A Star Shall Fall

“You won’t be here to see it, though. Because you’ll be gone. Do you imagine yourself looking down from Heaven, seeing us all mourn you as you deserve?” Irrith’s eyes blazed green, burning with inhuman light. “What makes you think you’re going to Heaven at all?”

Galen’s heart pounded once, hard enough to shake his entire body, and then it stopped.

The sprite’s slender frame was rigid with emotion. The only thing moving was her breast, heaving with her shallow gasps. Then it slowed, and Irrith said, more quietly but with no less force, “I don’t know your divine Master. But I know this much: he does not love suicides. And what would you call it, when a man embraces death for love of a faerie queen?”

He had no answers. His heart was beating again, but he could not draw breath. Her questions rang in his head, the echoes multiplying instead of fading out, and all he could see was Irrith’s green eyes, shifting as no human eyes could.

And Lune’s face, the perfect portrait that had resided in his memory since he first saw her above Southwark, shining in the night sky. His goddess.

Irrith opened her mouth, as if to say something more. But no sound came out, and then she spun away and was gone, slamming the door shut behind her, leaving him alone with the silent fire.

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON

15 April 1759

It was not the Queen’s mourning night, but the great garden of the Onyx Hall was empty. At Lune’s request, even Ktistes had departed, leaving her alone with the trees and grass, fountains and stream, and the faerie lights blazing the image of a comet across the ceiling above.

She walked without purpose, without seeing, up one path and down another, lost in the maze of her own thoughts. In nearly one hundred and seventy years of rule, Lune had faced many challenges to the Onyx Hall and her rule over it. More than once she had thought herself at the end of that road, doomed to lose her realm, her sovereignty, or even her life. And always she had found a way to continue.

Always—until now.

The weight of the Dragon already lay upon her. She remembered that searing touch, the annihilating force of its attention. Soon she would feel it anew. The last clouds were shredding; they would not endure until the end of the month. The reports from Paris were that Messier was having difficulty sighting the comet, obscured as it was in the morning twilight, and soon he might lose it entirely; but after that it would reappear in the evening sky. They would face the Dragon whether they were ready or not.

She was not alone after all. Someone was waiting on the path ahead.

Galen.

The meticulous elegance of his apparel set off a warning bell in her mind. She’d seen such a thing before—had done it herself. He dressed with care because it was a form of armor, a way of preparing for battle.

They had not spoken to one another directly since he fled Rose House. She knew what battle he expected, and was prepared for it.

But Galen surprised her by bowing, with the same flawless care that marked his appearance. “Your Grace, I bring you good tidings. I know how to kill the Dragon.”

Kill. Not trap, or banish, or appease. End. And ensure their safety forever.

So why did the Prince not look happier?

Formality rose, unbidden, to her lips; she dismissed it. That was the game he wanted to play, and she didn’t trust it. Instead she asked directly, “How?”

“It requires a little preparation,” he said. “With your permission, Abd ar-Rashid and I will enter the Calendar Room for that purpose—though I know we can ill afford to lose eleven days. But the principle, madam, is sound.

“Much of it will be the prior plan. We will use the Monument to summon the Dragon down into the chamber in its base. This will be armored in gold, to prevent it from fleeing while an alchemical conjunction is performed. But not with sophic mercury: instead we will bind it into mortal form. If this does not immediately result in the death of that host, and therefore the death of the Dragon, then it will at least be vulnerable, as it was not before.” He bowed again. “Your Grace, I will undertake this duty myself.”

Duty. Binding. Elegant words, to blunt the raw edge of his meaning.

He still intended to die.

Galen didn’t flinch away from her gaze. He’d gotten better at lying, but not perfected the art. There was fear beneath the surface, whose existence he was doing his best not to show.

Fear held in check by certainty. The principle was sound. Every detail of their predicament was too firmly graven into Lune’s mind for her to delude herself on that front; offering herself up to the Dragon as appeasement was a weak possibility at best. Even Aspell had known that. Binding the Dragon to mortality stood a far better chance of success.

He hadn’t come here expecting argument, she realised. The armour was not for her. It was for himself, to hold the fear at bay.