A Star Shall Fall

Irrith staggered away from the table that had sheltered her. Savennis’s clouded eyes stared blindly at the ceiling, as if refusing to look at the gaping hole in his chest. Alcohol, and less pleasant things: she’d been smelling old blood. It stained the table, the shackles that held Savennis, the cracks between the stone flags of the floor, where no amount of scrubbing could remove it.

Her mind refused to put the pieces together, the corpses and the blood and the knives, the rowan chains no faerie could break and the jars of alcohol holding things she didn’t want to recognise. Dr. Andrews. Valentin Aspell. There was a picture here, but she could not see it around the scream that filled her mind.

She ran. Even iron couldn’t keep her out of the kitchen, her one route to safety; she was through the window and up the stairs before she knew she was moving, running away from Red Lion Square, back to something like safety.

But time had passed; people were beginning to move, in the murky predawn light. She tried to put up a glamour, lost it before she’d gone ten steps. Irrith snatched desperately at everything she knew of London, every black alley and hidden nook, every series of rooftops that afforded her a road away from where people could see. She had to make it back to the Onyx Hall. Had to stop Aspell, whatever he was planning for the morning. She had to.

She made it down Holborn, past the flat new space of the Fleet Market where sellers were beginning to set up their wares, through the broken mouth of Newgate, until she was on the roof of the pawnbroker’s that held the hidden entrance.

Church bells caught her there, and she fell.

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON

16 March 1759

The usher, it seemed, had been given new instructions. “Lord Galen, Prince of the Stone, and his wife Lady Delphia!”

The lady in question colored at the unaccustomed title, but sallied bravely forward with her arm in his. Galen nodded at the curtsies and bows they received, and approached Lune in her chair of estate. “Lord Galen,” the Queen said, with a smile that warmed her worried eyes. “We did not expect to see you here so soon after your wedding.”

“The comet may still be concealed in the light of the sun,” Galen said, “but that’s no excuse for laziness on my part. And my lady wife was eager to spend more time in the Onyx Hall.” Now that she could do so with greater ease. No one could object if Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair chose to wander off in each other’s company.

“Lady Delphia,” Lune said, and received another curtsy in reply. “If you are so eager, then we’ll put you into the keeping of Lady Amadea, our chamberlain, who will acquaint you with the other ladies.”

Amadea seemed pleased enough, though some of the others were clearly not so sure. Galen kissed his wife’s hand and let her go. She would do well enough in the Lady Chamberlain’s company.

A brief exchange was occurring at the door behind him, someone handing a note to the usher, who passed it to a nearby lord, who brought it to Lune with a bow. The Queen unfolded it, and Galen saw surprise break over her like a wave. “Lord Galen, if you would—”

He followed her into the small privy chamber beyond. His curiosity didn’t last long; Lune said in a voice that carried no farther than the two of them, “Dr. Andrews says he has succeeded at last. Sophic mercury, extracted in a form we can use, like drawing blood from a patient. He’s invited me to Red Lion Square to see.”

“Only you?”

“You, Lord Galen, are supposed to be at Sothings Park still, enjoying your connubial bliss. No doubt a letter is seeking you there, without result. In a moment we’ll go back out, and my courtiers will hear me send you to Holborn, to consult with Dr. Andrews.”

Amusement rippled inside him. It felt good; the knot of tension that had bound his heart since Abd ar-Rashid first brought up the moon queen was coming untied at last. Lune did not seem so relieved, but her determination was unmistakable. “I’ll find you waiting for me in Newgate, won’t I?”

“I thought the Fleet Market would be an appropriate rendezvous. Meet me there in half an hour.”

RED LION SQUARE, HOLBORN

16 March 1759

They shared a carriage, knees almost brushing in its close confines, and arrived at Dr. Andrews’s house a little before noon. The footman escorted them up to the drawing room on the piano nobile. This was where Andrews had displayed his menagerie, before illness forced him to disband it. The room was less comfortable than the back parlor, and despite the chill in the air, no fire burnt in the grate: an unusual piece of carelessness, from Andrews’s usually scrupulous servants. Nor was Andrews there.