A Star Shall Fall

Lune didn’t flinch at the accusation, much less protest. Irrith would have gone on even if the Onyx Guard were there with swords out to stop her. “You know what he’s like. You know he’s in love with you. And you thought he’d stand by while you put yourself in danger?”

More than just danger, but neither of them would say it directly. Not here, inside the Onyx Hall. Irrith had heard it from the Goodemeades. If she could have gone to the cells beneath the Tower and dragged Aspell out of his hundred-year-sleep, she would have spit in his face. He’s still succeeded, even after being defeated.

And Irrith herself was partly to blame. She was the real idiot. Not the Queen.

Me and Galen. We’re both too stupid to be let out without keepers.

They were alone in the chamber, with strict guard on the door outside. Lune sat with her head bowed, but in thought, not penitence. Her slender hands rested atop the pillar-and-claw table at her side, as if she were sitting for a portrait—probably some study in melancholy.

“Do you love him?”

The question rocked Irrith back on her heels. “Who? Galen?”

The Queen nodded.

“No. I don’t.”

One pale finger tapped against the table’s pearly surface. After a strange pause, during which Irrith could not begin to guess the thoughts in her head, Lune said, “You’ve been his lover, though.”

Most of the Onyx Hall probably knew, without need for royal spies. “I was. Until he got married. He means to keep faith with his wife.”

“But he doesn’t love her.” Lune shifted, leaningback in her chair, still thoughtful. It wasn’t idle thought: she was more like an owl, searching out suitable prey. “I’ve watched them closely, because I hoped he might, but no. They feel nothing more than friendship for each other. In time it might grow to love… but not soon enough.”

Irrith regretted it even as she asked, “Soon enough for what?”

The Queen’s mouth settled into a line Irrith had seen before, determination in the face of impossibility. “To save him. He might not throw his life away if he felt it would hurt another. Unfortunately, he’s done his duty by his family—their wealth is restored—and he has no children yet. I am the only one he loves, and he knows too well that I do not love him back. I would regret his passing, but not deeply enough.”

Her silver regard settled on Irrith, who suddenly felt like the mouse the owl had been waiting for. “You could make that choice.”

To love him. It was a choice, on the part of the fae; that was why they adored stories of mortal passion. The notion that love could strike without warning and sweep away all reason was alien, baffling. Fondness could happen that way, even infatuation, but not love. That required a conscious decision to give over one’s heart.

She’d wondered, ever since she met this Queen who loved a mortal man, what it would be like.

But she also knew the price.

“Tell me this,” Irrith said, crossing her arms and tucking her elbows close against her body, as if to warm the chill inside. “What Dr. Andrews did to you, that ‘cleansing.’ Did it take away the grief you feel for Michael Deven?”

The first Prince of the Stone, dead these hundred years and more. Lune said, “No.”

So even alchemy could not end the mourning of a faerie who gave her heart. Irrith shook her head. “Then no. I won’t. Even if it did stop him, I’d have at most, what—fifty years more? Sixty, if his health is very good? Then an eternity of grief. And he would hate me for having made him choose between me and you.” If it was even a choice. Just because one person loved, didn’t mean the other would. Galen’s fruitless devotion proved that.

Something finally broke through the serenity Lune had maintained all this time, ever since her rescue from Dr. Andrews’s knife. “He’ll throw his life away,” she said, helplessly. “For no better reason than to save himself from watching me die.”

Much as Lune herself proposed to do. But it wasn’t a fair comparison; she at least had some hope of appeasing the Dragon, even if only for a while.

“Stop him,” Lune said. “Please, Irrith. I cannot.”

The only way to stop him would be to find a better answer. One that didn’t end in either a dead Queen or a dead Prince, much less both.

Irrith didn’t know if such an answer existed. But it wouldn’t do any good to say that, and so she answered, “I will.”

GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET, SOHO

9 April 1759

A few awkward conversations at Royal Society meetings and the dinners beforehand did not a true acquaintance make. Galen cared little for such niceties, though—not now. As soon as he discovered Henry Cavendish’s address, he went there straightaway, and made it clear to the servants that he would not be put off. “I must see Mr. Cavendish on a matter of most urgent business. He is the only man who can help me.” I only pray that he can.