A Star Shall Fall

No one did. Irrith hadn’t realised just how complicated this “alchemical plan” would turn out to be. She wandered toward Abd ar-Rashid and stood frowning over the Arab’s shoulder. He was sketching something with a careful hand, but she could make no sense of it. “What is that?” she asked.

The genie answered without looking up. “We need a vessel, an alembic, in which to effect our work. The intent is to use the Monument to the Great Fire, the chamber in its base.”

That explained the general shape, but—“What about that stuff at the top?”

The pen lifted from its line and paused. “Mirrors,” Abd ar-Rashid said. His accent had improved to the point that she could detect impatience in the answer. “And lenses. I am told that observation from London will bring the Dragon down, but the Monument is a zenith telescope; it cannot be pointed at its target. Since the comet will not pass directly above, we must direct the observer’s gaze.”

She could understand the difficulty easily enough, but not Abd ar-Rashid’s sketch of a possible answer. Much simpler was the question Dr. Andrews asked of the room at large, utterly without warning. “What happens when a faerie dies?”

Podder dropped his penknife. Irrith said, “How do you mean?”

The doctor had been frowning over some notes in his hand. Now he put them down and frowned at the wall across from him instead. “After a faerie dies, I should say. Suppose this Dragon is killed, instead of trapped or transformed. Will its body decay, according to the ordinary way of such things?”

That, at least, was a topic Irrith was qualified to speak on. “It won’t rot, no. They just fall to dust over time, bones and all.”

“Not dust,” Wrain corrected her. “Nothingness.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “I meant it poetically.”

“And sometimes it takes no time at all,” Feidelm added. “The body just vanishes.”

“I suppose that explains why no one has ever found a faerie graveyard,” Andrews mused. He tapped his cheek with the ragged end of his quill. “And the spirits?”

“They die, too,” Wrain said.

He sounded grim, as most faeries did when they spoke of their own deaths. We don’t like thinking of it—that our eternity may see an end. For some reason it was even more disturbing now, in this well-lit room, than it had been on All Hallows’ Eve. Hugging herself, Irrith said, “Not always, though. Don’t some faeries go on?”

“Where? To Heaven, whose Master does not love us? Or down below, where the devils have their day? Perhaps you think they go into Faerie.” Wrain’s snort showed what he thought of that. “Superstitious nonsense, told by frightened fae who wish to believe they can look forward to something after.”

It stung Irrith, less because she believed it herself than because Lune did. “Her Majesty said she saw a faerie go elsewhere, once.”

“Oh? To where? And how did she know it was so?”

Irrith fiddled with a nearby microscope. “She didn’t say.”

Andrews seemed obscurely pleased. He jotted a series of notes in a nearby book, lips moving in a soundless mutter. Sometimes the man disturbed Irrith, and not just because he was dying; his passion for ideas bordered on the unnatural.

She wished for a different subject, one that would not make her think of Aspell and Lune. A diversion presented itself, in the form of the Prince, who was sitting bolt upright with the book forgotten in his hands. “Galen? What is it?”

He didn’t seem to hear her at first. Then she moved in front of him, and he shifted and came awake. “Have you thought of something?” Irrith asked.

“Vanishing.” He pronounced the word as if it were an epiphany, but she shook her head, not understanding. “Like Lady Feidelm said. Sometimes the body just vanishes. Why?”

“Lune said it happened to the faerie she was talking about,” Irrith said, remembering. “The one she thought went… elsewhere.”

“Yes! Precisely! What if that’s it? What if the fae who vanish are the ones who go on instead of ending?”

His excited cry had everyone’s attention now. Dr. Andrews said, “Some property of aether, perhaps—”

Galen’s hands flew through the air, cutting him off. “No, no—well, yes, perhaps, but not the way you’re thinking. You gave a lecture on this yourself, Dr. Andrews; don’t you remember? At Mrs. Vesey’s house. On Cartesian philosophy, the separation of Mind and Body. What if that’s one of the laws that differs here, in faerie spaces—or more to the point, with faerie bodies?”

Irrith struggled to understand him, because this had animated him so greatly. “You mean that minds and bodies aren’t separate? Our minds and bodies aren’t?”