour the halls of a hospital, other than as part of some charitable visit?
In almost all these cases Louisa was chaperoned: by a friend, or one of her married sisters, or Lucy, the lady’s maid. Mrs. Kittering descended next upon the maid, interrogating her mercilessly about every last detail of Louisa’s activities. And here arose some oddities, for there were moments for which Lucy could not entirely account; she had become distracted, or occupied in some unnecessary task, and could not swear with a clear conscience that she knew what Louisa had done during that time. Mrs. Kittering soon reduced her to tears, provoking some sympathy from Eliza—but sympathy was soon pushed aside by the realization that Lucy’s distractions had begun before the changeling took Louisa’s place. Faerie trickery, she thought. It wasn’t random; the changeling had been following her target for some time before stealing her away.
It ended as it must, with Mrs. Kittering sacking Lucy, without any of the pay she was owed. “Count yourself fortunate I do not bring you to the attention of the police,” she said, viciously and without much cause; Lucy had committed no crime. But it was a favorite threat in the household, and the Kitterings wealthy enough that they could possibly follow through, condemning their erstwhile maid to the prison, the workhouse, or the lunatic asylum.
Eliza’s relief to have escaped the ax faltered when Mrs. Kittering turned her attention to the remaining servants. “I want to know everything she does. What she reads, from whom she receives letters. She will see no callers without me present; if I am not at home, then you will say that she is not, either. And above all, she is not to go out. Am I understood?”
They all answered promptly and with vigor, eager to avoid Lucy’s fate. It thwarted Eliza’s hope that she might contrive to be the changeling’s companion on a trip out of the house, and thereby corner her away from watchful eyes and ears; she would have to find another way.
She tried to pretend the prospect didn’t call up a note of fear, and failed. It was one thing to force information out of Louisa, a sheltered young woman whose notion of cruelty was to ignore someone at a garden party, but a faerie … Eliza’s breath shallowed at the thought, and her palms grew sweaty-cold. She knew firsthand how cruel they could be.
Think of Owen. Think of Mrs. Darragh, and Maggie. You’re willing to dare the Special Irish Branch for him; surely a faerie can be no worse.
Mrs. Kittering’s eyes were upon her once more. Eliza curtsied, her face a perfect mask of obedience, and left before the missus could guess at the plan forming behind her eyes.
Night Garden, Onyx Hall: May 22, 1884
At first glance, nothing in the night garden had changed. The Walbrook’s foul waters still flowed sluggishly through the rank plants; faerie lights still drifted aimlessly about; the blankets and miserable possessions of the refugees still littered the ground.
But the population of those refugees had changed. In the aftermath of the terrible earthquake, a great many of them had fled, if not in search of Faerie, then to somewhere else less dangerous than London. Into the gaps they left came the dregs of the Goblin Market.
When the first brave souls ventured back into the warren beneath Billingsgate, they found half of that warren had disappeared. Of the two passages connecting it to the rest of the palace, one had fallen in; some of the Cornish knockers tried to dig it out, but new dirt fell to replace what they carried away. That part of the Hall now let into the ground beneath London. Even if they could dig through, there would be no palace on the other side.
Part of Dead Rick’s reason for coming to the night garden was to get out of the Market. The part that vanished had included Lacca’s entire lair, from doss-houses to Po’s opium den; now the goblin woman was fighting tooth and claw—literally—to keep from being forced out by Nadrett and Hardface. And so it went, down to the lowest sprite, everyone kicking and shoving to find new space or keep what they had, and the losers coming here, to the garden.
He didn’t have to claw for a new place—because Nadrett had decided to shorten his leash, keeping Dead Rick in his own chambers more often than not. But if it weren’t for that, he would be homeless. The stone of his refuge had finished its collapse, burying his few treasures under broken marble and onyx. With no bread to shield him, fleeing through London now would be suicide.
The rest of his reason for coming lay near the chamber’s eastern end. Two obelisks rose there, one a gravestone, the other a memorial. The dirty surface of the latter held a list of names and dates, marking the reigns of past Princes of the Stone. In its base, a small flame burned: one of the few things in the garden that wasn’t broken or fallen or stained.
No doubt the names would have meant something to Dead Rick, once. He knew the first one, Michael Deven, belonged to the man buried under the other obelisk, where he’d found and chased that girl. The rest were mysteries to him. Hodge, the only Prince he remembered, hadn’t yet joined his predecessors in the stone; the twelfth and final name carved into the obelisk was Alexander Messina, dead in 1870, long before Dead Rick’s memories began.
The skriker paused, looking at the dates. Doing the precise sums would have taken too long, but a glance was enough to show the pattern: each Prince’s reign had been shorter than the last, for quite some time now. There were two in the middle of the last century who only made it a handful of years each, Hamilton Birch and Galen St. Clair; the next, Matthew Abingdon, had done a good deal better, but after him
it went steadily down.
“Probably the palace killing them,” he muttered. “Which one will go first: Hodge or the Hall?”
At the rate of progress on the Inner Circle Railway, it would be the Hall. The navvies were laying a short stretch of rail already, from Mark Lane partway toward Eastcheap Station at the Monument; that had been the cause of the earthquake. From there it was just a short gap to Mansion House, along Cannon Street and past the London Stone. The newspapers said it would be open for service by the autumn.
He scowled and jerked away from the obelisk, with its forlorn list of mortal men who’d served the Onyx Court. The finger bone he’d laid on the ground alongside it was still there, he saw, with no ashes anywhere nearby to signal that his ally the voice had seen it. Dead Rick dug in his pocket and pulled out a beef bone, cracked open for its marrow, dropping it onto the dead grass. Perhaps the finger, placed there after the incident with the ghost in the sewers, was too small, and his ally had overlooked it.
Unlikely. Much more probable that he’d given up. Or been discovered and cut down by Nadrett.
Or been in the Goblin Market when part of it vanished.
Dead Rick nudged the bone into better position with his toes and retreated, not wanting to be seen there. Intending to take a different path out of the garden, he headed toward the center and the Walbrook—only to stop short at the sight of a familiar figure, sitting on the edge of a dry and leaf-choked fountain.
Irrith spotted him at the same time and let out a dry huff of a laugh. “Seven years I don’t see one hair of your tail, and now I can’t turn around without tripping over you.”
“Are you following me?”
It came out hard and suspicious, and her eyebrows went up. “No. I came here because—”