A Star Shall Fall

And a few, like Magrat, made new homes elsewhere. The goblin, who had once known whether the dead were destined for Heaven or Hell, now traded in different sorts of information. It wasn’t political; Magrat didn’t give a priest’s damn what use those secrets were put to. She only cared if she got paid.

Irrith slid onto the bench across from her and got a nod. “You cost me a child’s first nightmare,” the goblin said, without much rancor. “I bet Dead Rick you wouldn’t return, after that business over the Stone.”

The sprite’s stomach turned over. Blood and Bone—how had that become public knowledge? It had been a state secret when she left.

“Don’t worry,” Magrat told her, after a swig of gin. “No one’ll be after you for that anymore. Your knowledge turned to worthless dust when the mortals moved the thing to the north side of Cannon Street. Mab only knows where it is down here, now.”

Moved the Stone? Irrith did her best to keep the shock from her face. The London Stone was the heart of the Onyx Hall. If the mortals had moved it… she was surprised any of the palace was holding together anymore.

Secrecy now was rather like closing the stable door after the horse had bolted, but she owed it to Lune anyway. “I came to buy, not sell,” Irrith said. “Tell me about the Sanists.”

Magrat had no eyebrows, but the gray-tinged skin above her black eyes rose into furrows. “Sanists, is it? That’ll cost you.”

It always cost her. But Irrith knew it didn’t have to cost as much as Magrat made out. “What do you want?”

“Bread. Three pieces.”

Irrith laughed in the goblin’s face. “For that, I could buy the name of the next Prince. This isn’t worth bread, Magrat, and I don’t have any to give anyway. It’s more valuable than oaths, these days.” An exaggeration, but not by much. “How about the memory of a kiss?”

Magrat rolled her eyes in exaggerated disgust. Irrith added, “Not just any kiss. The last one given by a young man to his lady love, before he went off and got killed by the Jacobites.” It was all that remained of Tom Toggin’s bribe, and Irrith had been saving it for special use. The lady had feared, when her lover went off, that he was going to die, tinging the memory with a presentiment of grief.

“Done,” the grim said without hesitation, and spat in her hand. Irrith did the same, and they shook. She hadn’t brought the captured memory with her, of course; too many fae here had wandering fingers. The handshake was enough to secure the deal. “It’s cheap information,” Magrat admitted. “Lots of people know about the Sanists. But I can tell you more than most. It’s funny you should ask me, really, when you’ve dealt with them yourself.”

“I have?” It gave Irrith an unpleasant start. She’d wondered at the lubberkin’s whisper—had he somehow hit the mark?

Magrat waggled her over-long fingers in the air. “Not under that name. They didn’t start calling themselves Sanists until after you’d left. And Carline doesn’t let herself be seen anywhere near those folk—not publicly.”

A second start, more unpleasant than the first. Carline. Formerly one of the Queen’s ladies of the bedchamber, and the reason Irrith had left the Onyx Hall, intending never to return. “You’re talking about people who want to replace the Queen.”

The church grim unbent one spindly leg to shove something across the floor toward Irrith. “See for yourself.”

The thing turned out to be a torn, filthy sheet of paper. Irrith picked it up and found a title printed across the top in large block letters. The Ash and Thorn. Dated 10 February 1758.

“A newspaper?” Irrith lowered it to stare at Magrat. “There’s a newspaper in the Onyx Hall?”

“Two, actually. What good’s one newspaper, if it doesn’t have another to argue with? The Sun and Moon is the one loyalists read. This one publishes Sanists.”

Irrith’s stare shifted outward, to swing around the Crow’s Head. She’d noticed other fae reading things that looked like newspapers, but she’d assumed they’d been brought down from above. No doubt some of them had—but not all. She couldn’t concentrate enough to read the one in her hand, so she dumbly echoed Magrat’s words. “Sanists. Published in a newspaper. You’re saying they make their treason public?”

The grim waggled her hand. “Yes and no. Mostly they don’t talk about replacing her. They just mention what a shame it is, the Queen wounded and unhealing, and look how the Hall suffers, too, bits of it fraying away. And then, if they’re feeling bold, they wonder how it might be made well.”

Irrith’s fingers clenched in the filthy paper. This wasn’t Carline’s old treason; that had been simple, damnable ambition, using things like the comet’s return as an excuse to gather support against Lune. This time—Blood and Bone.

This time, they had a point.