A Star Shall Fall

The idea had already occurred to him. Galen bit his thumbnail in thought—a habit his mother had tried and failed to break him of. “I confess, when I thought of the Royal Society, I was considering astronomers more than anything. But I’m not certain they can do much for us; it seems unlikely there’s any effective way to trap the Dragon upon its comet. Which means we are looking for some means to defeat it on the ground. Dr. Andrews is a physician, and also perhaps something of a chemist—well, intellectual men learn about all kinds of things, and I imagine he’s no different. His primary learning, however, is in medicine.”

The Queen folded her fan one stick at a time, fingers trailing over the edge. “It would not be the first time a physician’s been of use to us. My preference, I admit, would be to kill the Dragon; at this point it seems the only way to ensure it never troubles us again. And perhaps this Dr. Andrews might know something that could help.”

“He seemed pretty clever, madam,” Irrith said, with a curtsy that proved she did not often wear so elegant a dress. “And he knows about all kinds of strange things.”

“I will try, madam,” Galen promised the Queen. Visions danced before his mind’s eye: a gathering of fae, like a second Royal Society, and himself standing before them, presenting a scientific plan for the slaying of the Dragon. He would never be able to ride at it in armor, lance in hand, like a hero of old—but this, he could do.

And then Lune would look at him, and those silver eyes would warm, and then—

Irrith was watching him. Suddenly afraid that his thoughts were showing on his face, Galen blushed and took his leave. Dreams of heroism did no one any good if he did not put them to action.

PART TWO DESTILLATIO Winter 1758

If the Scale of Being rises by such a regular Progress, so high as Man, we may by a parity of Reason suppose that it still proceeds gradually through those Beings which are of a Superior Nature to him; since there is an infinitely greater space and room for different Degrees of Perfection between the Supreme Being and Man, than between Man and the most despicable Insect […] In this System of Being, there is no Creature so wonderful in its Nature, and which so much deserves our particular Attention, as Man, who fills up the middle Space between the Animal and Intellectual Nature, the visible and invisible World, and is that Link in the Chain of Beings, which has often been termed the nexus utriusque Mundi.

JOSEPH ADDISON,

THE SPECTATOR

, No. 519

With stately grace, the planets mark the passage of time, scribing out the different arcs of their years. The ellipses contract as the comet moves inward, the years growing ever shorter, as if time itself runs faster. They cluster about the sun, the little planets do: round balls of stone and stranger things, Mercury, Venus, Mars.

And in their midst, Earth.

It is scarcely a speck in the distance. Scarcely even that. The sun is god to the comet, the beacon that calls it home and bids it farewell as it leaves, and the sun is bright in the void. But for the creature that rides the comet, the sun is nothing: only the spark that will set it alight once more.

Earth is everything. For while the beast sleeps, it dreams, and remembers the City where it was born.

RED LION SQUARE, HOLBORN

13 January 1758