A Star Shall Fall

They had drifted to a halt in the middle of the path, surrounded by foxgloves and sunshine and the hard-packed dust of the ground. In the near distance, ordinary Londoners went about their work, blissfully free of the screaming apprehension that gripped Galen’s throat again, strangling him more with every moment in which Dr. Andrews did not respond.

He has to believe me. He must.

“Mr. St. Clair,” Andrews said, then stopped.

His chin was down even farther now, the brim of his hat concealing his expression. His hands were still behind his back, and in the set of his shoulders Galen saw rigid tension. It was to be expected; no one could take such a revelation in stride. But once he had a moment to assimilate it—

Andrews raised his head, and met Galen’s eyes with sober concern. “Mr. St. Clair, I’m not certain what possessed you to bring me out here with such a story. My guess is that you have been deceived by a mountebank—perhaps one offering wild promises of restoring your family’s fortune; perhaps one merely preying on your admirable heart, with these tales of faeries in need of a savior. I shudder to think what assistance he has asked of you.”

“There is no mountebank!” Galen exclaimed, horrified. “Dr. Andrews—”

The gentleman’s mouth hardened. “If no one has deceived you, then I must conclude that you are attempting to deceive me. I do not wish to know what your request would have been. Should I learn that, I would be forced to go to your father and share the news of this unfortunate encounter. As it stands, Mr. St. Clair, I offer you this much: I will not tell your father, nor will I bring any trouble upon you for wasting my time and goodwill. But in return, I must insist that you cease to attend the Royal Society. I can no longer in good conscience admit you as my guest, and should you persuade your father to do so again, I will speak against it to Lord Macclesfield. Have I made myself clear?”

He could have torn Galen’s heart from his chest and stomped it into the dust and he would not have been more clear. Galen wished he could sink into that dust, or leap into the sky and flee on the wings of a hawk—anything that would remove him from this sunny lane, and the disgusted gaze of Dr. Andrews.

Like an automaton’s, his mouth opened and formed words, without the instruction of his brain. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Andrews made a curt bow, barely more than a slight twitch forward. “I believe you can find your way home from here. Good day, Mr. St. Clair.”

* * *

Around the point when Irrith followed Galen to Red Lion Square, she had to admit she was spying on him.

How else was she to satisfy her curiosity? He was ludicrously easy to follow; a simple glamour, and she could shadow him wherever he went. Not into Royal Society meetings, where she would have to pretend to be one of the members, but other places were open to her. She visited his favourite bookshop, and saw what titles interested him. She loitered in his favourite coffeehouse, drinking the foul, bitter tonic while he played games of chance with his friends. She even investigated his house, with his three sisters and his tyrannical father.

It wasn’t spying. It was…

Very well, it’s spying.

And it sounded a bit shameful when she admitted that. Especially since she was neglecting the task Lune had set her, the concealment of England. Well and good to say she was waiting on the Queen’s negotiations with the Greeks and the folk of the sea, but Irrith had better things to do with her time than spying on the Prince.

She’d been considering sneaking into the house of the Marvellous Menagerie, to overhear what Galen might be saying, but now it didn’t seem like such a good idea. She was on the verge of convincing herself to go home when Galen emerged once more, this time in the company of that man. Dr. Andrews. The one with the fake satyr.

Following someone through green fields wasn’t shameful; it was one of her favourite pastimes in Berkshire. And she was very, very good at it. Freed from her doubts, Irrith crept close enough to hear Galen’s unbelievable speech, and Andrews’s unbelieving reaction.

She bit down on a curse. While the two men took their leave of each other, going separate ways, she fought the urge to chew on the brambles that concealed her. I should have warned Galen. I knew, when I asked him about satyrs—this isn’t a man who wants to believe in faeries. But she hadn’t realised that was what the Prince had in mind.

If she hurried, she might catch Andrews before he came among the houses once more, and then she could make certain he never reached them. Never had the chance to repeat what Galen had revealed.

But no; the Prince thought Andrews would be useful. She couldn’t simply kill him, even if he’d proved his lack of use.

It gave her another idea, though.