With Fate Conspire

EPILOGUE

Burlington House, Piccadilly: September 2, 1899

“…and to those who say, we have charted all the configurations there may be; there are no more to uncover, and it remains now only to refine the applications of those already known—to those people, I say, nonsense. We stand upon the brink of a new century, and I feel—I know—that it will not be the end of discovery, an age wherein the best to which we can aspire is to perfect the knowledge already within our grasp. There are new mountains we have not climbed, and the vistas that we shall see from their peaks can scarcely be imagined, even by those with the rare gift to part the veil of time and catch glimpses of what is to come. I exhort all curious minds, whatever their origin, not to rest complacently upon the laurels of those who have gone before, but to seek out those new discoveries, and to share them with others, that all may partake of the knowledge that is our most precious wealth.”

Master Wrain had much improved as a speaker, Lord Lister thought, as he rose with the others to applaud. The sprite had delivered the first Galenic Visiting Lecture on Faerie Science, more than a decade before, and only the novelty of the subject matter—not to mention the lecturer himself—had kept his audience’s attention. No, he most certainly had improved; that, or someone else was writing his speeches nowadays.

Fifteen years had dulled that novelty somewhat. Back then, people had flocked to any event that offered them a chance to see a faerie, and protestors had thronged the streets outside. Lord Lister would not call the matter settled even now, but a scientific lecture no longer attracted disproportionate attention, and Inspector Quinn didn’t have to send constables to keep the peace. He was glad for the return to ordinary business—relatively speaking.

The President of the Royal Society made his way to the front of the room, to shake Master Wrain’s hand and pose for a picture. Eveleen Myers promised she had a better technique than before, something that would balance the demands of mortal and faerie photography. Her husband was there to test it; Lord Lister only hoped his skill with a camera had improved as much as Wrain’s speeches.

It was still a bit questionable, he thought, having scholars from the Galenic Academy and the Society for Psychical Research both come speak before the Royal Society. What they did was not exactly science, not so far as Lister was concerned. It was neither physical nor biological in nature, and it had a sort of inconsistency—a mysticism—that did not fit in here. But the London Fairy Society urged the connection; and after all, the Academy had made something from that deranged engine Charles Babbage had bothered Lister’s predecessors about, the one Babbage himself had never built. Some of the gentlemen here were quite excited about further developments in that vein. It did no harm to let the fae come speak.

And there were certain matters best addressed through cooperation. After Wrain had finished answering questions—a great many questions—and the last stragglers had gone on their way, Lister said, “If you can spare a moment before you leave, I should like to talk to you about medical matters. There is something of an epidemic building in London, if I may use that word for something that is not a disease; and I am quite concerned to address it before the matter grows any worse.”

Wrain did not need explanations. “The current fashion for eating faerie food? Yes, of course. We have been working on more reliable ways of treating those affected by it, but I would be glad for any suggestions you might make…”

Lord Lister would not enter the faerie realm; it was, he often said, a trick for the young, and not one he was eager to try. But he and Wrain strolled about the grounds of Burlington House, nodding greetings to men from the other scientific societies that shared the premises, and discussed the matter, with fruitful results.

Outside the gates of that eminent estate, the two cities went about their business: mortal and faerie London, lying atop and between and alongside one another. Not merged into one, but not separate either; a mere step sideways, and daily bridged by men and women of both kinds, for good and for ill, for education and for mischief, and sometimes just for curiosity’s sake. Their coexistence was not perfectly peaceable—not yet, and perhaps not ever—but then no great city ever lay fully at peace, and this one had survived the influx of strangers before. It was the dawning of a new age, and London would endure.