A Star Shall Fall

“Mens sana in corpore sano,” Magrat said. “That’s Latin, you know. ‘A sound mind in a sound body’—not that anyone in this black warren’s terribly sound, but nobody asked me before picking the name. What the Sanists want to know is, how can we make the palace strong when its Queen isn’t?”

She didn’t have to say anything more. Irrith knew exactly what she meant. Lune had taken two wounds in the past: one from an iron knife, and one from the Dragon. Neither would ever heal properly. Which meant the faerie realm was ruled over by a Queen who wasn’t whole.

The Queen was her realm. It was the basic principle of faerie sovereignty; the bond between the two was the foundation for authority. Carline had tried to find the London Stone because that was the focal point, the place where she could, perhaps, wrest authority away. Now, it seemed, she was trying something else: the force of popular opinion, and the weight of faerie tradition.

What if the Sanists were right? What if what London needed, for its own sake, was a new Queen?

Irrith glanced away, to keep Magrat from reading her expression. Not a good plan: the Crow’s Head was filled with other fae, some of them eavesdropping, some not, but all of them probably willing to sell rumors if offered a price. The galley-beggar sliding past her in the close quarters of the tavern had no ears to hear with, nor eyes to see—nor, for that matter, a head to put such things in—but that wouldn’t stop him. If he could drink the coffee in his hand, he could carry tales, too.

“Welcome back to London,” Magrat said dryly. “A nest of vipers, all with their tails tied together, because nobody’s quite willing to give this place up. Except you, fifty years ago.”

When she’d abandoned Turkish carpets and dirty rushes in favour of clean dirt and wild strawberries, politics and spying and insurrection for hunting beneath the summer moon. It would be easy enough to escape this snare again; all she had to do was put down her ale cup, walk out the nearest entrance, and return to the Vale.

Easy enough to leave. Staying away was harder. All it had taken was Tom Toggin, and the recollection of the coming threat, to drag her back into the city. Because, as Magrat said, she wasn’t quite willing to give it up.

Out of the corner of her eye, Irrith saw the church grim’s lipless mouth twitch. Suddenly suspicious, the sprite demanded, “Have you made another bet with Dead Rick? Maybe one about how I’ll go crawling back to the Vale before the season is out?”

The grim’s smile was all teeth. “That’s what he thinks. I’d be obliged if you didn’t; I stand to win a pair of eyes off him.”

Gambling, at least, was something Irrith understood. So was a challenge. She returned Magrat’s grin fiercely. “All right. I could see my way clear to obliging you… if you give me something in return.”

“Iron blast your soul,” the goblin said, but the venom was only halfhearted. “I should’ve known better than to tell you that. All right, what do you want?”

“More information. Not now; I’ll save the debt for later. And I’ll make it something small.”

Magrat thought it over, then spat in her hand again. Wet palms joined, the church grim said, “I’m counting on your stubbornness. Don’t you disappoint me.”

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON

12 February 1758

My own court should not be a distraction to me.

Lune recognised the foolishness of that sentiment, even as she thought it. Political difficulties did not resolve themselves just because there was an external threat; some might, but others worsened. For every faerie who decided a wounded Queen was a problem for later, after the defeat of the Dragon, there was another who felt that now more than ever, they needed a sovereign who was whole.

The best she could do was to keep one finger on that pulse, and try to anticipate where real trouble might break out. To that end, she met in private with her Lord Keeper, Valentin Aspell.

“As you might expect, madam,” the lord said in his quiet, sibilant voice, “the reaction is mixed. Some take it as a hopeful sign: if you can achieve something as great as the Calendar Room, then surely you can mend the Onyx Hall.”

He let a hint of reproach through. The major responsibility of the Lord Keeper, at least publicly, was the maintenance of enchanted items; the Calendar Room, while hardly something that would fit into the royal treasury, might have fallen under his authority. Lune had shared the secret only with those few who needed to know, however, and Aspell had not been one of them.

Hopeful signs were good. She knew better than to believe they comprised the majority, though. “What of the rest?”