In Ashes Lie

The beating heart of London’s commerce sweltered like an oven in the early heat, dampening undershirts and linen collars, and subduing the voices that echoed off the walls. In the open stone of the courtyard, the sun hammered down on the hats and caps of the finely dressed merchants and customers who met to conduct business or exchange news. Some took refuge in the gallery ringing the space, where shade offered a relative degree of relief.

Upstairs, in the tiny enclosed shops, the air was stiflingly close. Sir Antony Ware fanned uselessly at his dripping face with a sheaf of papers—a petition foisted on him by a man outside. He might read it later, but for now, it served a better purpose. The fingers of his free hand trailed over a bottle of cobalt glass, while from behind the table the shopkeeper beamed encouragement at him. Those who patronized the Royal Exchange tended to be the better class of men, but even so, for this fellow to claim a baronet and alderman of London as a customer would give him a touch of prestige.

For his own part, Antony was more concerned with the question of whether Kate would like the bottle, or whether she would laugh at being presented with yet another gift. Pondering that, he heard too late the voice calling his name. The man trying to press through a knot of people outside stumbled and fell into him. Antony caught himself against the edge of the table, dropping the petition and setting the bottles to rocking dangerously.

He twisted to curse the man who made him stagger, but swallowed it at the last moment. “Sorry,” Thomas Soame said, recovering his balance. “God’s blood—everyone and his brother is packing in here. My foot snagged another fellow’s, I fear.”

“No harm done,” Antony said, reassuring the glass merchant with a calming hand. “I did not see you.”

“Nor hear me, it seems. Come, let’s away, before someone else jostles me and disaster ensues. What is that?”

Antony sighed as he collected the scattered sheets, marked with damp patches where he had clutched them in his sweating hand. “A petition.”

“For what?”

“No idea; I have not read it yet.”

“Might be wiser to keep it that way. We could paper the walls of the Guildhall with the petitions that get shoved at us.” Soame wasted no time, but turned and bulled his way carefully through the corridor outside. Following in his broad-shouldered wake, Antony hoped his friend did not mean to stand out in the courtyard and converse.

He did not. They descended the staircase, and so out into the clamor of Cornhill. Soame paused to let a keg-laden cart rumble past, and Antony catch up to him. Settling his hat more comfortably on his head, Antony asked the younger man, “Where do you lead me?”

“An alehouse,” Soame said feelingly. “Out of this accursed sun, and into a place where I can tell you the news.”

News? Antony’s attention sharpened. A tavern would offer shade, drink—and a degree of privacy not to be found in the gossiping atmosphere of the Exchange. They went down the sloping mire of Cornhill and onward to Cheapside, where stood the Nag’s Head, Soame’s favorite tippling house. His friend planted a familiar kiss on a serving-wench and got them a table in a cool corner, with cups of sack to wet their throats. “Best watch your wife doesn’t learn of that, Tom,” Antony said, with a smile to cushion the warning; Mary Soame was a Puritan sort, and not likely to turn a blind eye to philandering.

Soame dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “A harmless buss on the cheek, is all; nothing to it.”

On the lips, rather, but the younger man’s behavior was his own problem. Antony let it pass. “What brought you after me? This is hot weather for considering anything of import.”

The broad features darkened. “And likely to get hotter,” Soame said, not meaning the weather. “Have you heard Abbot’s latest woe? Our woe, I should say.”

Which made it political, not personal. Soame was an alderman for Vintry Ward, as Antony was for Langbourn, and while the list of things that might bring trouble to the Lord Mayor of London and his Court of Aldermen was long, Antony felt unpleasantly capable of narrowing it down. “Don’t drag it out, man; just say.”

“A loan.”

“Again?”

“Are you surprised? The King pisses away money as his father did—though at least he has the decency to piss it on war instead of drunkenness and catamites.”

Antony winced at the blunt words. “Watch your tongue! If you haven’t a care for yourself, at least think of me; I’ll be hanged for hearing your sedition, as you’ll be hanged for speaking it.”

Soame grinned, pulling out a roll of tobacco and his pipe. “I do no more than quote our Lord Mayor. But very well; I’ll spare your tender sensibilities. Returning to the point: it seems the five thousand pounds the Common Council gave our good King Charles in March—”

“Were an insult at the time, and not one I imagine he’s forgotten.” Antony pinched the bridge of his nose and reached for his wine. “What has he asked for?”

“A hundred thousand.”

Coughing on the wine, Antony fumbled for his handkerchief to wipe the spittle from his beard. “God in Heaven. Not again.”

“You’re quoting Abbot, too.” Soame lit a spill from the candle and touched it to his pipe, drawing until the tobacco smoldered to his satisfaction. Exhaling the fragrant smoke, he went on. “We are the King’s chamber, after all, are we not? The jewel in his crown, the preeminent city of his realm. For which distinction we pay handsomely—and pay, and pay again.”

With compensation, to be sure—but only when they could squeeze it out of the royal purse. Which was not often enough for anyone’s peace of mind. The Crown was chronically short of money, and slow to repay its debts. “Are the securities any good?”

“They’re pig swill. But we’ve a war on our back step; unless we want to be buggered up the arse by the Scots, his Majesty will need money.”

Antony sighed. “And to think—one sovereign on both thrones was supposed to solve that problem.”

“Just like it did with the Irish, eh?” Soame sank back on the settle, wedging his shoulders into the corner of the walls. “Must be like trying to drive a team of three horses, all of them trying to bite each other.”

An apt analogy. Old James, Charles’s father, had dreamt of uniting his realms under a single crown, making himself not three Kings in one, but one King, ruling over one conjoined land. Or at least of Scotland and England conjoined; Antony was not certain whether he had meant to include Ireland in that happy harmony. At any rate, it had never come about; the English were fractious about a Scotsman ascending their throne in the first place, and not liable to agree to any such change.

With separate realms, though, came a host of inevitable problems, and Charles showed little delicacy in handling them—as this morass with the Scottish Covenanters demonstrated. Antony had some sympathy for their refusal to adopt the Anglican prayer book; the King’s attempt to force it upon the Presbyterians up north had been as badly conceived and executed as this entire damn war. When they ejected the Anglican bishops, however, it only hardened the King against them.

Antony began to place his fingers one by one on the table’s stained surface, mapping out the political landscape in his mind. The aldermen of London rarely refused the Crown, but the Common Council had grown more recalcitrant of late. Their response was certain: they had balked against a loan in March, and would do so again.

Could the City raise the money? No doubt. Many aldermen and wealthy citizens were connected with the East India Company, the Providence Company, and other great trading ventures. Antony himself was an East India man, as was the Lord Mayor Abbott. The companies had loaned money to the Crown before. Their resentment was growing, though, as more and more of those loans went unpaid.

And religion played its role in the south, too. London harbored more than a few men sympathetic to the Presbyterian cause in Scotland; Antony knew full well that many of his fellow aldermen would gladly see the Church of England discard bishops and other popish trappings. They would not look kindly on the attempt to squelch the Scottish dissent.

Which was stronger: religion or nation? Ideology or economy?

“How fares the army?” he asked. “Is the King’s need legitimate?”

In response, Soame beckoned for more wine, and waited until it came before he answered. “I drink to the poor souls up at Berwick,” he said, and toasted the absent soldiers solemnly. “Half can’t tell their right foot from their left, and from what I hear they’re armed with pitchforks and profanity. Starvation, smallpox, an infestation of lice… I would not be there for all the wenches in Christendom.”

“And no chance of peace?” Antony waved away his own question before Soame could answer it. “Always a chance, yes, I know. But it requires diplomacy his Majesty may not be inclined to exercise.” If by diplomacy he meant a willingness to bend. And Charles was not renowned for his cooperative nature, especially in the twin matters of religion and royal prerogative. The Scots had stepped on both, with hobnailed boots.

Soame drew again on his pipe, staring mournfully down into the bowl. “Be of good cheer. The King’s Majesty has not chosen to sell another monopoly—beg pardon, patent—or find another three-hundred-year-old tax to reimpose on us instead. At least a loan might be repaid.”

“God willing,” Antony muttered. “Peace may be likelier. Do you think these Covenanters in Scotland will accept it if the King promises them a Parliament?”

“When he hasn’t given us one these ten years? What chance of that?”

“A delaying tactic,” Antony said. “It allows the King to disband the army, at least for now, and prepare more thoroughly for his next move.”

The other man pondered it, chin propped on his fist. “It might serve. But if he calls a Parliament there, you know people will demand one here. That is a Pandora’s box he will not wish to open.”

True enough. Parliaments convened at the King’s will, and Charles had made it abundantly clear ten years ago that he was done with them. They argued with him too much, and so he would rule England personally, without recourse to that fractious body. It was his right, but that did not make it popular—or for that matter, successful.

Soame quirked his eyebrow at Antony’s pensive face. “You’ve had a thought.”

Not one Antony wished to share. He drained the last of his wine and shook his head. “The war with Scotland is not our problem to solve. Thank you for the warning; I shall sound out the common councilmen and our fellows, and see if opinions have changed since March. Will you join us tonight? Kate has recovered enough to go out; she wishes to ride into Covent Garden for dinner, and she would enjoy the company.”

“Perhaps. I will call at your house this evening, at least.”

Smiling, Antony stood and took his leave. But once outside the Nag’s Head, his steps did not lead north, to the Guildhall and the chambers of London’s government. If he was to effect any change, he would have to do it from elsewhere.

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: June 3, 1639

The lesser presence chamber might have been a portrait of well-bred courtiers at leisure. A gentleman flirted with a lady in the corner; others sat at a small table, playing cards. But the lady wore a farthingale that had not been fashionable since the days of old Elizabeth, while her paramour seemed formed of living stone; at the card table, the stakes at hazard were the forgotten memories of a silversmith and a midwife, a carpenter and a maidservant. The only mortal in the chamber was all but ignored, a musician whose flute struggled to be heard above the chatter of the faerie courtiers.

His melody went up, and up again, its tone increasingly piercing. Seated in her chair of estate a little distance away, Lune hid a wince behind her fan. This will not do.

She raised one hand, rings winking in the cool light. The flutist did not notice, but a nearby lord, eager to serve, hastened over and stopped him with little attempt at tact.

“We have had enough of music,” Lune said, more diplomatically than she intended. The man’s face had bunched in anger at the interruption, but at her words it faded to disappointment. “We thank you for your time. Sir Cerenel, if you would lead him out?” Not Lewan Erle, who had silenced him; that would see the mortal player dropped unceremoniously on the streets of London, lost and bewildered after his time among the fae. The man had played well—until the end. “With suitable reward for his service.”

The knight she’d named bowed, one hand over his heart, and escorted the musician from the chamber. In his wake, the chatter of courtiers and ladies rose again.

Lune sighed and laid her fan against her lips to conceal her boredom. In truth, the player should not be faulted. She was discontented today, and small things grated.

From the door to the chamber, the sprite serving as usher announced, “Lord Eochu Airt!”

Or large ones.

The three who entered stood out vividly from the courtiers filling the chamber. Where the fae of her realm mostly followed the fashions of the human court, with such alterations as they saw fit, the Irish dressed in barbaric style. The warriors heeling the ambassador from Temair wore vivid blue cloaks clasped at one shoulder, but their chests were bare beneath, with bronze cuffs around their weapon arms. Eochu Airt himself wore a splendid robe decked with feathers and small, glittering medallions, and bore a golden branch in his hand.

“My lord,” Lune greeted him, rising from her chair of estate and descending to meet the sidhe.

“Your Majesty.” Eochu Airt answered her with a formal bow and a kiss of her hand, while behind him his bodyguards knelt. “I hope I find you well?”

“Idle. How liked you the play?”

The Irish elf scowled. His strawberry hair, long as a woman’s but uncurled, fell over one eye as he straightened from his bow. He might be an ollamh, the highest rank of poet, but the Irish expected their poets to be warriors, too. The scowl was fierce. “Very little. The art of mortals is fine enough, and we give it favor as it deserves. But art, madam, is not what interests me.”

Had she expected him to answer otherwise? Eochu Airt had arrived at the Onyx Court not long after All Hallows’ Eve, replacing an ambassador who had been among them for years—a sure sign that Fiacha of Temair intended change. If she could endure until November, she might be rid of the newcomer; the yearly cycle of High Kings in Ireland meant change could be ephemeral.

But not always. This impatience had been growing for years. Should Eochu Airt be replaced, she might find someone worse in his place.

If there was to be an argument, Lune would rather not have it in the more public space of the presence chamber. “Come, my lord ollamh,” she said, taking him by the arm. Feathers tickled her wrist, but she concealed the irritation they sparked. “Let us retire and speak of this more.”

The elf-knights on the far door swept the panels open for the two of them to pass through, leaving the Irish warriors behind. Several of her ladies made to follow, until Lune gestured them back with a flick of her fingertips. She did not want them standing at attention over the conversation, but if they sat at their ease with embroidery or cards, Eochu Airt invariably felt she was not considering his points as seriously as she should.

Faerie lights flared into wakefulness around the privy chamber, and some prescient hob had set out two chairs on the figured Turkish carpet. Lune indicated that the sidhe should take one. “You seem to have perceived your afternoon as an insult,” she said, settling herself in the other. “I assure you, I intended no such offense. I merely thought you, as a poet, would appreciate the artistry.”

“It was well-written,” he grudged, and laid the golden branch of his rank aside in this atmosphere of lesser formality. “But the journey reeked of distraction.”

Which it had been—or at least that was the idea. Lune had hoped he might become enamored of the playhouses, and spend more of his time there. It would mean supplying him with protection against the iron and faith of the mortal world, but she would account it well spent, to have him out of her chambers.

She frowned at him. “I would not belittle your intelligence in such a fashion, to think you so easily led astray. I know you treat your duties here with all the reverence and dedication they deserve.”

“Pretty words, madam. Need I remind you, though—I did not come here for words. I came for action. The ‘thorough’ policy of your Wentworth is an outrage.”

Not my Wentworth, she wanted to say. I had nothing to do with his appointment as Lord Deputy of Ireland. But that would only play into Eochu Airt’s hands, raising the very point she was trying to dodge. “Some of Wentworth’s notions for governing Ireland could be beneficial to you, did you but acknowledge it. Catholic rituals hold a great deal of power against our kind. Their passing may be a good thing. The hotter sort of Protestantism poses its own danger, true—but what Wentworth would institute is no more than lukewarm.” In truth it was half-popish, as the Scots kept screaming. But not in ways that mattered overmuch to fae.

Eochu Airt’s expression darkened. “What he institutes is plantation.” He spat the word like the obscenity he no doubt considered it to be.

Had she really expected to divert him from that issue? Lune rose from her chair and rang a bell. “Some wine, I think, would lubricate this discussion.” The door opened, and her Lady Chamberlain Amadea Shirrell came in with platter, decanter, and goblets. Efficient as always. Lune waved her away, pouring the wine herself, and waited until the door had shut again, closing out the low rumble of the presence chamber. “I do understand your concern. The New English—”

“New English, Old English—they are all the same to me. They are English, in Ireland.” Eochu Airt accepted the wine from her hand, but paced angrily as he spoke. “They claim our lands for their own, driving off those whose families have dwelt there since we fae lived outside our hills. Our hobs weep without ceasing, to see their ancient service brought to an ignominious end.”

The ollamh’s voice flowed melodically, even spurred by anger. Lune answered him evenly, trying not to show her own. “I cannot undo England’s conquest of Ireland, my lord ambassador.”

“But you could act against Wentworth and his allies. Put a stop to this rape of our land.”

The figures chased in silver around the outside of the wine cup dug into Lune’s fingers. “I have acted. Charles confirmed the Earl of Clanricarde’s title against Wentworth’s challenge. His estates will not be planted with settlers.”

It only gained her a scowl. “Which helps Galway. But what of the rest of Ireland, madam, that still suffers beneath the English yoke?” He was an Ulsterman himself; she had chosen her defense poorly. With a visible effort, the sidhe moderated his tone. “We do not demand assistance for free. All of the Ard-Ríthe, and any of the lesser kings beneath them, would be glad to grant concessions in return. We have information you would find most useful.”

Neither of them had taken a sip of the wine. So much for lubrication. Setting hers down, Lune suppressed a sigh, and folded her hands across the front of her skirt. “What you desire is more direct manipulation, and that is not the policy of this court.”

“Once it was.”

She went very still. Here it came at last: the overt reminder. She had been wondering how long it would take, ever since his arrival after All Hallows’ Eve. This ambassador was willing to use more weapons than his predecessor had been. “Never under our rule. We will thank you to remember that.”

The formal shift to the plural pronoun hit him like a slap. Eochu Airt smoothed the hair out of his face, then set down his own wine and crossed back to the chairs, where he retrieved his golden branch of office. “As you wish, madam. But I fear the Ard-Rí will not be glad to hear it.”

“Tell our cousin Fiacha,” Lune said, “that we are not averse to cooperation. But I will not wrap strings around the mortal court and dance it like my puppet. I work for the harmony of humans and fae by more subtle means.”

“Your Highness.” Eochu Airt answered her with a stiff bow and exited, leaving her alone in the privy chamber.

Lune placed one hand against the silver-gilt leather covering the wall and gritted her teeth. Not well handled. Not well at all. But what could she do? The Irish were probably the only fae in Europe who missed the days when her predecessor ruled, when the Queen of the Onyx Court did not balk at manipulating anyone, mortal or otherwise.

No, not the only ones. But the most vexatious.

She had some sympathy for their desires. If her own land were overrun by foreigners, ousting those with ancestral claim, she, too, would fight tooth and claw to defend it. But this was not her fight, and she would not compromise her principles to win it for the Irish. Mortals were not pawns, to be shuffled about the board at will.

Lune composed her expression and went back out into the presence chamber. Her courtiers murmured amongst themselves; no one would have overlooked the departure of Eochu Airt and his warriors. Some of them had even accepted gifts to solicit her on behalf of the Irish. Nianna, the silly fool, was flirting with a ganconer the ambassador had the audacity to bring, trading on her position as Mistress of the Robes. If Lune gave them half a chance, they would all be seeking her ear.

She had no patience for it, not now. There were bathing chambers in the Onyx Hall, their waters heated by salamanders; perhaps she would go rest in one of those, and try to think of a way to mollify the High Court at Temair.

But she did not move quickly enough. While she hesitated next to her chair, the door opened again, revealing a man more out of place than even the Irish. Sandy-haired, solid of build, ordinary as brown bread—and wearing a determined expression entirely at odds with the blithe amusements of the chamber. The usher raised his voice again. “The Prince of the Stone!”

LONDON ABOVE AND BELOW: June 3, 1639

Threadneedle Street was an unmoving snarl of carts, coaches, horses, and men afoot, so Antony turned south, seeking a path through the lesser crowds of Walbrook Street, and then the much smaller Cloak Lane, where the jettied upper stories of houses overhung the mud of the roadway. In the shadow of the Cutlers’ Hall, he placed one hand on the thick, pitch-coated beam that separated two houses, and splayed his fingers wide.

Behind him, the people of London continued on their way, taking no notice of him—nor of the shadowed gap that appeared where none had been before, squeezing itself into the nonexistent space between the houses. Into this narrow aperture Antony stepped, turning sideways so his shoulders would not scrape the walls.

When it closed behind him, he stood at the head of an equally narrow staircase spiraling downward, with only faint illumination to guide him. Antony descended, careful of his footing on the steps—not slate, nor limestone, nor Kentish ragstone, but a slick blackness found nowhere in the ordinary structures of London.

For the realm he entered was no ordinary structure. It felt like another world, and so, in a sense, it was: London’s shadow, taken shape within the earth, and sheltering in its myriad of chambers and passages an entire faerie court, unseen and unsuspected.

Except by a few.

A vaulted gallery led out from the bottom of the staircase. Cool lights shone down from among the ribs that supported the ceiling, some wandering gently of their own will, so that the shadows shifted and danced. This place reflected the world above, but not directly; the Threadneedle entrance lay not far from him, though a goodly distance away as he had walked it. If Antony’s guess was right, he was near the place—and the person—he sought.

A liveried sprite stood at a nearby door, confirming his guess. The creature bowed deeply, threw the door open, and announced in a voice far larger than his body, “The Prince of the Stone!”

The sight that greeted him inside the chamber was a blinding one, an array of jewel-bright silks and fantastical bodies, sitting or standing at carefully-posed leisure. Long use had accustomed him to the splendor—but not to its centerpiece, the axis around which it all revolved.

Lune stood by her chair of estate, with the alert, arrested posture of a deer. The elaborate curls of her silver hair still trembled against her cheek, for she had turned her head sharply just before the usher’s cry. They outshone the cloth-of-silver of her petticoat, and made the lutestring silk of her bodice and looped-up overskirt a richer midnight by comparison. Sapphires winked in her circlet, each one worth a lord’s ransom.

Their eyes met; then he blinked, breaking the spell. A faerie queen was a powerful sight, however often one saw it. And he had been some time away.

Lune came forward to greet him. A small furrow marred the line of her brow; she must be concealing a much larger frustration. “Antony,” the Queen said. Her voice rang purely, after the harsh clamor of the streets above, and she smiled to see him, but it did not reach her unsettled eyes. “I am glad for your return. Will you walk with me in the garden?”

It suited his purpose well. Antony made his bow, then offered her his arm. Together they left the chamber, a small flock of her closest ladies trailing behind.

The fae they passed along the way bowed out of their paths, deference offered to both the Queen and her mortal Prince. Antony had never grown entirely accustomed to it. His wealthy father had purchased a baronetcy when old King James created the rank and sold titles to prop up the Crown’s sagging finances, but a hereditary knighthood did not merit the kinds of courtesies offered to a prince. He had long practice at shifting between the two, but never quite ceased to find the honors strange.

They came through a delicate arch into the night garden. Here, against all nature, greenery thrived; the efforts of dedicated faerie gardeners produced fantastical sprays of blossoms, and fruit out of season. Its proximity was one reason Lune preferred the lesser presence chamber to its more imposing counterpart, where her throne stood. She walked often along the winding paths, in company or alone, listening to musicians or the liquid melodies of the Walbrook. Antony himself found regrettably little time to enjoy it.

A current eddied the stars above them as they stepped out into the cool, fragrant air; the constellation of faerie lights regrouped themselves into a tight mass, a counterfeit moon. “I take it something troubles you,” Antony said, and felt Lune’s fingers tighten on his arm.

“Not something—someone. Would you care to guess?”

He smiled wryly. “There are but two likely suspects. I shall guess Nicneven.”

“I almost wish it were.”

The sour response surprised him. Faerie Scotland was not a single kingdom, no more than faerie England was, and Lune had occasional trouble with the monarchs up north. The Gyre-Carling of Fife, however, was a constant thorn in her side. Nicneven made no secret of her hatred for this court and everything it stood for, the close harmony of mortals and fae. She had on more than one occasion threatened to kill Antony, or curse his family for nine generations.

On the whole, his preference was for Irish trouble. “I can guess the substance of it, then,” he said.

Lune released his arm, going to the side of the path, where a lily bloomed in an urn. Its pristine white petals darkened into a bloody throat, and she stroked them with a fingertip. “One day some clever lad over there will get it into his head to murder Wentworth.”

“They know better than that,” Antony said, alarmed. “If the King’s deputy in Ireland dies, it will go much harder for them.”

“Oh, indeed—some of them know it. But all it needs is one hotheaded warrior, one goblin out to make mischief…” Behind them, the flock of ladies hovered, like birds in jeweled feathers and elegant little masks. Lune sighed and continued down the path to a fountain, where she arranged herself on a bench, and her ladies perched themselves near enough to listen discreetly. “Eochu Airt said his masters at Temair had information I would desire. I shall have to find something else he wants in exchange.”

Antony leaned against the lip of the fountain, palms flat to the cool marble. The water flecked his back, but his rose-colored doublet was of plain serge; it could survive a wetting. He had not dressed for elegance. “Wentworth isn’t popular at court. His relationship with the King is uneven; Charles does not entirely trust him, but still supports him, for he is one of the few effective men serving the Crown. There has even been talk of his making Wentworth a peer. But the Lord Deputy has enemies in plenty, not just in Ireland but in England, who do not like his influence over the King. His downfall might not be far away.”

“Will that change anything for Ireland?” Lune’s question was clearly rhetorical. She scowled at the embroidered toe of her slipper for a moment, then fixed her attention back on Antony. “So what has brought you below? When last you were here, you said you wished to spend more time with Lady Ware and your new son. How fares he? Is he growing quickly?”

Her distraction was charming. Children came so rarely to fae; they found the young of mortals fascinating. “Robin grows healthy and strong—no doubt thanks to your blessing.” Three children, and none of them lost to childhood illness. Antony knew more godly sorts would say he had sold his soul for those blessings, consorting with fae as he did. Seeing his family thrive, he thought it a worthy price.

Lune’s eyes narrowed. “But you, it seems, did not come to talk about your son. What, then? You walked into the presence chamber with a purpose.”

“An opportunity,” Antony admitted. “One that may sweeten your mood.”

The ladies leaned closer to hear as he went on. “The war with Scotland does not go well. Charles has marched an army up there to suppress the Covenanters, but that army is falling apart at the seams, for want of money to hold it together. And so he has asked the City for a loan.”

“Again?” Lune said, echoing his own response to Soame. “This begging has become habit, and unfitting to a king.” He couldn’t argue the truth of that. “But why bring you this to me? It won’t help matters to pay the loan in faerie gold.”

“Of course not. My intent is not to pay it at all.”

The Queen stared at him, silver eyes unblinking. Her entire image might have been cast from silver, and draped in darkest lapis. He waited while she weighed the repercussions. “I am sure you have your reasons,” she said at last, the statue coming to life once more. “You know the finances of the City better than I. But see the larger picture: failure to crush the Covenanters now will mean their stronger presence in the future. Too much of London is sympathetic to them already, and they are hostile to us.”

Us had many possible meanings, depending on the occasion. Sometimes it was the royal pronoun. Sometimes it meant Londoners, above and below. This time, it was unmistakably the meaning in between: the fae of the Onyx Court. Nowhere in the world, that Antony knew of, was there a faerie city alongside a mortal one; the other kingdoms of the fae held their seats in places remote from human habitation.

The Onyx Hall made it possible. That great structure, encompassing within itself chambers and passages as London did buildings and streets, sheltered them from the church bells and iron of the world above. But its inhabitants ventured above, too, and preferred to find the world they visited, if not friendly, then at least neutral.

The hotter Protestants—Presbyterians and the independent-minded “godly,” whose enemies called them Puritan—were far from neutral. To such people, all fae were devils, and Scotland under their rule was a harsh and austere place. If their influence in England were to grow, the fae would suffer for it.

Antony said, “I am aware. There is, however, another consideration.

“The King is desperate of money. Already his judges and his lawyers have found every loophole, every obscure and unenforced statute that might afford him some revenue—ship money, distraint of knighthood; he even continues to collect tonnage and poundage, without the legal right. And still it is not enough.”

Lune’s chin came up, and he wondered if she saw where he aimed. Though her face showed no identifiable age, she had reigned longer than he had been alive, and had been at the game of politics longer than that.

“If he cannot get money from the City,” Antony said, “then he will be forced to convene Parliament.”

A nightingale sang in a nearby willow tree. The ladies were too well bred to whisper amongst themselves while their Queen sat in silent thought, but they exchanged glances. Lune kept no one about her who did not understand at least the basics of mortal politics.

At last she said, “Why bring this to me?”

“For aid,” Antony said. She had not rejected the notion out of hand; it encouraged him. “When I said my intent was not to pay it, I spoke of the outcome I hope to see. But I think it will be a close decision. The Common Council will vote against it, but I should like to ensure the aldermen likewise decide against the King. Penington and others have little love for this war.”

“Then arrange it yourself.” Lune rapped the words out like the crack of an unfolding fan. “Surely you have the means to convince your fellows.”

Her sharp rejoinder took him aback. Straightening from his ease against the fountain, Antony said in mild tones, “If I had sufficient time, perhaps. But I cannot be both quick and subtle, and the King is not above imprisoning those who defy him.”

Lune, too, rose from her seat on the bench. “You ask this of me-by influencing their dreams, I presume?” It was the most gentle method of persuasion, but Antony had no chance to say so before she went on. “For the sake of a refusal they might not otherwise give. But I am not convinced of your course.”

Why did she resist it so unthinking? Fear of the Covenanters and their religion could not explain it all. Lune was protective of her fae subjects, yes, but she was also protective of England—

Ah. Of England, and of the monarchy. Which she had once sworn to defend, many years ago, when an Englishwoman still sat upon the throne. Such rebellion to the will of the Crown would not sit well with her. But Lune was not fond of the man who wore that crown; she knew Charles’s flaws as well as Antony did. What she overlooked was how reluctance would serve England better than obedience would. “For ten years now, Charles has ruled without the advice of Parliament,” he reminded her.

A sniff came from the cluster of listeners. Boldly, Lady Nianna said, “Her Majesty rules without need of a Parliament.”

“Her Majesty rules a realm with fewer subjects than my ward,” Antony snapped back, angered at the interruption. Grimacing, he made a quick bow of apology to Lune. “England has many thousands of inhabitants—hundreds of thousands in the vicinity of London alone. One man, even advised by councillors, cannot fairly oversee so much. And Parliament, the House of Commons especially, has long been the means by which the people may speak, and make their needs known to their sovereign. But he discarded that tradition when it became inconvenient to him.”

The Queen had stiffened at his reply to Nianna; now she watched him impassively. Antony hesitated, then played a dangerous card. “He would rule as your predecessor did—his will absolute, with none to gainsay him.”

Anger flared in those silver eyes. “Do not make comparisons where you are ignorant,” Lune said, her voice cold. “You know nothing of this court in those times.”

“I know what you have told me,” Antony said, meeting her without flinching. “And I know why you asked me to rule at your side, bestowed upon me the title I bear. So that we could work together for the benefit of all, both mortal and fae. Very well: I come before you, as Prince of the Stone, and tell you that London needs this. England needs this.”

It was easy to be overawed in the presence of a faerie queen. The Prince was the Queen’s consort, though, and bore his own authority in this court. They had gone to loggerheads before, when Antony felt his duty demanded it; Lune had chosen him for that reason, because he would stubbornly defend the mortal concerns she might otherwise forget. Because she could trust him to do so only when necessary.

He met her gaze, and did not back down.

A faint shadow appeared along her jaw where a muscle tightened and then released. This confrontation might have been inevitable, but he could at least have arranged for privacy. It felt too much like coercion, asserting his rank before her ladies, forcing her to acknowledge his right to ask this favor. He would apologize for that later.

“Very well,” Lune said at last, through her teeth. “We will see to it that those who waver are swayed against the loan.”

The royal we, or the faerie one? Either way, he had what he wanted, though not gracefully. Antony offered her a sincere bow. “My thanks. In exchange, I will likewise do what I can to turn opinion against the Covenanters.”

There was a gleam in Lune’s eye he could not interpret—anger given way to something like amusement. “Indeed you will. If this goes as you hope, and Charles summons a new Parliament, then we expect you to be there.”

He blinked. “In Parliament?”

“You are not a peer, and you have few connections in the countryside; you will have to fight for one of London’s seats in the Commons. But that is fitting: you will sit for London’s faerie inhabitants, as the others sit for the mortals.”

Antony had not thought that far. There was, admittedly, no reason he could not do as she asked. Except that the long delay since the last Parliament left him with little sense of that world—how to get into it, and what to do once he was there.

It could not be so different from the Court of Aldermen. And although he was used to thinking of himself as the envoy of mortals to the fae, he could cross that boundary in the other direction as well. It was the sort of thing the Prince of the Stone should do.

He gave Lune a second bow. “As you command, madam.”

KETTON STREET, LONDON: April 2, 1640

The man forced to his knees on the cellar floor in front of Lune was securely gagged, and his hands bound behind him. Above the silencing rag, the mortal’s eyes burned with hatred that would sear her to ash if it could.

Had he his tongue to speak, he could not burn her, but he could cause great harm. She was protected, of course; Lune never came above without consuming milk or bread tithed to the fae, which shielded them against faith, iron, and other inimical charms. Strong enough faith, though, could overcome much, like an axe crashing through armor.

She did not want to test this man’s faith. He could glare at her all he wished, so long as he did not invoke divine names, and the gag was the gentlest means of silencing him.

“Where did you find him?” she asked Sir Prigurd Nellt.

The giant towered behind the kneeling man, even though the glamour concealing his nature reduced him to something like human size. The Captain of the Onyx Guard was uncomfortable with such disguises, and wore them badly. “Near Aldersgate,” he rumbled, his deep voice vibrating in her body. “Piling tinder at the base of the tree, with flint and steel in his hand.”

Lune concealed her shiver. Prigurd was steadfast in the execution of his duty to protect her; if she showed how much this man frightened her, the giant might just crack his head and be done with it.

What could his fire have done? She honestly did not know. The Onyx Hall was a familiar presence in her mind, like a second skin, laid over her flesh when she claimed sovereignty. But she had not uncovered all its secrets, and could only speculate what would happen if someone tried to destroy one of the hidden entrances that joined the faerie palace to the mortal fabric of London.

It was a question worth investigating, but not now. “Who is he?”

The prisoner jerked against his bonds. Behind him, Prigurd’s fingers twitched, and a low growl betrayed the giant’s leashed temper.

The man who stepped forward to answer her fit better in their mean surroundings than either Lune or Prigurd. He dressed as a common laborer—even though his education, if not his birth, entitled him to better—and knew places like the tavern above their heads well enough to secure this cellar for the interrogation, when Lune decided not to risk bringing the prisoner into the Onyx Hall. Were it not for the undisguised sprite perched on his shoulder, holding a quill and a horn of ink, he might have been any ordinary, forgettable man.

Which suited him perfectly for his role. A spymaster should not be memorable.

Mortals who had dealings with the Onyx Court and knew it were still few in number, despite efforts by both Lune and Antony. They had over a dozen now, which was an improvement, but the ever-present threat of the godly and the necessity of keeping the Onyx Hall secure made bringing in strangers a chancy proposition at best. Most were there because they had ties to some courtier—a lover, usually, or the artistic client of a faerie patron. Of them all, only Benjamin Hipley had risen to a position of influence, carrying out certain underhand tasks Antony could not or would not handle.

“Humphrey Taylor,” he said, reading from a scrap of paper the sprite handed down to him. “His parish is St. Botolph Aldersgate, outside the wall, where he’s been known to preach a Puritan sermon or twelve.”

She was not surprised in the least. Humphrey Taylor’s torn and scuffed clothes were severe in cloth, color, and cut, a statement against the vainglory of the royal court. Those would have identified him, if the zeal in his eyes had not.

Lune wished she could take the gag from his mouth and question him herself. But even if she could trick him into accepting faerie wine, thus stopping the godliness of his tongue, Lune did not want the man crawling about for the rest of his life, pining after the faerie world he’d lost.

No. A fellow such as this would not pine. He would commit suicide, accepting that damnation to escape this one; or he would find some way to martyr himself trying to obliterate her court.

Much like this first attempt.

“You say he was trying to burn the alder tree,” she said, circling her prisoner, just far enough away that her skirts would not brush him. Prigurd shifted, clearly not pleased to see his Queen approach the man so closely, but let her pass unhindered. “How did he learn of it? Did he know what it was he sought to destroy?”

Hipley gave the paper back to the sprite and shooed it off its shoulder perch. “He had at least some notion it was connected with the fae. How much beyond that, I can’t say for sure. But he learned of it through dreams.”

“Dreams?” Lune halted in her pacing. “From whom?”

Her mortal spymaster shrugged apologetically. “What’s in a man’s head cannot be tracked, more’s the pity. But I asked questions of his neighbors—no family in London—and learned that his dreams started after a visit from a Scottish Presbyterian this winter.”

“A real one?”

“If I could find the Scotsman,” Hipley replied, “I might be able to say. Taylor certainly thought he was real.”

Lune pinched the bridge of her nose, then made herself lower her hand. Whether the Presbyterian had been a disguised faerie or not, he linked this attack to Scotland—and the court of Nicneven, the Gyre-Carling of Fife.

It was no use to protest that Nicneven’s hatred of her was misdirected. Lune had no part in the intrigues that had killed the mortal Queen of Scots fifty years before, but that did not matter; Onyx Court interference had contributed to the execution of Mary Stuart. Most Scottish fae had forgotten it—such human things quickly passed from their minds—but Nicneven yet harbored a grudge.

Until now, though, the Gyre-Carling’s opposition had been a subtle thing. A sizable faction in Lune’s court, encouraged by Nicneven’s allies and agents, believed fae superior to mortals. Humans were playthings at best; at worst, they weakened the fae, diminished them from the great beings they once were, in the distant past no one could remember clearly. Cooperation with them—the harmony Lune advocated—could only be to the detriment of the fae.

The Onyx Hall was the instrument of that cooperation, the shelter that allowed their coexistence. It seemed that Nicneven, impatient with her progress, had decided to strike more directly.

Even with Taylor stopped, there might still be danger. Lune roused herself and addressed Hipley once more. “What has he said to his neighbors?”

He saw the real question. “They think him deranged. A fever of the brain, perhaps—though the man who shares his lodgings thinks it some cryptic protest against the corruption of the court. Some kind of metaphor. He asked if I was an agent of the privy council. I think he hoped for a reward.”

Then they were safe—for now. When the only mortals brought into the Onyx Hall were the pets and pawns of courtiers, discarded after they broke, concealment had been easier. But with the rising tide of Puritan faith, she would have to take more care. If anyone ever came to believe there were faeries beneath London—anyone hostile…

“Track the Scotsman,” she said. “Do you have his name? Find out who sent him, whether some power in Scotland, or another working through ruses.” The Cour du Lys in France bore her no love, after some tangled dealings in the past. And French connections to Scotland were still strong enough that they might find it a useful cover for their actions.

Taylor lurched to his feet without warning and lunged for the door to the tavern above. The sprite was there before the rest of them could react, tripping the prisoner and sending him headlong into the dirt floor. Prigurd wrestled the man back to his knees, and this time held him there with one heavy hand. Hipley moved to the stairs, to see if the noise had brought any undue attention; when all was quiet, he turned back to Lune. “What would you like done with him, madam?”

Humphrey Taylor knew one entrance to the Onyx Hall. With that information in his keeping, he could not be permitted to go back to his parish, nor to communicate with those pulling his strings. Even if they blurred his memory, it would be too risky, given the strength of his faith.

“He is Lord Antony’s to dispose of,” Lune reminded Hipley. Anything pertaining to mortals required the Prince’s consent. “You may tell him it is our recommendation that a manikin be left somewhere discoverable, so enchanted and fortified that it may be taken for his body and buried. The man himself…”

She looked down at Humphrey Taylor and his burning, hate-filled eyes. It would be easiest to kill him—easiest, but wrong. The Onyx Court did not behave thus anymore. What she would send him to, though, might amount to the same thing in the end.

“Put him on a ship for the colonies,” she said. “Let him make a new life for himself there, where he cannot threaten us.”

GUILDHALL, LONDON: April 14, 1640

Despite the headache and sour stomach that were mementos of the previous night’s celebration, a smile kept warming Antony’s face as he approached the soot-stained front of London’s Guildhall. Soame and other friends had dined with his family last night, and together they drank to the opening of Charles’s fourth Parliament. It had taken longer than Antony expected, but the House of Lords and House of Commons once again met in their chambers in Westminster Palace.

In fact, the Commons was sitting at that very moment, and Antony regretted his absence. When he and Lune agreed he should secure one of the four seats for London, he had not realized how much time it was likely to consume. A foolish oversight on his part; it would run him ragged, he feared, juggling his responsibilities in City government with those of Parliament, and trying to maintain his trade interests as well.

Not to mention, his guilty conscience whispered, your duties down below.

But he could do little enough to address Lune’s problems, especially since Eochu Airt cordially detested him. Antony had little or nothing to do with London’s contracts to plant Ireland with English settlers—many of those agreements were formed when he was a child not yet in breeches—but as far as the sidhe was concerned, his place in the City’s government tarnished him with that guilt.

Parliament, however, was a different battlefield entirely, and one where he had great hopes of victory. Now that Charles had retreated from his declaration of personal rule, the old balance could be restored. Antony hurried through the doors, hoping he could dispose of this business quickly and get himself to Westminster. The chamber where the Commons met was too small; he would likely find no seat at this hour. But even if it meant standing, he was eager to attend.

Inside, the Great Hall teemed like an anthill with councilmen, clerks, petitioners, and more. He should have chosen a better hour, when men with grievances were less likely to be lying in wait. Antony ducked his head, letting the brim of his hat conceal his face, and slipped through the crowd, hurrying through the hall and upstairs.

Once free of the press, he discovered he was not the only person absent from the Commons that morning. Isaac Penington greeted him with a degree of cheer not warranted by their usual relationship. The alderman for Bridge Without was a much more vehement soul than Antony in matters of both politics and religion, and they had clashed on several occasions.

“Not in Westminster?” the other man said, deliberately jovial. “I hope you haven’t tired of Parliament already.”

Antony donned an equally deliberate smile. “Not at all. Merely addressing some business.”

“Good, good! We have some grand designs for these next few weeks, you know. I would not want you to miss them.”

Grand designs? That sounded ominous. And Antony suspected that we had a rather more specific meaning than the Commons as a whole. He sorted hastily through the names in his head, trying to remember who out of the hundreds of members might be in alliance with Penington. Antony’s own father had sat in Charles’s last Parliament, and though most of the leaders from that age had died or moved on, at least one was back again. The man had led the attempt to impeach the King’s old chief councillor, the Duke of Buckingham, and his political ambitions did not stop there. “Yourself and John Pym?” Antony hazarded.

Penington’s smile grew more genuine. “More than just us. Hampden, Holles—quite a few, really. We finally have an opportunity to make a stand against the King’s offenses, and we shall not waste it.”

Antony’s unease deepened. Hidden in the King’s opening speech the day before was the very real concern of an impending second war with the Scots. Charles had buried it in a morass of platitudes about the zealous and humble affection the Commons no doubt felt for their sovereign, but the simple fact was that he had called them because he needed money to put down the rebellious Covenanters, as he had failed to do the previous year. “Which offenses?”

“Why, all of them, man!” Penington laughed. “Religion first, I should think—Archbishop Laud’s popish changes to the Church, surplices, altar rails, all those Romish abominations. We will have the bishops out before we are done, I vow. Or this policy of friendship to Rome’s minions; bad enough to have a Catholic Queen, but the King tolerates priests even beyond her household. He would sell England to Spain if it would gain him some advantage. Or perhaps another approach; we may speak first of his offenses against the liberties of Parliament.”

“The King,” Antony said, choosing his words carefully, “will no doubt be more inclined to consider those matters once the venture against Scotland is provided for.”

Now the smile had a wolfish cast. “Oh, the King will have his subsidies—but not until we have had our voice.”

That was in direct contravention of Charles’s instructions. Antony caught those words before they left his mouth, though. Penington could hardly have forgotten that speech. He flouted it knowingly.

To some extent, he could see the man’s point. Once Charles had his money, there was a very real risk the King would feel free to ignore his Parliament, or even to dissolve it entirely, considering its business done. Those subsidies were the only advantage they held.

And the offenses, he had to admit, were real. Ten years without a Parliament—more like eleven, by now—were only an outward sign of the problem. The real contention was Charles’s philosophy, supported by his judges and councillors, that the sole foundation of all law was the royal will and pleasure, and by no means did that law bind that will. Unjust taxation and all the rest followed from that, for how could it be unjust if the King decreed it necessary?

Penington was watching him closely. “We shall make time for you to speak, if you like,” he said. “There must needs be some debate, though we hope to have bills prepared for voting before much longer. They will stall in the Lords, of course, but it’s a start.”

The unspoken words hung behind the spoken, with more than a little menace: You are with us, are you not?

Antony did not know. He was no lapdog to the King, but what he knew of Pym and the others Penington had named worried him. Puritan zealots, most of them, and far too eager to undermine the King in pursuit of their own ends. Ends that were not necessarily Antony’s own. Fortunately, over Penington’s shoulder he saw the clerk he needed to speak to. With false humor, he said, “If I do not finish my work here, I shall never make it to Westminster in time to do anything. If you will pardon me?”

“Of course,” Penington said, and let him by—but Antony felt the man’s gaze on his back as he went.

THE ANGEL INN, ISLINGTON: April 23, 1640

Accepting a cup of mead with a grateful smile, Lune said, “I know you two keep yourselves informed. No doubt you can guess what has brought me here today.”

Rosamund Goodemeade blinked innocent eyes at her and said, curtsying, “Why, your Majesty, we thought you just wished our company!”

“And our mead,” her sister Gertrude added. “And our food, I suspect—we’ve bread fresh from the oven, some excellent cherries, and roast pheasant, if you fancy a bite to eat.” She scarcely even waited for Lune’s answering nod, but bustled off to gather it, and no doubt more besides.

As much as Lune loved her hidden palace, she had to admit that no part of it equaled the comfort and warmth of the Goodemeades’ home. Concealed beneath the Angel, a coaching inn north of the City, it was a favored sanctuary for courtiers needing a respite from the Onyx Hall and its intrigues. The brownie sisters who maintained it always had a ready meal and a readier smile for any friend stopping in, and they counted as friends more fae than Lune would have believed possible.

Rosamund tucked a honey-brown curl up inside her linen cap and settled herself in one of the child-size chairs they kept for themselves and other small guests. Any formality between them had long since melted away, at least in private; she needed no permission to sit, even from her Queen. “I’m guessing it’s Nicneven,” she said, returning to the purpose of this visit.

Lune sighed. As much as she would have liked to spend her afternoon merely enjoying the Goodemeades’ company, she could not spare the time. As Rosamund had clearly deduced. “You came originally from the Border, I know. I do not suppose it was the Scottish side?”

She was unsurprised when the brownie shook her head. “And the folk in Fife are different yet from Border folk, even on the Scots side,” Rosamund said. “We shall help you in any way we can, of course, but we know little of the Gyre-Carling and her people.”

Gertrude had returned, balancing a tray almost as large as she was, piled high with more food than Lune could possibly eat. Judging by the way Gertrude nibbled at the cherries while setting out dishes, though, she and Rosamund intended to share. “What were you hoping for?” she asked, licking her fingers clean of juice.

“Some sort of agent,” Lune admitted. “A friend you might have in Fife, or someone you know in one of the other Scottish courts, who could go there and not seem out of place. My courtiers are almost all English fae, or more foreign than that.”

“A spy?” Rosamund said.

As Ben Hipley conducted the Onyx Hall’s covert work among mortals, so did Valentin Aspell, her Lord Keeper, handle that which dealt with fae. But for certain matters—more delicate ones—the Goodemeades were Lune’s best, and least suspected, resource. She said, “You know of the attack on the alder tree. As much as I wish I could believe Taylor was sent on his errand by a traitor in my own court—as strange as it is to wish for such a thing—I have reason to believe Nicneven is behind it. Which means something has changed in the North. I must find out what.”

Gertrude gestured, admonishing her to eat, and obediently Lune began to butter a hunk of fresh bread. This plainer food might appeal to Eochu Airt, she thought, remembering his disdainful comments about the more elaborate meals of her court. The Irish, as she understood it, feasted in simpler fashion. I may try this, and see if it sweetens his mood.

She was allowing herself to become distracted; the problem at hand was Scotland, not Ireland. Communicating through glances and the occasional half-finished word, the Goodemeades had already carried out an entire conversation. Now Rosamund said, “It might not be the Gyre-Carling. You know who’s at her court.”

The bread caught in Lune’s throat; she washed it down with mead. “Yes,” she said, heavily. “Kentigern Nellt. And yes, I have considered that this may be nothing more or less than revenge for Halgresta.”

The giant had not loved his sister; Lune sincerely doubted him capable of love. But Kentigern had taken deep offense when Halgresta died in battle, and he had cause to blame Lune, for that battle was her doing. She had exiled him precisely to avoid any attempt at vengeance; had he tried, she would have been forced to execute him, and that she would not do. But exiled, he had gone back to his old home in the North, and found a place serving the Unseely Queen of Fife.

Leaving behind his brother Prigurd. Who alone, among the brutal Nellt siblings, served out of loyalty instead of rapacious ambition, and was willing to bestow that loyalty upon Lune. Some had argued that she should not trust him, at least not so far as to award him Halgresta’s old position as captain—but the Onyx Guard was all Prigurd knew. And though he was not bright, he was at least faithful in his duty.

“If it’s revenge,” Gertrude said, “then it might be cleared away if you sent Prigurd north.”

Rosamund and Lune both frankly stared at her. “Prigurd as a diplomat?” the other brownie said, disbelieving. “Mab love him, but he hasn’t three thoughts in his head to call his own. Kentigern would skin him, joint him, and serve him to Nicneven raw.”

“I doubt anyone could dissuade him from revenge by words alone,” Lune said. Gertrude’s sweet disposition was admirable, but sometimes it resulted in naïveté. “But I also doubt that this is simply Kentigern’s doing. Left to his own devices, he would storm the Onyx Hall one night, axe in hand, seeking my blood. If anything, Nicneven is restraining him, not being driven by him.”

Kentigern was not the only courtier who departed at her accession, nor even the only one who had found a home in Fife. The others, though, had left peaceably—or else had fled so far she no longer feared them. And—

Lune groaned out loud as a thought came to her. The sisters gave her matched looks of startlement. “Eochu Airt,” she said. “He claims to have some information of use to me. There have been dealings between Ulster and Scotland before. It may be King Conchobar, or another in Ulster, knows something of this new malevolence from Nicneven.”

“What do they want in return?” Gertrude asked.

Ireland free of all English settlers, with no English King over her. “The removal of Wentworth,” Lune said. “Which I have no graceful way to accomplish. I have offered him everything I can, but none of it suffices. I must find a way to get my own agent into Fife.”

The brownies exchanged dubious glances. “We shall try,” Rosamund said, without much hope. “We have a few friends along the Border, who might be of use.”

“I would be most grateful,” Lune replied.

“Good,” Gertrude said. “Now I would be grateful if you don’t let this pheasant go to waste. Tuck in, your most sovereign Majesty; you cannot solve all the island’s ills if you do not eat.”

ST. STEPHEN’S CHAPEL, WESTMINSTER: May 5, 1640

Three weeks of this chaos, and nothing to show for it.

The refrain echoed incessantly in Antony’s mind as he crossed the lobby outside St. Stephen’s Chapel, where the House of Commons sat. Three weeks of increasingly contentious argument, Pym and his supporters holding firm even though hostilities with Scotland had opened once more. From religion to control of the militia, the list of changes they sought kept growing.

Antony was not without resources, but they only went so far. Lune’s faerie spies and Ben Hipley’s mortal agents kept their fingers on the pulse of the House of Lords and Charles’s privy council, but he had no control over those bodies; he only knew the general tenor of their discussions. And what he heard did not bode well. Charles believed, as he ever did, that the opposition in the Commons was the work of a few malcontented individuals, while the majority held a more tractable stance. But this was the same man who invariably expected matters to go according to his wishes, regardless of circumstances; the same man who closed his ears to any indication the reality might be worse than he thought. His advisers were weak men, and those few who were strong—Wentworth and Archbishop Laud—were also hated. The rottenness in England’s government went far beyond one man.

Even at this early hour, the lobby was well filled with clerks, servants, and men with business they hoped to place before the Commons. It was worse than the Guildhall; Antony had to fend off petitioners from three different counties before he passed the bar that marked the entrance into the chapel. Complaints about ship money, all three of them, and no surprise there. It was the most hated tax in all of England.

The problem—his thoughts kept returning to the Commons—was lack of leadership. Wentworth, who had been one of the most able men in the House eleven years ago, was recently created the Earl of Strafford, and as such had his seat in the Lords. In his own way the man was as blind as Charles, and far more adept at making enemies, but at least he was effective. In his absence, the King’s men floundered, while John Pym and his fellows organized a strong opposition.

Antony’s reservations about Pym had grown from niggling suspicion into outright distrust. It would be bad enough if the man were simply a champion of the godly reformers, but his ambitions did not stop there. Pym seemed to view Parliament, not as the King’s support, but as his leash. He wanted control of matters that were manifestly the prerogative of the King, and that Antony could not support.

Which left him caught in the middle. Standing on the floor of the chapel, with the tiers of seats rising around him in a horseshoe, Antony felt briefly like a bear staked out for baiting. Then he took his seat with the other members for London, near to the Speaker’s chair. He felt no allegiance with them: Penington and Craddock were firmly in Pym’s camp, and Soame was increasingly of their mind. But Sir Francis Seymour sat behind them—an old friend of Antony’s father, allied with him in the last Parliament, and a comforting presence in this maze Antony had not yet learned to thread.

As he slid onto the bench in front of the knight, murmuring a greeting, Antony marshaled his resolve. It has only been three weeks. I will master this dance. Neither for the King’s demands, nor for Pym’s turbulent reforms, but for a moderate course between the two. It would not be easy, but given time, it could be done.

Then an oddity caught his eye. “Where is Glanville?” he whispered into Seymour’s ear. The Speaker’s chair stood empty, even though it was nearly time for the opening prayers to begin.

Seymour shook his head. “I do not know. Nor do I like the look of it.”

Neither did Antony. Glanville had spoken with some force the previous day, which could not have won him favor with the King. Would Charles go so far as to depose the Speaker of the House of Commons? Pym was overfond of declaring everything a breach of the privileges of Parliament, but on this point Antony would have no choice but to agree with him. Surely the King would not give such flagrant offense—not when the House was already at odds with him. It would destroy any hope of conciliation.

He worried about it as he bowed his head for the prayers. What would happen, if Glanville had been removed? Speakers, he knew, had met bad ends before; there was a reason the chosen man was traditionally dragged to his chair. But Antony had thought that all in the distant past.

“Amen,” the assembled members said, some with more fervency than others. And then, without warning, the doors to the chapel swung open.

A man bearing a black rod of office entered and positioned himself before the Speaker’s table. The clerks who sat at one end paused, pens in the air, staring in surprise. Maxwell, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod for the House of Lords, had the duty of summoning the Commons to attend any full meetings of the entire Parliament. Given Glanville’s absence, it was not a promising sign.

In a loud voice, Maxwell declared, “It is his Majesty’s pleasure that you knights, citizens, and burgesses of his House of Commons come up presently to his Majesty, to sit in assembly with the House of Lords.”

Antony’s own oath was drowned out by louder ones around him. A few men stood, shouting questions, but Maxwell ignored them all; he simply waited, impassive, to guide them to the greater chamber where the Lords met.

“You have more experience of this than I,” Antony said to Seymour, under the cover of the shouting. “Tell me—is there any good cause for which his Majesty might summon us now?”

The older man’s face had sagged into weary lines, and his eyes held the bleak cast of hopes on the verge of death. “If you mean good for us… unlikely. A terrible defeat in Scotland, perhaps. Or rebellion in Ireland; these plans to arm the Irish against the Scots may be reaping their expected reward. Or some other disaster.”

And that is the best we can hope for. Antony gritted his teeth, then raised his voice over the clamor. “It does us no good to argue it here! We are summoned to the Lords; our answers lie with them. Let us go and be done.”

Still muttering in confusion and anger, they formed up and let Black Rod lead them through the Palace of Westminster. Antony’s blood ran cold when he entered the Lords’ chamber and saw Glanville at the far end. The dark circles under the Speaker’s eyes stood out like bruises.

Near him, in a richly upholstered chair, sat Charles Stuart, first of his name, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, et cetera. The dais on which the chair sat elevated him to a position of prominence, but could not disguise the King’s low stature. Antony sometimes wondered if some of his obstinacy were not born of that deficiency, which put him at perpetual disadvantage against taller, stronger men.

Certainly obstinacy was writ large in his expression. The members of the House of Lords were in their seats; filing in, the Commons stood on the floor between the peers and the bishops. Antony had a poor view, blocked by the men who had crowded in front of him, but by shifting his weight onto his left foot he could just see the King’s face. Behind his luxuriant mustache and pointed beard, Charles’s lips were pressed into a thin, impatient line.

When the doors closed behind the last man, the King spoke.

“There can no occasion of coming to this House,” he said, delivering the words in a measured cadence designed to minimize his unfortunate stammer, “be so unpleasant to me as this at this time.”

Antony’s stomach clenched. And the sickness in it only grew as Charles continued to speak, thanking the Lords of the higher house for their good endeavours. “If there had been any means to have had a happy end of this Parliament,” the King said, “it was not your lordships’ fault that it was not so.”

Whatever hope old Seymour might have clung to, that they were called forth to be told the Irish were revolting and the Scots had overrun the North and the Dutch had sunk all their ships and Charles had sold England to Spain, it must have died in that moment. For his own part, Antony was not surprised. Not since he had seen Glanville.

Glanville, who led the House on which Charles was squarely placing the blame.

Oh, the King made a passing nod, as he went on, to the Lords’ part in presenting grievances. “Out of Parliament,” the King added, most unconvincingly, “I shall be as ready—if not more willing—to hear any, and to redress just grievances, as in Parliament.”

No, you will not, Antony thought, fury and disappointed rage boiling in his gut. If you were, we would never have come to this pass.

Charles could claim all he liked that he would preserve the purity of religion now established in the Church of England; he could remind them that delay in supplying his war was more dangerous than refusing. None of it mattered a rush, for everyone heard the words, even before Charles commanded the Lord Keeper to speak them.

The words that burnt to black cinders all Antony’s victories, and all his hopes for the future.

“It is his Majesty’s pleasure,” the Lord Keeper said, his words echoing from the walls of the chamber, where less than a month before they had conducted the opening ceremonies, “that this Parliament be dissolved; and he giveth license to all knights, citizens, and burgesses to depart at their pleasure. And so, God save the King!”

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: May 5, 1640

Lune tapped her fan against the arm of her chair in time to the beat of the allemande, watching the fae of her court swirl past in their finery. The music this time came from an entire consort of mortals, which rumor said had been snatched from one of the fine houses along the Strand, where some peer or other had contracted them for his own amusement.

But the musicians did not look unhappy to be here, and so she let the matter pass. So long as no one was mistreated, the occasional temporary theft did not bother her. They would be returned no worse for the wear, and in time might even come to frequent this court. That would please her immensely.

Which her courtiers knew. She was therefore not surprised to see the black head of Sir Cerenel coming her way, with a man in tow behind him. The stranger, a human in ragged clothing, gaped open-mouthed at everything around him, devoting his attention impartially to goblins and shoes, her ivory chair and the sharply arched ceiling of the hall in which the fae danced. Cerenel had him firmly but not unkindly in hand, and with gentle pressure convinced the man to kneel with him before Lune.

“Your Majesty,” the knight said, “I beg your indulgence to bring a guest to this occasion.”

In Antony’s absence, Lune glanced around and gestured for Benjamin Hipley to approach. “Who is he?”

Cerenel glanced sideways at the unwashed stranger, then up at her. “I found him in London, madam, where I had gone to call upon a lady. Though I was well masked in a glamour, and protected against its failure, this fellow saw my true face through that concealment.”

“A lunatic,” she said, straightening in her chair. No one had brought such a mortal below for quite some time, though they used to be fashionable. “Escaped from Bedlam?”

“More likely he was permitted to leave,” Hipley said, when she looked to him for clarification. With her permission he approached the man, who flinched back, but did not run. “The violent ones are chained, and not likely to escape. Did he have a small bowl?” That last was directed to Cerenel, who nodded. “Licensed to beg, then.”

He did not look happy at the madman’s presence in the Onyx Hall, but whether it was because of the stranger’s mean status, or Cerenel’s notion of entertainment, Lune could not say. She herself was not fond of lunatics; she remembered too well how this court had once abused them. But this one would not be mistreated now—and it might be useful to welcome him. Let her subjects see that she favored those who dealt kindly with the mad. “Has he a name?” she asked.

“None I can get from him,” Cerenel said. She believed him, too. He had not always been concerned with mortals as people, but he was one of Lune’s better converts; over the years since her accession, Cerenel had come more or less to share her way of thinking. Not quite with such fervency, but she counted it a victory.

The allemande had drawn to a close, the musicians playing out their final measures long after most of the dancers had ceased to move. Courtiers jostled for position, trying to see the stranger.

“He is welcome among us,” Lune declared, loud enough for all to hear. “As an honored guest. Food and wine for him, from Lord Antony’s store.” Addressing the madman, she said, “Be of good cheer. Tonight, you need not beg for your supper.”

She did not need to tell Hipley to watch after the man. Nor, she was glad to see, did he do so alone; while several ladies flirted with Cerenel, feeding on the minor status he had just won, Lady Amadea devoted her attentions to the lunatic, keeping him safe from the more predatory of courtiers. As for the madman, he gorged happily enough on the sweetmeats and candied fruit brought for him, though he watched the room through skittish eyes.

Her supervision was interrupted when the usher at the door announced the Prince of the Stone. Everyone paused in their places, bowing to Antony as he entered, but no one approached him; the black look on his face forbade it.

He came straight for Lune and spoke before she could even ask what was wrong. “He has dissolved Parliament.”

It struck like a blow, less for her own disappointment and frustration than his. Antony had struggled so hard to achieve this, and now it was taken from him, after a few short, wasted weeks. “We passed acts concerning the pointing of needles,” he said through his teeth, “while Pym and his men forced us toward business they knew would alienate the King. Indeed, they wished it! The Puritans among them have no desire to see the Covenanters suppressed.”

The notion that they would deliberately undermine the King was disturbing. “That,” Lune said, “is just shy of treason.”

“Or past it.” Antony dropped without looking into the chair a hobthrush hurried to place behind him, and glared away the fae who were unabashedly eavesdropping.

Lune recognized the bleak hardness in his eyes. It had grown over the years she’d known him, from his first arrival in this court as a young man with scarcely enough whiskers to call a beard. She made him her consort because she needed his stubborn loyalty to the mortal world; he accepted because he dreamed of changing that world for the better, with faerie aid. But he was a single man, whatever aid he had, and all too often his efforts ended in failure.

It saddened her to see him thus, growing older and grimmer, year by year. How old was he now? How much longer would he last?

I will lose him some day. As I lost the man before him.

She smiled, a practiced mask to conceal the inevitable grief. “There will be another opportunity,” she said. “Charles is not the ruler his father was; he has no skill at playing factions off one another. I have no doubt that circumstances will force him to convene Parliament again.”

“But how long will that take?” Antony muttered, and lapsed into silence.

She left him to it, recognizing the need to let a mood pass. Her own subdued spirits demanded distraction, not contemplation. After the next dance was done, she left the dais and went to join an energetic courante, her slippers flickering along the marble floor. All around her was a mass of paned sleeves and flying curls, courtiers moving flawlessly through the quick, running steps of the dance. For a few moments, she was able to lay her thoughts aside.

Until a chill sharper than winter’s breath gripped her bones.

Without warning, the dancers faltered. They staggered against one another, weak and nauseous, and Lune’s foot caught the hem of her skirts; she stumbled and almost fell.

Pain stabbed through her shoulder, locking her entire body in paralysis, so she could not even cry out.

A roar came from behind her, and then the transfixing spike ripped free, leaving her to crumple in a boneless heap to the floor. Rolling, weeping in agony and shock, Lune saw her attacker.

He, too, was on the floor, pinned under the weight of the elf-knight who had thrown him down. The madman laughed in unintelligible triumph even as the knight smashed his hand against the marble, shattering bones and knocking free his bloodstained iron knife.

And then the laughter stopped, lost in a wet gurgle when the knight plunged his own dagger through the mortal’s throat.

Antony slammed through the nauseated fae an instant later, interposing himself between Lune and the dead man. “What the devil is going on?”

Followed by another, earthier curse, as Antony saw the iron blade. He didn’t hesitate; with the knights of the Onyx Guard closing in to protect their Queen, he snatched up the weapon and tossed it to Hipley, who ran for the door. Lune breathed more easily with every step he took, though she would feel its presence until he removed it from the Onyx Hall entirely.

Even then, the taint would remain, poisoning her body. Had she not stumbled… Lune wavered to her feet, trying not to lean too obviously against Antony for support. “I will fetch a physician,” he murmured in her ear.

“No,” she whispered in reply, and forced her back straight. He was right: the poison must be drawn, and soon. But that would take time, and since she was not dead, it was imperative that she first deal with the situation. She dared not show her weakness.

Her rescuer had likewise risen, behind the protecting wall of her bodyguard. The golden-haired elf was not of their number; his name was Sir Leslic, come perhaps five years ago to her court, and up until this point she had taken little notice of him. Blood spattered his face and darkened the sapphire of his doublet. He was wiping his skin clean when he saw her and went instantly to his knee. Space had cleared for a good three paces around them, excepting the bodyguards who ringed her. “Your Majesty. I beg your forgiveness, for drawing a weapon in your presence.”

She would hardly punish him for that offense, when he had saved her life. “What happened?” she asked, and managed to sound authoritative instead of shaken.

“I saw it as the dance brought me near. He seemed to join in our sport, but then he broke without warning for your Grace’s person, and pulled forth that knife. Had I been but a moment faster, I—I might have stopped him in time.”

Shame broke his voice. Lune said, “You have done well, Sir Leslic.” With one hand she prodded her bodyguards aside, giving her a clear view of her would-be killer. He was a pathetic thing, filthy and ragged on the marble. The luster of the stone was dimmed where the knife had fallen, and smeared with her blood.

The knight moved suddenly, stepping forward and then checking himself as her guards twitched. Antony half-dropped his buttressing grip on Lune’s arms, but restored it as she swayed. Leslic’s attention flew past Lune’s shoulder like an arrow. “You,” he said, spitting the word. “You brought this murderer here.”

Sir Cerenel stood trembling just behind her and to the right, mouth open in sick horror. Leslic’s snarl brought him up with a snap. “Do you accuse me of conspiracy?”

Lune’s own thoughts had not yet gotten that far. Clutching to her bleeding shoulder the fold of cloth Amadea provided, she went cold with sudden fear. Had she so misjudged him? Could Cerenel be playing at agreement with her ideals, all the while paying heed to Nicneven’s agents?

The knights’ anger was evenly matched, and rising. Leslic said, “I would not so impugn her Majesty’s judgment as to imagine she would take such a traitor into her bosom. But you found this man; you brought him here. Are you not of the Onyx Guard? Is it not your duty to protect your Queen from harm? What measures did you take to ensure her safety?”

Cerenel went pale. “Upon my oath, you will withdraw that insult to my honor, sir.”

“For the insult to our gracious sovereign,” Leslic said, “I stand by my words. Prove your honor, sir, or prove it lost.” He spun to face Lune. “Madam, this knight has given the lie to my words. I beg your leave to face him in combat.”

It was too much, too quickly. Lune’s head spun, and blackness feathered the edges of her vision. I should have withdrawn.

Antony’s hands tightened on her arms, and his answer struck both knights into silence. “You would make demands of your Queen? On the heels of such an outrage? Your honor, sirs, is not worth a brass thimble!”

But if she had gone, they would still have had this confrontation. At least now she had some hope of controlling it. Lune had never forbidden dueling, for her people rarely fought to the death, and a little bloodshed for the sake of honor was understandable enough. But for this, a private duel would not serve; it touched too closely on her royal honor. The settlement of the question must be public.

Cerenel was still pale, and he looked at Lune with desperate eyes. That he had not planned this, she was certain. But his honor and reputation were damaged, and he must be given leave to defend them.

Not tonight. “This matter shall be settled in honorable fashion,” she said, holding on to strength with her fingernails. “When we are recovered, we shall oversee it in person. Until such time, we forbid you to visit violence upon one another, nor even to speak; nor to allow any of your allies to do the same, save to arrange the terms of the duel.” She glared both knights down as if she could stop them by will alone. Which she hoped she could. “Do not think to disobey us.”

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: May 5, 1640

Later, Antony went to her bedchamber, where she had dismissed all of her ladies and sprites and sat gazing at a candle flame. “What of the blade?” she asked, without turning to face him.

She sounded far calmer than he would have expected, though he could see the bulk of a bandage altering the line of her shoulder. “Safely gone,” he replied. “It was a cheap Sheffield knife, such as any man might own. Nothing to learn from it. We found a sheath in his clothing, though—made of hawthorn, to mask its presence. Someone prepared this.” Nicneven, without a doubt. She had threatened violence before.

But always against him. Never Lune. Anger such as he rarely felt heated Antony’s blood. Murder was a foul thing; regicide, far fouler.

Lune did not comment on the sheath, though he knew she had heard him. Antony swallowed down his anger and cleared his throat. “Will you…” He hesitated to give the question tongue. No one had been wounded with iron during his time here; he realized now that he did not know what would happen. “Will you recover?”

“In part.” Lune’s breath hissed between her teeth before she continued. “The poison has been drawn. But wounds so given never fully heal.”

And she was immortal. Never would last a very long time for her.

The ensuing silence persisted long enough that he opened his mouth to take his leave. She needed to rest, and might do so if he were gone. But then she spoke again. “Did you mark how Leslic leapt on the man?”

He had watched the incident from the dais—all of it over too fast for him to see much. Or so he thought. But now, recalling the scene, he noted what he had overlooked in the moment. How had Lune, bleeding on the floor, seen such a small thing?

Easily. She knew far better than he how the presence of iron felt. “He did not flinch.”

“No,” Lune said.

Another silence, this time as they both considered the implications. Antony stayed by the door, suspecting she did not want a companion in her weakness. She rarely did. Instead he asked, “Do you wish me to find out where he got the bread?”

She shook her head, then stopped as if the movement hurt her shoulder. “The trade in it is so brisk, I doubt you could trace it. The better question is why he had eaten of it so recently, and was so conveniently protected against the iron.”

He did not know the golden-haired knight well, but he remembered the company in which Leslic had been seen. Fae who sneered at mortals as lesser beings, and rarely set foot outside the Onyx Hall. What bread they had was generally bartered for political favors, not kept for their own use.

Antony said, “I will look for the answer.”

“No,” Lune said, turning to look at him at last. “You have concerns enough of your own. I have others who can find out more efficiently.”

Concerns. Trade, and his family, and the day-to-day governance of his ward. He would get plenty of rest, now that he need not concern himself with Parliament. But Lune was right; there were others who could do that work better. “Then let them have a care for their safety, too,” he said. “Those who would kill you would not hesitate to murder others.”

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: May 11, 1640

Wiping his mouth with a napkin, Eochu Airt said, “I am glad to see you so rapidly recovered, madam. Please accept as well the sympathies of the Ard-Rí, who is most outraged over such a foul, dishonorable offense.”

Lune was not quite so recovered as she took pains to appear, but the wound from that knife had already incapacitated her for nearly a week; she could not afford a longer absence from the field. She was at least glad to see that her thought about Eochu Airt had borne fruit. He was much more agreeable when given venison and boar to tear into, rather than pickled lampreys. The quiet meal they shared now was still not the rowdy public banquets hosted by the kings and queens of his land, but it helped, and was a bargain at the price.

She sipped from a cup of wine well fortified with strengthening herbs and said, “The offender answered with his life.”

The ambassador smiled in a way that said he recognized the opportunity she gave him. Lune’s body might still be weak, but she had not missed the implication of his phrasing: that the lunatic’s attack was more than an unfortunate accident. “But what of the one behind him?”

Lune replied with nothing more than politely raised eyebrows, waiting to see how he would continue.

“You may recall, madam,” he said, fingering a bone on his plate, “that nearly a year ago, I offered you information. I assure you, its value has not fallen with time.”

“But has its price? What you offer, my lord ollamh, may not be so valuable as you think. No doubt you offer me some intelligence concerning the Gyre-Carling of Fife. Oh, yes,” Lune said, “I am not ignorant of the pattern here. This is the only attempt so direct against my person, but there have been other attacks, and I know their source. True, I do not yet know their cause—what has changed in Fife, thus changing Nicneven’s tactics. But you are hardly my only means of learning that, my lord.”

“Aye, you have other ways—but how long will they take you? And how many more threats will there be in the meantime?” The sidhe had abandoned the last pretense of casual conversation; now he studied her with a frankness that stopped just shy of insult. “You know our price. It has not changed. Bring down Wentworth, and you shall have the name, and more besides.”

Behind him, the door opened to admit Sir Peregrin, who bowed and waited. “We shall bear that in mind, my lord,” Lune said, rising and extending her hand. “In the meantime, I am afraid obligations call me away. You are welcome to attend, if you so desire.”

“Thank you, madam. I may at that.” Eochu Airt kissed her hand and departed.

Left with the lieutenant of her guard, Lune said, “I will come presently.”

“If it please your Majesty,” he replied, “the Goodemeade sisters beg a moment of your time.”

“Show them in.” The brownies dropped into respectful curtsies, straightening as soon as Peregrin was gone. “I am due in the amphitheater,” Lune said. “Please say you have something for me.”

Rosamund answered briskly, incongruous in someone who still, despite years of association with the court, appeared so very country. The Goodemeades almost never changed into fine clothes for their visits to the Onyx Hall. “Sir Leslic hasn’t gone above since March, and as near as we can tell, he had no plans to do so.”

Confirming her suspicions. What to do about it depended on what happened tonight. “Thank you,” Lune said, checking the pins that held up her elaborate curls. “I may have need of you soon. Will you stay for the duel?”

Gertrude wrinkled her round face in distaste, but nodded. Lune touched her shoulder briefly in thanks, then went forth from the chamber.

The amphitheater lay in one of the more distant corners of the Onyx Hall. Its ancient, crumbling stones dated back to the Romans; long since buried beneath the changing face of the city, it thus found itself incorporated into the faerie palace below. When the space was quiet, one could still hear the faint shouts and screams of the men and beasts who had died within its ring.

But it was far from quiet now. Lune strode out onto the white sand to find what looked like every member of her court settled onto the risers, with cushions and cups of wine, ready for entertainment. A canopy of estate covered the box where she took her seat, just behind the low wall ringing the sand. When she nodded, two trumpeters blew fanfares from the entrances, and Sir Cerenel and Sir Leslic entered, followed by their seconds.

The black-haired knight and the gold. If she weighed their hearts aright, they stood opposite one another, when it came to mortal kind. This duel would be seen as a fight between those two perspectives, and unfortunately, she could do nothing to prevent that.

They made their bows before her, and Lune pitched her voice to carry. “Sir Leslic. Upon what grounds do you come here today, in defense of your honor?”

Challenging Cerenel had been his right, even though the offense was his to begin with, because Cerenel’s defense called into question the truth of Leslic’s words, and therefore his honesty. According to the forms of such things, this had nothing to do with the attempt on Lune’s life; it was entirely a question of whether Leslic had spoken rightly in calling Cerenel negligent. The golden-haired knight recounted the tale with simple but effective phrasing, as if there might be a mouse in the corner that had not already heard the gossip.

“Sir Cerenel,” Lune said when he was done. “As the challenged, what weapons do you choose for this duel?”

He bowed again. “If it please your Majesty, rapier and dagger.”

“We approve this choice.” A formality; the entire question had been settled by their seconds the day before.

As accuser, Leslic took the oath first, then Cerenel, both of them upon their knees in the sand. “In the name of most ancient Mab, and before your Grace’s sovereign throne, I hereby swear that I have this day neither eat nor drank, nor have upon me, neither bone, stone, nor grass, nor any enchantment, sorcery, or witchcraft, whereby the honor of Faerie may be abased, nor dishonor exalted.”

But when Cerenel was done, Leslic remained kneeling. “Madam,” he said, “though I fight to defend my honor, I do so for your own glory, and never my own. May I beg you to grant me your favor?”

Lune bit back a curse. Of course he asked; she should have expected it. He was, after all, her savior, the knight most of her court had come to cheer on. For her to refuse him would betray her suspicions. Yet it galled her to show affection to such a viper.

It was the only way to find out what he sought to gain, and who was pulling his strings. For now, she must play his game. Lune pulled off her glove of black lace, and bent to hand it down. Leslic pinned it to his snow-white sleeve, and the crowd applauded him.

Then, at last, they took their places on the hard-packed sand, silver rapiers and daggers glinting in their hands. The amphitheater fell silent.

“Begin,” Lune said.

Cerenel barely waited for the word to leave her mouth. Quick as a snake, he leapt forward, and Leslic recoiled. With a rapid flurry of blows, they crossed the sand, Leslic dodging aside from a thrust to keep from being trapped against the low wall. No question of it: Cerenel was a fine swordsman.

But Leslic had for the last year been tutored by Il Veloce, an Italian faun resident in the Onyx Hall. He had a clever dagger hand, and was quick to use Cerenel’s momentum against him. First once, then again, the dark knight found his accuser unexpectedly within his guard, and saved himself only with a desperate twist away.

The silence that had marked their beginning was long since broken, fae shouting out encouragement to the one they favored. Cerenel’s name sounded but rarely. Leslic was the hero of the moment, but that was not all; listening, Lune identified more of his allies, more fae who shared his views on mortals. Their approval did not stop at one dead murderer.

Below, the blades continued their glittering dance. Whether above or below, the point of a duel was to show oneself willing to defend one’s honor; the outcome was almost immaterial. Almost, but not quite: in the final accounting, Cerenel had been negligent. Leslic’s words were true. And so while the audience came hoping for a good show, everyone knew how it would end.

Leslic beat his opponent back to the wall and trapped his sword against it; the swift thrust of his dagger would have maimed Cerenel’s hand, had the other knight not abandoned his sword and pulled away. But however desperately he retreated, twisting and leaping, he could not defend himself long with only a knife, and Leslic closed in for the kill.

“Hold!” Lune called out, just before the blade would have slid home.

Cerenel had fallen to his knees; the tip of Leslic’s rapier stopped a mere finger’s-breadth from his throat. Duels rarely went to the death, but in a matter touching so closely on the Queen’s honor, no one would have faulted Leslic. To proud to cry craven and thus save his life, Cerenel would have died.

But Lune had other plans for him.

“To shed the blood of a fae is an abominable thing,” she said. “Such a fate, we must reserve for true traitors to our realm. The negligence of Cerenel has been proved. Let his punishment be thus: that for a year and a day, he be exiled from the Onyx Court and all its dominions, and his place in our guard revoked. But when that time ends, he will be welcomed back in our halls, and may in time regain the honors he formerly held.”

Did she imagine the brief flash of anger in Leslic’s eyes? It was quickly hidden, regardless; he sheathed his rapier and dagger and said, “Your Majesty’s wisdom and mercy is a great gift to this realm.”

Looking across the sand, Lune caught the gazes of the Goodemeades, who nodded minutely.

“Go,” she said to Cerenel, where he still knelt in the sand. “Your exile begins at once.”

THE ANGEL INN, ISLINGTON: May 11, 1640

“Would you like more privacy, madam?”

“No,” Lune said. “That will not be necessary.”

She hoped it would not. If matters had come to such a pass that she needed to take elaborate measures to protect her secrets, she was in a worse state than she believed. But Lune doubted anyone would be following her movements closely enough to eavesdrop on the comfortable chamber in which she now sat.

Not yet, at least.

Cerenel stood rigid by the hearth, hands locked behind his back. He had accepted the Goodemeades’ offer of shelter; their home lay within the bounds of Lune’s realm, but Rosamund had assured him the Queen would not take it amiss if he tarried there a single night. Lune had watched his face settle into hard, understanding lines when she came down the staircase and threw back the hood of her concealing cloak.

She came out in secret, not even informing Sir Prigurd of her departure. It was easy enough to ensure she would not be disturbed in her chamber—all it took was a protest of exhaustion, after the excitement of the duel—and wearing a crown had not made her forget how to sneak about.

Lune arrayed herself in the chair Gertrude provided, and judged whether or not to offer Cerenel a seat. No; he was too stiff with anger, and might refuse.

“I will be brief,” she said. “For I suspect you wish not to see me just now.”

A shift in the tendons of his neck was her only reply, as he clenched his jaw.

“You were negligent,” she went on, and saw him flinch. “It was obvious before the duel, and proven with it. But I tell you now what is not obvious: that the mortal you brought below was bait, for a trap you unwittingly sprung.”

Cerenel was far from the stupidest of her knights. He paled in anger and spoke for the first time since he knelt at her arrival. “Leslic.” His hands came free from behind his back and flexed, wishing for the hilt of the sword he had laid aside. “Madam, let me but stay a moment to challenge him—”

Lune cut him off. “You may not. Did I wish Leslic exposed, I had done it myself. There is no proof, nothing direct. And though you could fight him again, this time with right on your side, that would simply remove him from play, with nothing gained. I am not concerned with Leslic. I am concerned with those who gave him his orders.

“This murderer was part of a pattern. There have been attacks on the Onyx Hall—subtle ones, not those of armies. Subtle enough that I have, until now, kept them secret. I must know more of their source.” She held his gaze. “The Unseely Court of Fife.”

The knight’s body stilled. Lune watched his face, trying to read his expression through the shadows that flickered over it, cast by the fire’s wavering light. He licked his lips before speaking. “You suspect my brother?”

A wry smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, born of bitter amusement. “No more than others in the Gyre-Carling’s court. Cunobel holds no love for me, I know. But he left here in peace—which I cannot say of another who once called this court home. Presumably he has told you that Kentigern Nellt is there as well.”

He said, with a touch of bitterness, “Another exile. Like me.”

“Not like you.” Rosamund’s voice came from the corner; by the twitch of Cerenel’s shoulders, he had forgotten the Goodemeades were listening, quiet as mice. “Her Grace exiled him permanently.”

“And for better cause,” Lune added. “You made a mistake, Cerenel—a foolish one, for which you are duly shamed. But I do not consider you my enemy.”

His relief spoke plainly. “Then you suspect Kentigern.”

Lune laughed. “Of subtlety and intrigue? He is no more capable of it than a thunderstorm. No. Someone else is the architect of these new troubles.

“Ever since the coalition in the North dissolved, Nicneven has lacked the military might to strike directly at us, and she has never had the subtlety for more insidious attacks. The worst she could do was to encourage the baser elements of my court—fae such as Leslic. I believe someone else must have come to her, someone with both the mind and the will to craft this new malignance. I wish to know who.”

Only a blind man would not see where she aimed. “You wish me to spy.”

“You have the justification you need. Exiled from London, disaffected with our court—who is to say you would not journey north to Fife, and throw your lot in with Nicneven and your brother?”

Cerenel’s eyes glittered in the firelight. He said quietly, “How do you know I would not?”

Because you ask that question. Lune stood from her chair and took one of his hands in her own. His fingers were very cold. “I know you nearly followed your brother,” she said. “You stayed because you wished to see what manner of Queen I would be, and in time you came to believe in my ideals. I do not doubt your honor, and when the year and a day has passed, we shall welcome you back with open arms. If you can bring us the information we need… you will be richly rewarded.”

He knelt and pressed his lips to her hand. “I shall do as you bid, your Majesty.”

Excellent. Cerenel was not the tool Lune would have chosen for the task, but he had the pretext she needed, to get someone close to the Gyre-Carling. Still, she must be cautious.

Laying her free hand on his head, she said, “Then swear it.”

His fingers tightened involuntarily on hers. The dim light darkened his eyes to deepest amethyst; in that instant, they were guileless, speaking eloquently of his surprise.

“If you swear it,” Lune said, “then I need not fear a misstep on your part. You will let slip no accidental word that might endanger you, or us here in London. Give me your vow, and I will know for certain we are safe.”

Surprise gave way to anger, mounting with her every word. Lune had known it would offend him, but she could not afford to do otherwise. Cerenel was no practiced spy, and though she was confident he would not turn traitor now, she could not trust what would happen after a year and a day spent among those with cause to hate her.

For him to refuse would cast his loyalty into doubt. He could imagine for himself the consequences of that. She watched him struggle with it, swallowing his fury down, and did not move.

At last the knight bowed his head, and repeated in a dead voice the words she proposed. “I swear to you, in ancient Mab’s name, that I will seek out the malignance in Fife that sets itself against the Onyx Court, and neither by speech nor by action betray to another my purpose in being there.” His fingers never once relaxed their stone-hard grip on her hand.

“Learn what you can,” Lune said when he was done, her tone as gentle as she could make it. “Then return to us for your reward.”

ST. STEPHEN’S CHAPEL, WESTMINSTER: November 11, 1640

If there was one decision that could have made the dissolution of Parliament in May seem an even graver error, it was the choice to summon it again six months later.

There was little joy this time, except of a fierce and battle-ready sort. All over England, supporters of the Crown went down in resounding defeat. And although Antony did not consider himself a King’s man, he was not godly enough, and not sympathetic enough to Pym’s cause, to win reelection easily. Publicly, he said he regained his seat through the grace of God; in truth, he owed it to the fae. Lune had not said one word of complaint when he asked her for aid. It was the only way to keep the Onyx Court represented in the Commons.

So in the bleak days of November, they gathered once more in Westminster Palace, to fight over the governance of England. Damply unpleasant winds blew in through the broken windows of the chapel, causing the men who gathered within to shiver and wrap their cloaks more firmly about their shoulders. The windows had been as badly off the previous spring—victims of the long years when the Commons was disbanded—but no one had minded them then. Now, in the chill grip of an early winter, they added a grim touch to grimmer proceedings.

Arrayed along one wall were the King’s opponents, with their officers all in a row. Antony doubted anyone did not see John Pym as a general in this political war, leading Hampden, St. John, Strode and Holles, Hesilrige and Secretary Vane’s fanatical son, against the Crown’s own disorganized forces. They would cripple the King if they could, paring away slivers of his power until it all rested in their own hands; indeed, they had already begun. Now they prepared for their next move.

Antony watched Pym unblinking from the moment the opening prayers concluded. Without question, he knows what has happened. His intelligence is at least as good as mine.

And if Antony had learned anything about Pym in the three and a half disastrous weeks last spring, it was that the man was a master of timing. Unlike his subordinates, he never let the passion of his beliefs carry him out of the course of effective action. Though Penington was chafing at the bit to attack the bishops and destroy the episcopacy, root and branch, Pym held him back, lest such Puritan zeal alienate more moderate members of the House. But when his time came…

Antony, not attending in the slightest to the debate currently under way, saw Pym receive a message and rise with his hat off.

He must have taken his seat.

Thomas Wentworth, the Earl of Strafford, had arrived in London the previous night. Parliament was nearly a week into its new sitting, but Pym delayed his attack, waiting for his enemy to arrive and take his place in the House of Lords. Now, at last, Pym could move against the King’s “evil councillor”—the man he would make a whipping boy for all the troubles in Scotland and Ireland both, and England, too. Pym could not strike directly at Charles, but he could harry the King like a dog at a bear, inflicting a hundred small wounds to bleed and weaken him of his power.

Lenthall, the weak-willed man who had succeeded Glanville as Speaker, gave Pym permission to speak. “I have something of gravest import to say,” Pym told them all, “and so I call upon the sergeant-at-arms to clear the antechamber, and to bar all doors from this House.” He waited while this was done, while the rumors ran up and down the benches, and then commenced his assault.

From tyranny to sexual misdeeds, he laid a whole series of crimes at Strafford’s feet. Nor was he alone: his minion Clotworthy succeeded him with another speech, far less coherent but far more inflammatory, and then more after him. All riding hard toward the same end: the impeachment of the Earl of Strafford, on the charge of treason.

Pym had tried it years ago, with the Duke of Buckingham; Charles had dissolved Parliament rather than let his chief councillor of the time suffer attack. Now the leader of Parliament took aim again, when Charles could not evade it. This time, he might strike home.

But first, a committee; hardly anything was done anymore without a committee to chew it over first. The composition of that body was no surprise, either. Pym had planned for this, as he planned for everything, and the committee returned in remarkably quick time, opening the general debate. Antony seized his own opportunity to speak.

“Of a certainty, Lord Strafford has taken many actions both here and in Ireland that bear closer scrutiny,” he said, meeting the eyes of his fellow members. “Whether those actions constitute treason is a matter for the law to decide. But we must not let them pass unremarked, for fear that others might then try to press that liberty beyond the bounds of what is just and right. By all means, gentlemen—let us send to the Lords a message of impeachment.”

He took perverse pleasure in seeing the astonishment on Pym’s face as he sat once more. You think I support you and your junto. But I do not do this for you; I do it for Lune.

They had no word yet from Cerenel, though they knew he had arrived in Fife. And while no madmen with iron knives had shown up again, the disturbances at court had not ended. They needed the information Eochu Airt had—and that meant getting rid of Thomas Wentworth, the Earl of Strafford.

For once, Antony was glad of Pym’s attack. He still despised the man’s junto, and many of the things it fought for, but in this one matter, they stood as temporary allies.

The message summoned Antony out into the Old Palace Yard, where he found Ben Hipley waiting for him on the cobblestones.

“Have they impeached the earl?” the other man asked, hardly even pausing to make his greeting.

“Yes,” Antony said. “They have taken the message in to the Lords—Pym and the others.”

Hipley swore sulfurously. “And Strafford just came back. He left this morning for Whitehall, to talk to the King, but I saw him return not five minutes ago. Damnation!”

The curses were drawing far too much attention. They were hardly the only people in the yard; Parliament scarcely sat but there were mobs outside, thronging the streets of Westminster. These were the same apprentices and laborers, mariners and dockhands who had attacked Archbishop Laud’s palace earlier in the year. Riots had become a common feature of London life, no doubt encouraged by Pym and the others. Antony drew Hipley to one side and lowered his voice. “Temair wants him gone. Lune has told me to do it if I can. Why balk now?”

“Because Strafford was going to impeach Pym and the others,” his spymaster said through his teeth. “For treasonous dealings with the Covenanters. He might have broken their strength—so they are determined to break his first.”

It set Antony back on his heels. That Pym was deep in alliance with the Covenanters, he did not doubt. But he had not realized such a good opportunity existed to curb the opposition’s power.

He spun without a word and hurried back into the palace, Ben close behind, but even as he neared the Lords’ chamber the roar of the crowd there told him he was too late—even supposing he could have done anything to stop it. He could just glimpse Strafford exiting the chamber; gems glinted in the light as the earl removed his sword and surrendered it to Maxwell.

Illness had ravaged Wentworth; his complexion was sallow, his skin sagging in loose curves. He hardly looked the terrible figure popular opinion made him out to be. But the watching masses showed no respect; Antony heard many cutting remarks, and did not see a single man doff his cap to the bare-headed earl.

“What’s the matter?” a jeering voice cried out, as Strafford wearily faced the gauntlet he must run.

Strafford answered as confidently as he could, but his voice was weak and hoarse. “A small matter, I warrant you.”

“Yes, indeed,” someone else shouted. “High treason is a small matter!”

Under the cover of the ensuing laughter, Antony said to Ben, “The charges are weak. It may well be that he can defeat them.”

“I hope so,” his companion replied, watching the crowd dog Strafford’s heels as he crossed to the outer door. “For the sake of us all. Pym’s power worries me.”

And me, Antony admitted privately. He had hoped to do some good for Lune, but it appeared the good of England would have to come first.

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: December 28, 1640

Of all the practices fae had adopted from mortals, the giving of Christmas gifts puzzled Lune the most. They were never called by such name, of course, but midwinter exchanges had become common, and served a particular purpose in courtly life.

As she was reminded of, cynically, when Sir Leslic appeared one day with a hound following at his heels.

The creature was a paragon of its kind, with a long, sleek, cream-furred body, and ears of russet. A faerie hound, not a faerie in the form of a hound, and a breed raised by the Tylwyth Teg of Wales, if she did not miss her guess. She wondered what he had given up to gain it.

Leslic bowed, sweeping his hat wide, drawing every eye in the chamber. Naturally he picked a moment of leisure, and one well attended by Lune’s idle courtiers. “Your radiant Grace—I cannot sleep at nights, fearful as I am for your safety. I beg you to allow me to make this poor gift to you, a faithful companion to watch over your rest.”

Lune did not miss the annoyance among some of her courtiers. Leslic’s one failing, in his pursuit of her favor, was an over-ready will to invoke the rescue that had catapulted him from relative obscurity to a place in the Onyx Guard, and therefore close by her side. But he redeemed the error quickly enough; peeking slyly up from his bow, he added, “Or at least to pursue the fox for you, when next you ride to the hunt.”

He had a charming smile, she granted him that. Lune made herself return one equally charming, or rather charmed. When she extended her hand, the dog came without prompting; there was no need for leashes and beatings, such as humans used to train their beasts. The animal sniffed her fingers delicately, then bent his head into her friendly scratch behind his ears.

Leslic sighed grandly and pressed one hand over his heart. “Fortunate hound, that comes home to his mistress’s touch. I shall sleep in envy instead of fear tonight, wishing I might have his place at the foot of your bed.”

They had gathered a small audience, the courtiers who flocked to his rising star. Not all of them, certainly; fae were capable of great oceans of jealous resentment. Lewan Erle pouted incessantly, feeling himself slighted. Lune was disappointed to see Valentin Aspell drifting near. She wished she could believe her faerie spymaster was simply keeping close watch on the knight, but the truth was that he found Leslic’s opinions congenial.

What to do with the hound? She was not at all certain she could trust the beast at the foot of her bed. Not out of fear for her safety; if Leslic wanted her dead, he could simply have let the lunatic kill her. Far as he had risen, there was much farther to go, and he needed her alive for that. But the hounds of the Tylwyth Teg were intelligent creatures, capable of much more than a normal dog. The gift was to curry favor; all these midwinter presents were simply another path to advantage at court. That did not, however, mean Leslic had no other purpose for it.

She had to draw him out. “Wouldst sleep at the foot of my bed, then?” she said teasingly, arching one eyebrow. “Is that your desired place?”

“I would account the cold stone there a finer bed than any that stood farther from your presence,” he answered, less in jest than before. A trace of longing threaded his answer, taut in the air between them.

Lune let him come closer; heeding that cue, the watchers faded back, returning to their diversions. They had the illusion of privacy, at least. “But you dream of a warmer bed.”

“What man would not?”

There was no possibility of deluding herself. The hunger in Leslic’s heart was not for her. In body, perhaps a little, but none for her spirit; it was power he sought, and a closer place in her counsel. All else was merely a pretext, a mask for the truth.

Every breath of their encounters was a sham. Amadea had made so bold as to ask Lune why she showed such favor to a knight who made no secret of his disdain for mortals; Lune excused his behavior as concern for the threat they posed, though she knew it went far deeper and fouler than that. The fae who scorned mortals as lesser creatures were calling themselves Ascendants now, and looked to Leslic as their captain. As the godly became more vocal above, the Ascendants became more common below.

Yet the true root of that threat lay, not here, but in Scotland. Lune could not tell her Lady Chamberlain the truth: that clasping this viper to her breast would teach her more of his aims. The closer she brought him, the more she learned of his connections to Nicneven.

Giving Leslic what he desired might gain her a great deal. Men said things over a pillow they might not let slip otherwise.

But bile rose in her throat at the thought. She had loved once, with her heart as well as her body, and once given, a faerie’s love did not fade. Now, though she took the occasional gentleman to her bed, they were rare, and never from her own court; the favor thus granted would upset the delicate balance she strove to maintain. And if she were to break that prohibition, it would not be for this golden-haired devil, this smiling traitor, who would betray her to her death if it suited his ambition.

Not even for the safety of her crown and her court would she take Leslic into her bed.

Her hesitation had gone on too long. Lune forced a smile onto her face, forced promise to hide behind that smile. “You are no man, but an elfin knight. Yet dreams come to our kind, even in our waking hours, and some dreams, they say, are prophecy.”

He took her hand and kissed it, feather-light; she fought not to shudder at his touch. “I shall petition the Fates to make me a seer, then, and until that day, live in hope.”

ST. STEPHEN’S CHAPEL, WESTMINSTER: April 21, 1641

“Consider the law,” Antony said, endeavoring to sound stronger and more confident than he felt. “For weeks, we have seen the Earl of Strafford defend himself upon the charges laid against him. He has established beyond doubt that, however much we may dispute the choices he has made, the actions he has taken, they have not crossed the line into treason.

“What are the strongest pieces of evidence against him?” A rhetorical question, but he had come to learn some of the theatrics of oration. Though he could not match the eloquence of Strode or Holles, he had to try. Antony raised a sheet of paper. “A copy of a copy of a note, made against Secretary Vane’s knowledge.” On a bench across the way, Vane’s son glared, not in the least embarrassed by his theft. “And Secretary Vane’s statement regarding the privy council meeting at which that note was made. The same piece of evidence, rendered twice, does not become twice as strong.

“Lord Strafford suggested the Irish army be used to reduce ‘this kingdom.’ Had he meant England, that would be treason indeed—but he did not say England. Others present at that meeting have no doubt he meant Scotland, which was, after all, the rebellious land then under debate. There is no treason here.”

He tossed down the paper, contemptuously, and locked his hands behind his back to conceal their trembling. “The charge of impeachment has failed. This bill of attainder seeks to circumvent that failure—to declare that Strafford intended to subvert the laws of this land, and that such intent, unproved and not acted upon, yet constitutes treason. In effect, the bill declares that Strafford must die for the good of England, because we say it is so.”

A pause, to let that sink in. But the benches around him were far too empty; where were the men who should have packed into the aisles for such an important vote? Scarcely half of the Commons had come today, despite the penalties for absence. They were afraid to commit themselves.

Afraid to put themselves in the path of Pym’s relentless assault, which struck not only at this one man, but the roots of sovereignty itself. Laud was in the Tower with Strafford; other servants of the Crown had fled abroad. Parliament—which was to say, the Commons—asserted the right to question and oversee the King’s councillors, to alter the Church as it saw fit, to control the revenues of the state; they wanted authority over the militia given into their hands. The only thing yet passed into law was a bill to call Parliament not less often than every three years—but if Antony lost this chance to thwart the opposition, who knew where the avalanche would end?

“Let us not make ourselves into a tyrannous mob,” he said, quietly, into the watchful silence. “The law has rendered Strafford innocent of treason. We must heed its voice.”

Then he sat down, before his knees could give out.

“The question,” said Speaker Lenthall, “is the bill of attainder for Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford. The House will divide.”

The lobby to the chapel was cleared of all its usual rabble. Sir Gilbert Gerard and Sir Thomas Barrington stood by the door, ready to mark down the names of those voting against the bill.

Antony was the first to rise and pass outside the bar. In that moment, he hated this arrangement, which encouraged the lazy and the fearful to remain in their seats, while those who stood against were forced to walk out, under the eyes of their enemies.

Even before he turned around in the lobby, he knew it would not be enough.

A score. Two score. Watching, praying, he ended his count at fifty-nine. The dissenters recalled into the chamber, Lenthall read out the division: the yeas had gathered two hundred and four.

There was still a chance. The Lords had not yet passed the bill, and the King had not assented. And Charles had promised Strafford repeatedly that he would suffer no such ungrateful reward for his service.

But whatever the outcome for Wentworth’s life, the earl was defeated; Pym had won.

TOWER HILL, LONDON: May 12, 1641

The sea of people stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions: on rooftops, hanging out windows, flooding Petty Wales and Tower Street and Woodroffe Lane, packing into the open spaces of Tower Hill until there was scarcely room to draw breath. How many are there? Antony wondered.

How many thousands have come to see him die?

Katherine was not one of them. Antony had asked that morning, tentatively, whether she wished to accompany him. Other wives stood with his fellow aldermen, just as eager as their husbands to see Black Tom Tyrant meet his end. But while Kate had as strong a heart as any for most things, she could not abide blood; she had gone into Covent Garden for the day, far from the thousand-headed monster that now waited with unholy glee.

That monster frankly scared Antony. He’d already fled one angry mob a few days after the vote in the Commons, discovering only then that the divisions had been published, and that he was tarred as a Straffordian. And as bad as the riots had been lately, the celebration tonight would be worse. London had become a beast that answered to no man’s command.

Noon was nearly upon them. Sunlight gilded the tops of the White Tower, and the scaffold where the headsman waited. The wind off the river was cool, but with so many bodies pressed so close, the air sweltered and stank. Despite that, hawkers wandered tirelessly through the crowd, selling beer and onions and cheese. A few enterprising souls seemed even to have brought chamber pots, so they need not risk losing their places.

Antony prayed for it to be over soon, and was answered with an animal roar. Mail and pike heads glittered along the Tower wall: they were bringing Strafford out.

Thomas Wentworth, born of a wealthy Yorkshire family, bore himself as proudly as any duke. Illness and imprisonment had weakened his body, but his spirit was yet strong; he had even written to the King, telling him to sign the bill of attainder, for the good of England. Antony suspected it a political gambit on Strafford’s part, a ploy to gain sympathy from the Lords by his noble self-sacrifice, but if so, it had failed signally. All it had bought him was death.

Movement flickered in a window of the fortress: craning his neck, Antony saw Laud, looking out from his own cell. The archbishop raised his hands in blessing as his friend passed; then he staggered, weeping, and crumpled out of sight.

Having mounted the steps to the scaffold, Wentworth composed himself and addressed the crowd. Only fitful snatches of the man’s final speech reached Antony’s ears. “I do freely forgive all the world—”

Even his King, Antony thought, and shifted uncomfortably. All Charles’s promises to Strafford had come to naught. The King had even made one last, frantic attempt to free the earl by force, dispatching soldiers to break him from the Tower of London, but it accomplished nothing. No, something more, and worse: it had fed the hysterical rumors of gunpowder plots and invasion from abroad, and strengthened Pym’s position. Who could trust the King now?

His speech concluded, Wentworth was praying. The rumble of the crowd subsided, waiting for the moment. And in that hush, Antony heard a voice, hissing venomous words.

“Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of men, for in them there is no salvation.”

He thought at first it was one of his fellow aldermen. But they were all watching the scaffold, where Strafford refused a blindfold. Scarcely breathing, Antony cast his eyes about, trying to find the source of the voice. All about him were merchants and gentlemen, common councillors—

There. A man he did not know, standing a little distance in front and to the left of him. Respectably dressed, with nothing about him to draw attention—save some indefinable quality in how he held himself, some feral touch in his bearing, that most would not remark. But Antony had seen it before.

Wentworth knelt and stretched out his arms.

Disturbance was spreading around the stranger, ugly muttering, men scowling in anger and hate. The executioner raised his axe, and as it fell home, the stranger’s lips curved in a wicked smile.

Antony was moving almost before the roar began, well before the severed head was lifted for all to see. Not toward the stranger; anything he tried to do in this crowd would get him killed. He was a known Straffordian, and the howls coming from that knot of men sounded more like the cries of wolves than civilized Englishmen. It would be a riot, if he did anything to provoke it.

It might become one regardless.

Hoofbeats at the far verges of the crowd, men riding to bring the glad news to the rest of the country. Elbows jostled Antony, almost knocking him from his feet. If I fall, I will be trampled. He caught the sleeve of a nearby man and regained his balance while the fellow spat a curse in his face. I must get out of here!

Free air, finally, as he broke through into more open space. The fringes of the crowd, packed into the farthest reaches of the streets that still had some view of the scaffold, were roiling away now, shouting, singing joyous melodies. Antony joined their movement, but not their song, and headed for the realm below.

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: May 12, 1641

“It has been a year and a day,” Lune said to Gertrude, pacing the small, painted chamber in a back corner of the Onyx Hall. Someone had decorated it decades ago for their mortal lover; now it lay empty, unused, forgotten. Which made it very suitable for private audiences. “Where is he?”

“Well,” the little brownie said philosophically, “times aren’t what they used to be. Can’t just go flying through the air on a bit of straw anymore; someone might see. Perhaps the roads were bad.”

Perhaps. Lune fretted, though. Had the oath been enough? Or had the knight found some way to betray her?

Or been discovered and killed.

She worried without cause. Scotland was far away; Cerenel might, as Gertrude suggested, have misjudged how long the journey would take. Or perhaps he could not slip away so easily. They were assuming, regardless, that he would go first to the Angel, and from there Rosamund would guide him. Cerenel might be planning a more public return, testing before the court Lune’s promise that he would be welcomed back.

A year and a day. A year and a day of the Ascendants rising in power, and brawls between courtiers about the proper relations of mortals and fae. No attacks as obvious as the murderer or Taylor’s attempt on the alder tree, but one of her more idealistic knights—one come to the Onyx Court after her accession, drawn by her rhetoric of harmony—was found dead in the streets, while wandering in mortal guise. Chance accident? Or a deliberate weakening of her support?

She hoped to find out today. Lune breathed more easily when the door opened, and Rosamund bowed Sir Cerenel into the room.

He was just as he had been; they were not mortals, to be aged and worn by their trials. True, he wore barbarous fashion—a loose, belted tunic laced at the neck and sleeves with leather thongs—but then, he had taken nothing with him in his exile save the clothes and sword he wore. Studying him, though, Lune saw stiffness in his posture. Whatever else happened, this banishment had forever changed how he would serve her.

I hope it was not in vain.

Cerenel knelt, the curtain of his black hair falling forward. When Lune offered her hand, he kissed it with dry lips. “Rise,” she said. “And tell us what you have learned.”

She settled into her chair as he began, hands clasped behind his back. “As commanded, your Majesty, I have been to the Gyre-Carling’s court in Fife. You have weighed her heart to an ounce: her animosity to you and yours is unequaled.”

Sun and Moon knew where the Goodemeades had vanished to, though Lune was sure they would be ready to hand if she needed them. Cerenel had not appreciated their presence before.

“All of this is known,” Lune said, trying not to show her impatience too obviously. “Who is the architect of our troubles?”

“I suspect one they call the Lord of Shadows,” Cerenel said. Lune’s mouth twitched at the ostentatious title. “He is newly come to Nicneven, though his arrival there seems to have preceded the attacks by some span.”

Hardly an argument against him. Unless Nicneven were a fool—and would that she were—she would weigh the merits of any newcomer before deciding to follow his advice.

“How stands he in the court? Who are his allies?”

“Kentigern Nellt,” Cerenel replied, not at all to Lune’s surprise. “The giant rails against the subtlety and slow progress counseled by the Lord of Shadows, but their goals are in accord. My brother keeps more free of him, wishing to be rid of all politics in his life. But others fled from this court are there, and many declare themselves his followers.”

Lune curled her fingers into the point that edged her cuffs. Was Cerenel understating his brother’s involvement to protect him? It hardly mattered. If she could remove the head of the snake, the body, if not dead, would at least be robbed of its fangs. “And what can you tell me of him? His name, where he came from—”

But Cerenel was already shaking his head. “Madam, I know not. He is never seen at court. Nicneven has many grottoes and glens that form her realm; some are her private retreat alone, and there she keeps him. Her closest advisers have been to see him—Sir Kentigern now commands her guard—but she has claimed him for her own, and leashes him tightly.”

“Is he her lover?”

“The only one she keeps, at present.”

Another reason for her to hate me, when I rob her of him. But how to do it? Lune could not simply invade Fife; her military strength might top Nicneven’s, but first she would have to get it there. And anyone subtle enough to send hired knives after her would be on guard for the same.

She was interrupted in this planning by Rosamund suddenly throwing open the door. “Madam,” she said, “The Pr—”

The hob didn’t manage to get the title out before Antony was past her. “Who of your people went above, to watch the execution?” he demanded.

Lune was on her feet, startled. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Cerenel concealing a knife in his sleeve once more. He had come armed, and was nervous enough to draw when surprised: both worried her. But first, Antony. “I do not know,” she said. “No doubt several, but they were not forbidden to attend. Why?”

“I know a glamoured faerie when I see one,” Antony said. His breath came fast, and the chain of his office had been knocked askew. “One was in the crowd, speaking sedition.”

“Sedition?”

“Strafford’s own words, when he heard Charles had signed for his death. ‘Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of men, for in them there is no salvation.’ ” Antony spat the words out.

Lune’s blood ran cold. Men said such things, yes, from time to time—but not in public. What a man condemned to the scaffold might say, a man on the street could not. Or should not. “Are you certain it was a fae?”

Antony paced the small room restlessly. He was speaking more freely than she might have wished, given Cerenel’s presence, but whatever idea had possessed him would not let him go, and to send the knight away would only offend him. “I had a thought,” her consort said. “These mobs, this controversy and bloodthirst that fuels the strife against the King—what if it is no accident?”

Alarmed, Lune said, “No one could possibly have created it all.”

“No,” he said, mouth twisting. “Our grievances are our own, born from a history of ill-usage and divided opinion. But what need is there to create them? All it takes is a spark. Someone to help them along. A bit of muttered sedition here; an accusation of papistry there. Rumors spread, or encouraged in their spread, to sow chaos and discord throughout the City. I thought it Pym’s doing, and perhaps it was—but not alone.”

Cerenel shifted his weight. Lune rounded on him, skirts flaring. “Did you know of this?”

“Madam,” he said, holding his hands out in placation, “I was coming to that. I—”

“Does this Lord of Shadows strike against London, as well as the Onyx Court?”

He flinched from her hard voice. “I think it likely, yes. But it was rumor only; I cannot be certain.”

She should have suspected. But Lune was accustomed to thinking of her own court as the only one that worked in two worlds at once. This was precisely the kind of interference Nicneven hated, when it cost the Queen of Scots her life. She had assumed that meant the Gyre-Carling would eschew it herself.

And perhaps she did. But the Lord of Shadows did not.

If Nicneven wanted to hurt Lune, then she could hurt London—and through it, all of England. Charles Stuart crippled by his own Parliament, in vengeance for Mary Stuart’s death. They were halfway there already.

“Who is the Lord of Shadows?” Antony asked. Confusion distracted him briefly from his own anger.

Lune was more grateful than ever for the oath, now. It would make this easier, if not more palatable. “I do not yet know. But Sir Cerenel will be returning north, to find out.”

The knight stepped back, violet eyes wide. “Madam—my exile is done.”

“But you went into Nicneven’s court on the pretense of disaffection here. They will not be surprised if you return.”

“They sent me back to spy on you! ”

Silence followed, ringing in the aftermath of his shout. Everyone in the room stood frozen, like statues, until Cerenel went to his knees, white as a ghost. “Your Grace—Lord Antony—the command came to me from Nicneven herself. She bade me return to your court and pass along what I learned here.”

Antony moved up to stand at Lune’s side. “By what means? How will you communicate?”

The knight shook his head. “She said a messenger would come. I know nothing more.”

To catch that messenger, they would have to keep Cerenel here. Exchanging a quick glance with Antony, Lune said, “No. I have no doubt that your orders began with this Lord of Shadows. To stop him, we must learn more of him, and that can only be done in Fife. Tell Nicneven I was suspicious of you, or that my favor has moved on; tell her whatever you wish. But you will go back.”

Tears jeweled Cerenel’s lashes, that he was too proud to shed. “Madam,” he whispered, from where he knelt before her, “this is my home.”

“Then help us preserve it,” Lune said. “Find us this Lord of Shadows.”

GUILDHALL, LONDON: January 3, 1642

“They’ve overstepped,” Antony said, angry satisfaction tinging his words. “It nearly came to blows in the Commons, when they first proposed to print the Grand Remonstrance. Bad enough to present to the King a list of grievances long enough to pass for the fifth gospel of the Bible, but publishing it for all to read…”

He did not exaggerate. The days when Parliament debated issues quietly and members dozed on their benches were long past; scarcely a man there had not drawn his sword in the end. It needed no faerie interference to spark their anger—assuming a fae could get within twenty feet of those godly zealots—their own bad blood was enough. They could pass motions to deal with the tumults outside their chamber, but what of those within?

Yet that victory, the public declaration of the Commons’ war against its own sovereign, had misfired exactly as Antony hoped. Printed just before Christmas, the Grand Remonstrance—God be thanked—had put loyalist mobs in the street, fighting the Puritans and Levellers and other fanatic malcontents who supported Parliament’s leaders. Pym and his friends had become drunk on their own power and ideals, and would reap the consequences.

Not before time, either. Ireland was in open rebellion, fighting to throw off the English yoke entirely. And Eochu Airt, furious at Antony’s reversal of position on Strafford, showed no willingness to halt the bloodshed. It was time for England to put its own house in order, and stop this internal fighting that threatened to gut all its strength.

But Ben Hipley did not seem to share his cheerful outlook. “I fear the King is about to lose what goodwill he has earned.”

“What? How?”

The ancient stones of the Guildhall echoed their every word to the would-be eavesdropper, and with City sentiment having swung fiercely to the Puritan, Antony had cause to fear it. He should have known Ben did not bear good news, though; the spymaster would not have come to him here unless the cause was urgent.

Hipley stepped in closer and lowered his voice. “Pym and the others have attacked the King’s advisers, and met with success. Now they aim their bolts at the Queen.”

Henrietta Maria. Hardly popular in England, for she was both French and Catholic, the latter a constant source of discord. “But to strike at her—that will only turn people even more against them. We may not love her, but who would see her dragged through the mud, as Strafford was?”

“The King would not,” Hipley said. “He’s sent Sir Edward Herbert to the Lords this morning, to impeach Lord Mandeville, and five from the Commons. Pym, Hampden, Holles, Hesilrige, and Strode.”

Antony’s heart stopped. “Will the Lords—”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t know. But you should get to Westminster.”

ST. STEPHEN’S CHAPEL, WESTMINSTER: January 4, 1642

He got to Westminster, for all the good it did. Pym already knew what was coming. The King’s creatures should have moved for the immediate imprisonment of the accused men, but they let the moment slip. Antony, who might have done it for them, was not prepared; he arrived only just in time to hear the impeachment read. And so nothing came of it, not yet, save a meaningless resolution that the Commons would consider the matter.

Whatever happens now, he thought on his way back to Westminster late the following morning, the damage has been done. If you threaten your enemies, you must follow through, and win. The King has done neither.

Only after the noon recess did he realize the disaster was not yet complete.

The sergeant-at-arms threw wide the doors of the chapel and bellowed in a loud voice, “The King!”

A hideous silence fell. Browne had been reporting on a delegation sent to the Inns of Court; he trailed off midsentence and stood staring. Lenthall gaped from the Speaker’s chair. Antony, in the midst of scribbling a note, sat paralyzed as ink dripped and blotted his page.

Into that silence came Charles. Sweeping his hat off with an elegant gesture, he advanced down the floor of the chapel, while around him the members of the Commons came to their feet in a ragged wave, snatching their own hats from their heads. Charles’s nephew trailed a pace behind him, their paired steps deliberate in the quiet.

The man behind Antony whispered, “Sweet swiving Jesus.”

“Mr. Speaker,” the King said, his tone mild, “I must for a time make bold with your chair.”

Lenthall staggered belatedly out of the way. Once arranged in his seat, Charles surveyed the chapel and its occupants with a curious eye. As well he might: no monarch of England had ever intruded on the deliberations of the Commons. They were—or had been—inviolate.

Charles had dressed with great splendor for his intrusion, in a doublet of well-tailored taffeta, a broad collar of finest lawn edged with point. They gave his body bulk, but not height, and he looked small in Lenthall’s chair.

But his presence was larger than he. “No person,” he said into the silence, “has privileges, when charged with treason. I am come among you to know if any of those so accused are in attendance.” He waited, but no one spoke. “Is Mr. Pym here?”

Not a soul breathed in reply.

Irritated, he turned to Lenthall. “Are any of those persons in the house, who stand accused of treason? Do you see them here? Show them to me!”

The Speaker lacked a spine of his own; he was a creature of the strongest authority about him. In that moment, he showed how truly the winds had changed. Swallowing convulsively, Lenthall fell to his knees. “May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place, but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here; and humbly beg your Majesty’s pardon that I cannot give any other answer than this is, to what your Majesty is pleased to demand of me.”

A few men gasped. A few more chuckled in malicious pleasure. Antony did neither. Having come late, he sat near the chapel entrance; now, hearing sounds in the lobby, he turned and looked into the gap between the benches. The Earl of Roxburgh lounged in the entrance, propping the doors open, so that Antony and anyone else who cared to could see what awaited them.

Armed men filled the lobby. Elegant courtiers, many of them the Queen’s men, but not a one of their number less than skilled in the use of the pistols they held. One met Antony’s gaze and grinned insolently, cocking his weapon and aiming it toward him—saying, clear and cold, I wait only for the King’s word.

His blood ran with ice, and for the first time, it occurred to him to fear, not the dissolution of Parliament, but its massacre.

“’Tis no matter,” the King said, his light tone belying the venom that backed it. “I think my eyes are as good as another’s.”

He lifted his chin and scanned the ranks of standing men. Antony squeezed his own eyes shut. He did not have to look. A messenger had come for Pym not ten minutes before, after which he obtained leave for himself and the others to depart. Lenthall had not detained them, though the Commons agreed the day before that the accused members should present themselves to answer the charges. Only Strode had caused any delay, insisting he wished to stay for the confrontation. Pym and the others dragged him out of the chapel by his cloak.

The only thing worse than arresting members of Parliament was coming to arrest them, and failing.

“I see all my birds have flown,” Charles said at last. The satisfied grandeur with which he had entered was gone; in its place reigned discontented anger. “I cannot do what I came for.” And with a snarl, he rose from the Speaker’s chair and stormed from the House, followed by rising voices crying the offended privileges of Parliament.

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: January 10, 1642

Lune’s heavy skirts flared every time she reached the end of her pacing and pivoted to retrace her steps. The Onyx Hall was a goodly palace, with many chambers and galleries, entertainments aplenty to amuse her, but for all that it was a cage; she missed the sun and breeze on her face.

London was not safe, though. Mortal bread might shield her against the prayers and invocations of the Puritan mobs in its streets, but it would do nothing to save her from a rock to the head. The barricades of benches torn from taverns, put up by the apprentices before their Christmas holiday ended on Twelfth Night, had been cleared away, but in their place were the Trained Bands of London. They placed cannon on the corners and stretched chains across the streets, all in preparation for the attack they feared would come.

She dared not go above; she wished Antony would not. He had struggled since that abortive Parliament two years ago to maintain an impossible balance: fighting for moderation while never trusting the King, opposing Pym’s junto while never alienating them too obviously. They branded him a Straffordian for voting against the attainder, and could do worse. Members of Parliament had been ousted from their seats for their opposition. Some had been sent to the Tower.

But Antony sat even now in the Guildhall with the House of Commons, which had exiled itself from Westminster for its own safety. At his request, she had sent out a few of her more reliable goblins, and learned the five treasonous members were hiding in Coleman Street, but what good did that do? The King could not strike them now. He had already suffered the failure he could not afford, and outraged the populace beyond endurance.

And Lune, who had vowed to protect England from such troubles, could only wait for a message: the name and nature of the Lord of Shadows, who fed this violence against the King on Nicneven’s behalf.

The flapping of wings halted her pacing. A falcon arrowed through the open latticework of the chamber wall and perched on the back of a chair. It shook its wings, then again, and with the third shake stretched upward and down until a sharp-faced powrie stood gripping the chair in his bony fingers. Where he had gotten the falcon cloak from, Lune never asked; it was not the common raiment of goblinkind. But it made him useful.

He had no cap to take off, no clothing save the cloak, which he swept around himself as he knelt. Lune offered her hand perfunctorily, bade him rise, and said, “What word?”

Orgat was no Onyx Courtier; his home was a disused peel tower along the Border. But the Goodemeades knew him from their time in the North, ages ago, and they had contracted him to bear messages from Cerenel. She was grateful now for her decision to leave Valentin Aspell out of those plans; he was too much in company with the Ascendants, these days.

“Got it here,” the powrie said, and began rooting around in the feathers of his cloak with one hand, the other clutching it in front of his groin for a modicum of decency. “Nimble little bastard—hope you can make sense of it, yer Grace—come on, now—ah! Didn’t even squish him.”

The spy triumphantly produced something small and wiggling. That Cerenel would not send a written message, or even a verbal one, Lune expected; it was not safe. But—“A spider?”

“Told me to fetch it meself,” Orgat said. “From me tower, he is. That there’s a cupboard spider, as we call them. Was real particular that it had to be a male.” He dropped it in the hand Lune reflexively held up; she shuddered as its legs scrabbled against her skin. “Careful with him, now. Supposed to be alive, too.”

A spider. A living, male cupboard spider, from Orgat’s peel tower.

This was the message Cerenel had sent her.

Find me this Lord of Shadows.

She knew someone, once, who called to mind images of spiders. Her heartless, twisted predecessor, the Queen of the Onyx Court. Invidiana.

But Invidiana was dead.

A living, male spider.

Lune whispered, “Ifarren Vidar.”

THREE CRANES WHARF, LONDON: January 11, 1642

Drumbeats echoed off the warehouses that lined the north bank of the Thames, overmastered only by the shouts of the crowd. The Trained Bands kept order, but in good cheer; they were not there to prevent violence—for there was none—but to keep the masses from overrunning the group that stood on the wharf.

The barge was drawn up to its moorings and steadied by the same lightermen who the day before had marched in the streets, offering their lives in defense of Parliament. Now they offered their hands to the five men who waited to board.

John Pym stood in the cold air, his eyes raised to God, his prayer of thanksgiving drowned out by the noise of the onlookers. Then he stepped aboard, followed by Hampden, Holles, Hesilrige, and Strode. No more concealment for them: they waved to their supporters, and received cheers and prayers in return.

The rest of the House of Commons made their way onto the barge. Antony placed himself in the middle, a false smile on his face. At this moment, of all moments, he could not afford to show his horror at the news.

The King was fled. For the royal family to retire to Hampton Court was common enough; for them to depart in the night, with no warning to the palace that they were coming, was not. But it was only an admission of the obvious: that Charles’s attempt to take the leaders of Parliament under arrest had irrevocably lost him the goodwill of his City.

London had feared attack, and prepared itself for such. Instead it won, without a fight.

Casting off the ropes, the lightermen put the barge to the river. They made slow progress up the Thames, surrounded on all sides by gaily decorated vessels, packed to their gunwales with celebrating men. From the Strand, Antony could hear the Trained Bands, paralleling their journey with drums and song, and the mocking calls they made as they passed the deserted Palace of Whitehall.

“Where is the King and his Cavaliers?”

Holding on to his smile for his life, Antony thought, They are gone to prepare for war.

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 2, 1666 The Battle for the River

The baker’s house burns like a candle, a pillar of flame in the narrow, night-dark street. The people of Pudding Lane have awakened, roused from their beds by the muffled peal of the parish bell, signaling fire. The leather buckets have been fetched from the church, their contents flung in useless doses: water, ale, even urine or sand—anything that might quench the blaze.

But onward it burns, stubbornly fed by a strange wind blowing from the east. Sparks dance in the breeze, a graceful courante in the dark, until one adventures westward, to the Star Inn on Fish Street Hill. The galleried inn, backing onto the baker’s own property, keeps hay in its yard.

A single spark is enough.

Men shout in the street, their neighbors’ rest be damned. Anyone still sleeping ought to be woken. While those nearest take the precaution of hurrying their possessions out-of-doors, north or south to safety, the more charitable bellow for the fire-hooks, to pull the adjoining buildings down before they too can catch.

But the landlords who own those buildings are not here. Those who live on Pudding Lane are poorer sorts, renting from their betters. And so, fearing the consequences should he destroy such property, the Lord Mayor of London, hauled from his bed to answer this threat, dismisses it before going back home.

“Pish—a woman might piss it out.”

London has survived fires before.

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: five o’clock in the morning

The breath of the Cailleach Bheur howled through the stone galleries, the high-vaulting latticework of the chamber ceilings, leaving no corner in peace. Three days it had blown, above ground and below, the latest assault from the Gyre-Carling of Fife—and the worst. Spies could be driven out; warriors could be fought. The Cailleach was unstoppable.

And the fae of the Onyx Court were wild-eyed and hollow-cheeked beneath her touch. For the wind brought more than the Blue Hag’s icy chill: ghosting on its wings were voices, inaudible whispers of winter’s promise. Age. Mortality. Death.

Small wonder we are going mad.

Lune shivered inside her fur-lined cloak. Years of struggle against Nicneven—decades, since that first attempt to burn the alder tree—and all she had to show for it was war.

No. This was not war. Lune had fought wars, on her journey to this point. This was something different: not clean confrontation in battle, nor even the underhand knife-work of spying and betrayal. The Cailleach could kill them all, without ever exposing herself to attack. What Nicneven had done to gain such aid, Lune could not even guess; the Blue Hag was something older and more powerful than any of them. But after all her attempts and all her failures, the Unseely Queen of Fife had finally found something powerful enough to truly threaten the Onyx Court.

Such fears only played into the Cailleach’s power. Lune gritted her teeth and bent over the rough map she had constructed from the objects to hand. Lady Amadea’s fan served as a model for London, its sweeping edge representing the City wall, its outside sticks marking the line of the river in the south. On the left sat a silver tobacco box—St. Paul’s Cathedral—and on the right, a jet brooch, for the Tower of London. A long pin fixed the fan to the table below, in approximation of the London Stone.

She tapped her gloved finger on the fan’s top edge. “The Cailleach Bheur is the Hag of Winter; her power therefore comes from the north. But here we are protected; the wall guards us not just above, but also below. It blocks entry into our realm. And so she veers east.”

“Why not west?” Sir Peregrin Thorne asked. The Captain of the Onyx Guard did not have too much dignity to stuff his hands beneath his arms, warming his fingers and hiding their tremble. Lune had sent him above earlier in the night; the wind blew outside as well, but in the mortal realm it became nothing more than air. That brief respite was already failing him, though, and his haunted eyes flicked restlessly over the map. “West is death—also the Cailleach’s domain.”

“Because of this.” Lune’s finger moved southeast, to the jet brooch. “The Tower is our weak point. The entrance to our realm lies in the keep at the center, true—but you must consider the fortress as a whole. With the City wall joining its eastern defenses, that entrance may be said to lie on a border. And that renders it vulnerable.”

“You have closed that pit, yes?”

The question came from Irrith, and so Lune forgave its insolent lack of deference. The slender sprite had done her many a good service these past years, and had been rewarded for it with knighthood, but she was ill-practiced in her courtesies; the court of her Berkshire home was a far rougher one, with less ceremony, and Irrith had not been among Lune’s people long. Besides, she was more ignorant of mortality than any of them, and held up poorly under the insidious terrors of the wind.

Not that Lune herself fared much better. She suffered not just on her own behalf, but that of the faerie palace, which grew colder and more brittle with every passing hour. “Of course,” she said, struggling not to betray the frayed state of her own nerves. How do mortals live like this—knowing every moment brings death one step closer? “It is closed, and as sealed as I can make it—but that is not enough.”

“What about—” Irrith persisted, but the question ended in a yelp as the door to the council chamber slammed open. They could not keep doors closed anymore; everything blew open, sooner or later, scaring everyone out of their wits.

But this time the movement had a human cause. Jack Ellin hauled at the door’s edge, struggling futilely to close it, before swearing and giving up. Lune’s councillors flinched away from the tall man as he came up to the table; the presence of a mortal echoed the wind’s promises. Lune had to hold herself still as he reached out and laid one hand on her cheek.

The gesture was dispassionate, a physician’s touch. They had discovered this by accident, when a chance brush of his fingers lifted some of the darkness from Lune’s spirit. For Jack Ellin, as for any mortal, the promises of the Cailleach were inevitable nature. He bore without thinking a weight that threatened to crush Lune. And thanks to the bond that connected them, she could share that weight with him, and gain some measure of clarity for herself.

She allowed herself a grateful look but no smile as the Prince of the Stone dropped his hand, leaving her to stand on her own. It was a temporary reprieve, nothing more. But it gave her hope.

Then Jack said, in a deceptively light tone, “Madam—were you aware that your roof is on fire?”

Lune’s attention went upward before she could stop it, accompanied by the shameful thought that she might almost welcome the Onyx Hall bursting into flame, if only to end the unbearable cold. But the stone was frost-rimed and black.

“Pudding Lane,” Jack said, kindly ignoring her foolish impulse. “And now Fish Street Hill as well.”

Warmth. Light. She had to work to remind herself that he was speaking of destruction, not salvation. “Fires happen, Jack.” And she had an abundance of other matters to concern her.

“So you will let it burn?”

His expression said everything his voice left unspoken. The wry eyebrows had risen in surprise, and a cynical twist shaped his lips. He came here expecting us to help.

As he had every right to. And Lune had an obligation to answer the Prince’s call.

In Mab’s name, I swear to you that I will do everything I can to preserve London and its people from disaster—and let fear hinder me no more.

Her own words echoed in her ears, spoken a bare year before. This was the very purpose for which she had chosen Jack; the physician was no courtier, but he was devoted to the safety and well-being of London. She could hardly ask him to champion that cause, then ignore him when he did so. Even without an oath to bind her.

The part of her mind that cowered like a mouse before a hawk protested shrilly that it was not fear hindering her, but cold calculation; what help could she spare Jack, with the Cailleach howling death in their ears?

A great deal. Lune had already confiscated all the bread in the Onyx Hall, once she realized her people were likely to flee before the onslaught. That was what Nicneven wanted, why she had sent the Blue Hag against them: to empty the palace, leaving it unguarded against a physical assault. But Lune could give some of her people a respite, and send them to aid Jack.

She extended her senses upward, feeling the heat scorching the stone and earth of those two streets. No comfort there; her whole body shuddered, caught between fire and ice. But now she had the shape of it, and the direction.

“Billingsgate is clear,” she said. “Take any half-dozen you feel will be useful—any you can trust not to leave. More if you need them. You have the bread.” Casting her eye around the table, she settled on Irrith. The Berkshire sprite did not know London well at all, but much more of this wind and she would break. “Go with the Prince. Be our messenger, in case he needs aught else.”

Irrith bowed to her and to Jack. He smiled reassuringly at the sprite, but did not reach out; without the tie that bound him to Lune, Prince to Queen, his touch did more harm than good. Amadea had screamed when he tried before, weeping that she felt the decay in his flesh.

“I’ll do what I can,” he promised, before hurrying out the door. “Perhaps we can turn this to our advantage against the Hag.”

RIVER THAMES, LONDON: six o’clock in the morning

Jack Ellin was no graybeard doctor, but he had worked through fever and plague, in the face of fell death itself. He knew the value of a comforting lie. Belief in a hopeful future, no matter how unfounded, could give a patient strength, and Lune needed strength right now.

But the truth was that he had no idea how to turn the heat above to combat the cold below. Jack was a curious man, always hungry for knowledge; when it became apparent that the unnatural wind was the breath of the Cailleach Bheur, he began asking questions about the Scottish hag. His curiosity went mostly unfed: the London fae knew hardly anything of her, and were too distracted by unfamiliar thoughts of death. It gave him little to work with.

I’m more inclined to take it the other way, he admitted ruefully as he hoisted himself out of a shaft into the tiny courtyard of a Billingsgate house. If he could strangle the fire with cold, he would; conflagrations were terrifying things, in a City built so largely of timber. And with the summer so dry…

Up here, however, the wind bore no particular chill, for all that it blew from the east, against the habit of the region. All those fine gentlemen in their Covent Garden houses will be smelling the City’s stink, he thought, blinking in the morning twilight. It did not amuse him as much as he hoped.

Behind him, his troop of faerie helpers followed him out of the entrance. Jack hoped they would do some good; he still was not entirely certain what fae were capable of. Surely their arts would have use, though. And he had bypassed the courtiers, seeking out Lune’s humbler subjects; the goblins and hobs he chose were tougher and more used to physical labor. Fighting fires was hard, grinding, filthy physical labor indeed—even, he imagined, with magic to help.

Three goblins, two hobs, and one sprite, all covered by concealing glamours. They did not have to look hard to spot the fire; its sullen glow made a false dawn above the rooftops to the northwest, not far away at all. “To the river,” Jack told his companions, after a moment’s consideration.

“We can’t go that way?” Mungle demanded, pointing toward the smoke. Judging by the filth that caked his body, the bogle had not gone within arm’s-length of water for longer than Jack had been alive. “My lord,” he added, as an afterthought.

“Not quickly,” Jack answered the goblin. “And I’m not ‘my lord’ here, nor Prince of the Stone. We shall have enough to do without someone asking when I was ennobled, and whether I can help them at court. As to your question: the fire is tending south and west; we’ll be more use on the other side. But the streets are packed with people moving their belongings out of harm’s way, so we shall get a wherry and come at it from the river.”

With only a little grumbling—Mungle wanted a fight, and did not seem to understand that his opponent was not one to be met with fists—they sought out the nearest river stair. Plenty of wherry-men floated within hailing distance; most were gaping at the smoke, and the rest were rowing passengers who gaped on their behalf. Jack got a boat large enough for them all, and gave instructions for their man to take them through the races of the bridge, landing them on the other side.

Where they would do…something. Firefighting was not what I expected, when I joined a faerie court. But it would be a fine opportunity to see what fae were capable of.

The tide was low, and at slack water, so the wherry ventured forth into the river. The oarsman had to thread his way through the other boats, though, so their progress was slow. And before they reached the stone piers of the bridge, a sudden flare of light brought all their heads around as one.

With a roar like a terrible beast, one of the many warehouses lining the river’s bank burst into orange and gold. Heat seared their faces, and Irrith flinched hard enough to almost go over the gunwale. The wherryman, a member of the London class most renowned for its command of profanity, put all his foul words to use, staring at the sudden expansion of the fire.

“Pitch and tar,” the hob Tom Toggin said when the wherryman was done. He was not swearing, Jack realized after a moment. “Or oil. Or hemp. Prob’ly pitch, it going up like that.”

And then it was Jack’s turn to curse. Seizing the oarsman’s shoulder, he said, “You know the wharves well, yes? How many of the warehouses contain such material?”

The man seemed to have lost the ability to blink. “Er—don’t rightly know—”

“How many?”

The boat drifted aimlessly on the current as the man shrugged. “Most of ’em?”

Another roar, another wash of heat. The next warehouse in the row had caught.

And in the heart of the flames, something stirred. It might have been nothing more than a curling tongue of light, a ripple of fire along the collapsing line of a roof. But the fae in the boat saw with different eyes than a mortal might, and Tom Toggin grabbed Jack’s sleeve, pointing with a finger that shook from pure terror.

Salamanders, Jack thought, curious despite his concern. There were a few in the Onyx Hall, creatures of elemental fire; he kept meaning to study them. But from what he knew, they were hardly a thing to inspire such fear.

Then he looked more closely, and his eyes widened.

He had seen such a thing before, yes—but much, much smaller.

In the hottest part of the blaze, a sinuous shape uncoiled, flexing its newfound power. Not a salamander, a mere lizard born of fire’s light. Conceived in the inferno’s womb and fed by the combustible treasures of London’s wharves, it was far larger, far stronger, and worthy of a greater name.

Christ, Jack thought, staring in abject horror. It’s huge.

The Dragon of the Fire roared.

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: eight o’clock in the morning

Word spread through the Onyx Hall, faster than the flames above. A Dragon has been born.

A Dragon. Such had not been seen in England for many a forgotten age.

It was a source of great excitement, almost enough to distract the fae from the Cailleach Bheur. These were not the deep reaches of Faerie, far removed from the mortal world; few creatures of such power still existed here, and those few that did mostly slept. When they thought of the Dragon, they saw only the grandeur of it, and did not think of London.

But Lune did, even before Irrith came to tell her that another church was in flames.

“I forget the name,” the sprite said, wiping soot from her face, left behind when the icy wind had dried all the sweat. “At the north end of the bridge. Jack—Lord John, that is—says it had a water tower.”

Even through the leaden weariness inflicted by the Cailleach, the exhaustion of decrepit age, Lune knew what she meant. The church of St. Magnus the Martyr, at the foot of London Bridge.

Where, thanks to the innovation of a clever Dutchman, water-wheels in the northernmost races churned the Thames upward, through leaden pipes that arched over the steeple of the church, from whence they fell with sufficient force to propel water through a goodly portion of the City’s riverside district. Thus were houses supplied—and the men fighting the Fire.

“It knows,” she whispered, and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. The Dragon knows how we oppose it, and fights back.

We. But the Onyx Court was already engaged in one battle, against the Cailleach Bheur—if battle it could be called, when her scouts could not find the Hag’s location, nor her advisers craft any means of blocking the deathly wind. How could they fight a second in the streets above? Fear gibbered at the edges of her vision, a hundred variants of death braiding into one terrifying whole. Death by fire, by ice, by the withering of age or the putrefaction of plague, creeping closer with every moment that passed—

No. Lune snarled it away. This was her oath, and her burden. She could no more abandon mortal London to the Fire than she could leave her court to the Hag. If Jack was brave enough to face a Dragon, she must give him all possible aid.

She forced herself to think. The church was under attack; the Bridge itself would not long be safe. The stones could not burn, but houses and shops had crowded its length for centuries, choking the roadway with timber and plaster. And where people traveled, so too could the Fire: down the Bridge to the crowded suburb of Southwark. Then they would lose all hope of controlling its spread.

Her fingernails had dug deeply enough into her palms to cut. Lune pried them free, wincing, and said, “Find Dame Segraine. Tell her to call out every water nymph, every asrai and draca in this court, and marshal them at the Queenhithe entrance. If a fae can swim, send him out to fight. We must keep the Dragon from crossing the river.”

CANNON STREET, LONDON: eleven o’clock in the morning

Nearly a quarter mile of the riverfront was alight now, by Jack’s best estimate, the cheap weather-boarded tenements that crowded about the wharves going up like dry tinder. The conflagration had roared through Stockfishmonger Row, Churchyard Alley, Red Cross Alley; men stood in lines, slinging full buckets up from the river, empty ones back down, but they might as well have pissed on the blaze, for all the good it did. The city’s few fire-carts could not even make it into those warrens, nor close enough to the river to fill their tanks. The Clerkenwell engine had fallen in.

He sagged back against a shop on Cannon Street, breathing mercifully clean air. The road was filled wall-to-wall with carts and men on foot; what belongings could be evacuated had been brought here. The livery companies were rescuing records and plate from their company halls, while the poorer folk of the Coldharbour tenements ran with what they could carry on their backs, unable to afford the rising price of a wherry or cart.

Not everyone out there was a dockside laborer, though. One finely dressed gentleman, holding a kerchief over his nose to filter out the drifting smoke, stopped at Jack’s side. “Where is the Lord Mayor?”

Jack wiped his streaming eyes and straightened, taking advantage of his height to crane over the shouting masses. “I think I see him—here, let me lead you.”

The fellow kept hard at Jack’s heels, forcing between two stopped carts whose drivers swore uselessly at each other. Sir Thomas Bludworth, when they came upon him, was a wretched sight; the Lord Mayor of London mopped at his face with the kerchief around his neck, staring and lost, trying ineffectually to direct the men around him.

“My lord,” the gentleman said, loudly enough to get Bludworth’s attention, “I have carried word to his Majesty at Whitehall of the troubles here, and he bids me tell you to spare no houses, but to pull them down before the fire in every direction.”

It was the only thing that might work. They had no hope of quenching the flames; but if they could create wide enough breaks, too wide to leap, then they might at least contain it. Bludworth blinked, seeming not to understand the words, nor to recognize the man before him. “Samuel Pepys,” the gentleman said, in the tone of one reminding a fellow he has always thought an idiot. “My Lord Mayor, the King commands—”

Bludworth jerked, as if coming awake. “Lord,” he cried, “what can I do? I am spent. People will not obey me. I have been pulling down houses, but the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it.”

Pepys bowed—hiding, Jack thought, an unsympathetic expression. He then stepped closer to the Lord Mayor, so he need not cry his next news to the world. “His Majesty has given orders to send in his Life Guards, or perhaps some of the Coldstream; the Duke of York also, and Lord Arlington. You are to notify them at once if you need more soldiers, for the keeping of the peace, and carrying out the demolitions.”

“Oh, no, no,” Bludworth said immediately, flapping his hands. “I need no more soldiers, no, we have the Trained Bands—but for myself, I must go and refresh myself; I have been up all night.” Still babbling, he slipped away, leaving Pepys staring.

“He has not been pulling houses down,” Jack said in his wake. “He fears to do so, without the permission of the men who own them—and there’s no chance of getting that in time. But I’ll help you spread the word.” It should have begun hours ago. Before a simple fire turned into a God-damned Dragon.

Once, he would have been delighted for the chance to see a dragon, to observe its characteristics and perhaps learn something of its nature. Not anymore. The creature was destruction; that was all he cared to know. That, and how to stop it.

Pepys did not see the Dragon, no more than any man fighting the Fire did. They spoke of it as if it had a will, as if it hungered and schemed and sought to overcome their defenses, but they did not realize the truth of those words. Nevertheless, the gentleman had enough wit to see that decisive action was necessary. He gripped Jack’s hand in thanks. “There is a contingent of the Life Guards in Cornhill; will you go to them?”

Nodding, Jack gathered in his breath and set off as quickly as he could down a side lane. He did not get a dozen paces off Cannon Street, though, before a wild-eyed man grabbed him by the sleeve, with the hand not waving a rusted sword. “Arm yourself, man!”

“Arm myself? For what?”

“They’ve fired St. Laurence Pountney!”

“They?” His sword-bearing friend had other friends, pounding up behind him, all equally ill armed. Jack, carrying only an eating-knife, began to think about losing himself once more in the Cannon masses.

One of the men said, “The papists, of course! Thousands of them! French papists are firing houses and churches—one of them threw a fire-ball into the steeple of St. Laurence!”

The last thing Jack felt like doing was laughing, but he made his best effort at light derision. “A good arm he must have, then; it’s one of the tallest steeples in town. I saw the church go, my friends; it was nothing more than a spark, that melted through the leading into the timber underneath.” A spark flung with intent. But not by anything human, nor anything their swords could touch.

“But the papists—”

“There are no papists. All you’ll find here are men throwing themselves, body and soul, into stopping the Fire.” Men, and fae; Christ, he was supposed to be waiting in Cannon Street for Irrith to find him, with word on the efforts of the river fae. He fought the urge to shake the clowns facing him. “If you want to be of use, put down those weapons, and go fetch a fire-hook from your parish church. The King has given orders; the houses are to be pulled down.”

They stared. Jack was no commander of men, but he had used his last ounce of patience, and the raw force left behind sufficed. “Go!”

They went.

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: noon

At Jack’s renewed touch, the worst of the Cailleach’s chill receded, leaving Lune drained and shaking. Sun and Moon. This, then, is the consequence of being connected to one’s realm; I suffer as it does. And worse than my subjects do.

“The King is at Queenhithe,” he said, once she had caught her breath, “with the Duke of York, to give heart to the people. They hope to stop the Fire at Three Cranes Wharf in the west, and St. Botolph’s Wharf in the east. There’s great fear that it will reach the Tower, and the munitions stored there.”

The mere thought chilled her as badly as the wind. No doubt the work of emptying the Tower had already begun, but how long would it take to clear the fortress of all its powder? Such an explosion could destroy the City.

Jack was white underneath the filth that marred his face, and he had long since stripped to his linen shirt against the heat of the Fire; now he shivered madly, despite the cloak that wrapped him. “The wind is checking the spread eastward, of course, but that’s not much blessing, for it also feeds the flames west. Our efforts slow the Fire’s progress, but don’t stop it. When we made a gap, we were driven back before we could clear the debris. We might as well have laid a path for the damned thing. If—”

He hesitated, looking down at her, then completed the thought. “If we did not have to contend with the wind, we might stand a chance.”

She had all morning to think of that. A wind did not have a wellspring, not as a river did; the Cailleach was not crouched outside the eastern wall, puffing away at London. But Lune had tried another method of stopping her. “I sent a messenger, asking for a brief truce,” she said. “Nicneven’s quarrel is with me and my court, not the mortals of London.”

“And?”

Jack read the answer in her eyes, sparing her from having to say it. He gritted his teeth, took a deep breath, and said, “She doesn’t care.”

Or at least her commander here did not. There was an encampment of Scottish fae somewhere outside the City, awaiting their chance to attack. Once the court was weakened enough, or fled, they would move in and claim what they had come for.

As if he could read her thoughts, Jack said, “Why not give it to her?”

Lune turned away, wrapping her own cloak more tightly. “No. I am not giving Nicneven Ifarren Vidar.”

Faint noises told her Jack started and stopped three replies before he spoke clearly. “So you’ve said, and I’m sure you have your reasons—and perhaps when we have a little leisure, you’ll see fit to share them with me. But Lune…what will that mean for London?”

The Fire still scorched her mind, spreading ever outward. The City had not seen a disaster this great in ages, and it showed no sign of ending. But the true problem was not Nicneven and the Cailleach Bheur, not for the people above; for them, the Cailleach’s breath was mere wind. The problem was the Dragon, the elemental, ravening force that devoured all in its path. That was what they must strike at.

But what power could stand against it, with half the riverside its domain?

The river.

“Come with me,” Lune said, and swept from the room without looking to see if Jack would follow.

The Onyx Hall seemed half-empty; some of her people had fled, even without protection. Others cowered in futile defense against the wind. Nianna staggered through a crossing ahead of Lune, tearing her hair out in clumps; they withered to gray in her hands, and the lady whimpered in horror. Lune seized her and snapped, “Go above. Do not worry about bread. Come below again when the bells drive you, but Sun and Moon, get yourself out of here.”

Nianna stared; Lune was not sure the lady even heard her. But she could not spare the time to make certain. She went on through her half-deserted palace, seeking out an entrance she never used.

Water lapped at the stone in a neat square, in a chamber otherwise unadorned. This was not a part of the Onyx Hall anyone dwelt in, and few of her subjects came here; its use was small for anyone not born of water. But it was the one place in her entire realm where the palace connected directly to the Thames, through the tiny harbor of Queenhithe.

Lune knelt at the water’s edge, and beckoned for Jack to do the same. “The King is very nearly above your head,” he told her, craning his neck.

“It is not the King I seek to contact. We need Father Thames.”

He blinked. When she did not tell him it was a jest, his jaw came loose. “You talk to the river?”

“On occasion.” Once. Ages ago. Father Thames little concerned himself with the politics of the Onyx Hall. Even those fae who were his children almost never heard his voice. One of the nymphs told Lune she thought the great river spirit slept, borne down by the weight of the city upon his shores.

If ever there was a time for him to wake, it had come.

Lune extended her left hand to Jack, who was still gaping. “He may answer us, if we call him together.” Or he may not. She had not the leisure for the sort of ritual she had engaged in before. But she was tied to London, and Jack with her; she hoped that would count for something. The river had answered to mortal and faerie voices before.

“I have no idea how to do this,” he warned her as he took her hand.

“Simply call him,” she said, reaching their joined fingers down into the water. “Bid him wake, and fight the Dragon who roars along his bank. Else it will cross to Southwark ere long, and consume more of London besides. A Great Fire has been born in our City; only a Great River may quench it.”

Her words were spoken as much to the water as to the Prince. His eyes had drifted shut, listening to the cadence; when she faltered, he continued on, in his own less than formal way. “We hope you do not mind the, er, theft of your waters—I’m sure you understand the need. But however many buckets we throw, they are not enough; we need you. Help your children against this threat.”

Lune’s left hand was chilled to the bone, but not from the Cailleach’s wind. Gripped hard by Jack, she was for the moment safe from that attack; what she felt instead was an immensity, stretching from the headwaters far west to the sea far east, washing to and fro in the tides of the moon. Old Father Thames was, ages before London was dreamt, and would be long after they were gone. Measured against him, even fae were young.

And that great, aged immensity slept, letting the years ebb away unmarked.

“Wake,” she whispered—or Jack did, or both of them, with one voice. “Wake, Old Father, to battle.”

RIVER THAMES, LONDON: one o’clock in the afternoon

From Southwark, the City seemed a wall of fire and smoke, choking clouds obscuring the forest of steeples, the parts as yet unburnt. Half the northern bank was consumed, and despite the frantic efforts of men, the blaze marched down the Bridge, a phalanx of flame no defenses could halt.

The Bridge had burned scarce thirty years before, its northern end consumed, the remainder saved only by a gap in the houses too wide for the sparks to cross. Now the Fire stood once more at that breach, straining to overleap it, to seek out and ravage the untouched expanses of Southwark. Smoke wreathed the severed heads of traitors and regicides that spiked the southern end, like fingers feeling for a hold.

With a shuddering crack, one towering, tottering building collapsed, half its substance tumbling into the roadway of the Bridge, a hellish tunnel no creature could traverse. The other half plummeted into the flood, hissing where it met the waters, smoking debris joining the clutter already floating there, the belongings hurled into the water by those unable to transport them more safely. The wreckage of London would be washing ashore downriver for days to come.

An asrai surfaced, having thrown herself frantically clear when the timbers came crashing down. The river to either side of the Bridge was choked with wherries and barges, carrying people and their goods to Westminster or across to Southwark, but all focus was on the City; no one attended to the lithe shapes slipping through the murk, lending their aid where they could. If droplets of water occasionally arced skyward, snuffing embers as they floated through the air, it was hardly worth noticing, when horror so great demanded the eye.

But these little children of the river could not stand against the beast that now gathered its strength in the raging inferno of the Bridge. The Dragon was all the Fire, from the leaping sparks of Three Cranes Wharf to the tongues licking stubbornly eastward against the wind, but its malevolence was here, preparing to conquer the defenses of London Bridge, and claim a second victim to the south.

Beneath its glare, amidst the turbulent waters of the races, another power gathered.

Had anyone been able to approach the northernmost arches, they would have seen a true wonder. A face formed in the flood’s high tide, shifting and gray. One pier hollowed out its mouth, thrusting down into the soft river mud; its eyes were two whirlpools, on either side of the span. Debris vanished beneath it, leaving the features focused and clear.

A voice too deep to hear said, “Come to me, my children.”

And the fae of the river responded. Leaping, wriggling, slipping like quicksilver through the wherries and the wreckage, they came from upstream and down, flocking like a ragged school of fish to the call of their Old Father. Around his face they swam, in and out of the piers of the Bridge, flicking up against the wooden starlings that protected the stone, sending spray into the air.

It hissed angrily into steam as it met the Fire’s heat. No mere water could stop the Dragon. But the true battle, though invisible to the eye, was far more striking, and the children of the Thames felt it in their souls. They were their Father, as leaves are the tree that gives them forth, and in them was his strength. He hoarded it now, and sent it upward against their enemy.

Fire and water. Dry heat against cold wetness, alchemical and elemental opposites. The air shimmered and split where they met. The stones of the Bridge shifted in their ancient seats, expanding and contracting, losing stability under the strain—but they held. London Bridge was not so fragile a thing.

The Dragon roared, flames leaping into the sky. Silently, inexorably, Father Thames answered it. Their strength was matched, here in this place, and the river spoke forth its will, that the Fire could not deny. Here you will not pass.

Snarling, its fury balked, the Dragon retreated. Still the houses blazed, sending their ruins tumbling down, but the gap itself held, blocking the passage of the sparks. The rest of the Bridge, and Southwark that it defended, were safe.

Exhausted, his power spent, Father Thames sank back. The waters recoiled from the northern shore, leaving mud to be baked dry by the rage of the Fire. Men bailed them frantically upwards, filling barrels and tanks to be carried closer in, that the battle might continue.

The Fire could not pass the river—but north lay all the City, that Father Thames could not defend.

As night falls, men watching from the walls of the Tower see the shape of the beast they battle. In the east it moves but slowly, fighting for every inch of ground it takes. In the west, it has claimed half the bank already. But the wind, veering first north, then south, has driven the flames up from the wharves, into virgin territory far from the water.

A great arch of fire reaches across the City, eclipsing the moon with its brightness. Behind its advancing front, a glowing, malevolent heart: the shattered ruins of churches, houses, company halls. Hundreds burnt, and thousands displaced.

And no sign of ending.

The Dragon snarls its pleasure, flexing across the darkened lanes. In the untouched parts of the City, candles and lanterns yet burn, obedient to laws that decree certain streets should be lit at night, for the safety and comfort of citizens. Those tiny flames speak a promise to the beast, that soon they, too, shall join its power, and feed its fury onward.

For the more it consumes, the more it hungers—and the stronger it ever grows.