A Star Shall Fall Part 29

Her mind refused to put the pieces together, the corpses and the blood and the knives, the rowan chains no faerie could break and the jars of alcohol holding things she didn't want to recognize. Dr. Andrews. Valentin Aspell. There was a picture here, but she could not see it around the scream that filled her mind.

She ran. Even iron couldn't keep her out of the kitchen, her one route to safety; she was through the window and up the stairs before she knew she was moving, running away from Red Lion Square, back to something like safety.

But time had pa.s.sed; people were beginning to move, in the murky predawn light. She tried to put up a glamour, lost it before she'd gone ten steps. Irrith s.n.a.t.c.hed desperately at everything she knew of London, every black alley and hidden nook, every series of rooftops that afforded her a road away from where people could see. She had to make it back to the Onyx Hall. Had to stop Aspell, whatever he was planning for the morning. She had to. had to.

She made it down Holborn, past the flat new s.p.a.ce of the Fleet Market where sellers were beginning to set up their wares, through the broken mouth of Newgate, until she was on the roof of the p.a.w.nbroker's that held the hidden entrance.

Church bells caught her there, and she fell.

The Onyx Hall, London: March 16, 1759 The usher, it seemed, had been given new instructions. "Lord Galen, Prince of the Stone, and his wife Lady Delphia!"

The lady in question colored at the unaccustomed t.i.tle, but sallied bravely forward with her arm in his. Galen nodded at the curtsies and bows they received, and approached Lune in her chair of estate. "Lord Galen," the Queen said, with a smile that warmed her worried eyes. "We did not expect to see you here so soon after your wedding."

"The comet may still be concealed in the light of the sun," Galen said, "but that's no excuse for laziness on my part. And my lady wife was eager to spend more time in the Onyx Hall." Now that she could do so with greater ease. No one could object if Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair chose to wander off in each other's company.

"Lady Delphia," Lune said, and received another curtsy in reply. "If you are so eager, then we'll put you into the keeping of Lady Amadea, our chamberlain, who will acquaint you with the other ladies."

Amadea seemed pleased enough, though some of the others were clearly not so sure. Galen kissed his wife's hand and let her go. She would do well enough in the Lady Chamberlain's company.

A brief exchange was occurring at the door behind him, someone handing a note to the usher, who pa.s.sed it to a nearby lord, who brought it to Lune with a bow. The Queen unfolded it, and Galen saw surprise break over her like a wave. "Lord Galen, if you would-"

He followed her into the small privy chamber beyond. His curiosity didn't last long; Lune said in a voice that carried no farther than the two of them, "Dr. Andrews says he has succeeded at last. Sophic mercury, extracted in a form we can use, like drawing blood from a patient. He's invited me to Red Lion Square to see."

"Only you?"

"You, Lord Galen, are supposed to be at Sothings Park still, enjoying your connubial bliss. No doubt a letter is seeking you there, without result. In a moment we'll go back out, and my courtiers will hear me send you to Holborn, to consult with Dr. Andrews."

Amus.e.m.e.nt rippled inside him. It felt good; the knot of tension that had bound his heart since Abd ar-Rashid first brought up the moon queen was coming untied at last. Lune did not seem so relieved, but her determination was unmistakable. "I'll find you waiting for me in Newgate, won't I?"

"I thought the Fleet Market would be an appropriate rendezvous. Meet me there in half an hour."

Red Lion Square, Holborn: March 16, 1759 They shared a carriage, knees almost brushing in its close confines, and arrived at Dr. Andrews's house a little before noon. The footman escorted them up to the drawing room on the piano n.o.bile. This was where Andrews had displayed his menagerie, before illness forced him to disband it. The room was less comfortable than the back parlor, and despite the chill in the air, no fire burnt in the grate: an unusual piece of carelessness, from Andrews's usually scrupulous servants. Nor was Andrews there.

They heard the man's coughing before he entered the room. Galen was appalled. Andrews had finally agreed to spend less time in the Onyx Hall, for the sake of his mind; it seemed his body had paid the price. Or perhaps this decline would have happened anyway, his health finally abandoning the fight against the disease that was killing him. He should have been in bed, enduring his last days in what comfort could be managed, but it seemed his will was too strong to allow him that surrender.

Lune saw it, too. She swept past Galen and took Dr. Andrews by the arm, helping him into a chair. "Thank you," the man whispered, his voice a ghost of what it had been before.

Then he saw Galen, and surprise sparked another bout of coughing. When it ended, Andrews rasped, "Mr. St. Clair-you were supposed to be at Sothings Park."

"I came to see the mercury," Galen said, his own voice as hushed as if he stood at someone's deathbed.

Andrews shook his head. "I don't have it yet."

Lune and Galen exchanged looks of mutual confusion. "But your letter said-"

"Need you." He pointed at Lune. "It won't work with a nymph. We need the connection to the Onyx Hall. Just as the Dragon acquired an a.s.sociation with air by its transmission to the comet, so are you completed by your realm."

"Dr. Andrews, no no." It hurt all the more because Galen had believed their problem finished at last. "If this mercury depends on a connection to the Onyx Hall, it cannot be used; the power of the Hall is exactly what the Dragon desires. You would give our enemy precisely the thing we fight to keep it from from."

Andrews's breath rattled audibly in his chest, and he clutched his ever-present handkerchief as if it were the only thing anchoring his spirit to his body. "There is no other choice, Mr. St. Clair. If the Dragon's power is as great as you say, then it must be matched by a source equally strong; only the Onyx Hall will suffice. Else sulphur will obliterate mercury and the work will be lost."

Galen rose slowly to his feet. His entire body was trembling, and the dark, bare s.p.a.ce of the drawing room seemed to be closing in on him, narrowing his world to himself and Dr. Andrews alone. He didn't want to ask, but he had to; the salvation of London depended on it. "How-how would the extraction be done?"

The dying man finally met Galen's eyes, and what he saw revealed there struck him dumb with horror.

Andrews whispered, "I'm sorry."

The doors to the drawing room opened. In came six people Galen didn't recognize: ordinary laboring men, or so they appeared to be, except he knew without question that they were fae under glamour.

Sanists.

"There is no drawing of blood," Andrews said. "No extraction of the necessary element without harm to the patient. I tried, Mr. St. Clair, but they all died. If there was any other way, I swear to you, I would use it, but-"

"Dr. Andrews." Lune spoke his name, but addressed all of them, with courage and dignity that would give the hardest a.s.sa.s.sin pause. "I understand your desperation, but you must listen to me. The philosopher's stone is not your salvation. Not if it is created from the Dragon. It's a creature of destruction; even if you take me, with all the power of the Onyx Hall behind me, I won't be able to stop it."

Andrews shivered. "But it's perfection. It creates creates perfection." perfection."

"And so it may do-by annihilating that which is not perfect." Lune spread her arms, seeming to encompa.s.s the entire city within her embrace. "After London burnt, men submitted plans to the King, grand designs for transforming it into the jewel of Europe, sweeping away the old tangle of streets to create something better. They failed. But if London were to burn again-why, then, they would have another chance. Dr. Andrews, you cannot cannot do this. It will destroy us all." do this. It will destroy us all."

For one timeless, breathless moment, Galen thought she had persuaded him. Andrews's mouth wavered, uncertainty breaking through the desperation.

Then the doctor made his choice.

What he would have said to excuse it, Galen never learned. He charged forward, blindly, but one of the Sanists was there before he got two steps, grabbing him and wrestling him back. Another trapped Lune with brawny arms. "You shouldn't have come, Mr. St. Clair," Dr. Andrews gasped, in between coughs. "I meant to spare you this. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."

Galen screamed. It didn't last more than a heartbeat before silence blanketed the room. A third Sanist came forward with rowan-wood shackles to bind Lune's good and crippled hands together. Her silver eyes sought him out, and their touch pierced Galen to the bone.

Still screaming, feeling it tear out of his chest even if nothing reached his ears, Galen fought like a wild animal. He clawed free of his captor and s.n.a.t.c.hed the nearest thing that came to hand, his chair, swinging it like a tavern brawler. The Sanist knocked it aside contemptuously and punched him in the face. Light burst all across Galen's vision. He felt the wall beneath his hands, holding him up; then a second blow struck him in the stomach, driving all the air from him, knocking him back. He raised his hands in feeble defense, but it did him no good as the fist came at him a third time.

This one sent him staggering backward, out of control, and into the window.

Gla.s.s shattered against his back. The wooden sill caught his knees; Galen threw his hand out, trying to catch himself. Pain flared across his palm-he lost his grip-then he was tumbling over the projecting lintel of the front door below, scrabbling for purchase on its edge and then slipping free. Galen hit the front steps and went sprawling in the street.

He looked up to see his captor's face at the window, staring in surprised fury. Gasping for air that would not come, Galen staggered to his feet and ran, limping, for the corner of the square. No shouts came from behind him-of course not, the silencing charm-but he ran as if the hounds of h.e.l.l chased him, because soon they would. Out onto Holborn, and there was a hackney; he flung himself into the carriage, ignoring the startled protests of the man inside, and rattled away into the faceless ma.s.ses of the street, where no pursuer could find him.

Newgate, London: March 16, 1759 When the hackney driver stopped to throw him out, Galen poured the entire contents of his purse into the man's hands, demanding he be taken back to the City.

Only after he staggered out again in Newgate Street, wrapping his handkerchief around his bleeding left hand, did he realize his error. This was the obvious entrance to seek if he were returning to the Onyx Hall. Galen whirled in the narrow alley, trying to look in all directions at once, and nearly fell.

Then he looked up, and he did did fall, straight into the mud. fall, straight into the mud.

A hand dangled over the edge of the roof, at the back of the p.a.w.nbroker's. An unmoving hand, he realized-a hand too delicate to belong to anyone human. Galen lurched to his feet and crept forward, half-crouched, ready to run again.

When the fingers did not so much as twitch, he climbed onto a crate, and looked over the edge of the roof.

Irrith lay unconscious, sprawled across the tiles of the building's back extension. Galen thought she was dead. Her skin held a gray pallor, as if the light of her soul had almost gone out. But when he cradled her face in his hands, she stirred, ever so faintly.

Favoring his gashed palm, Galen pulled her awkwardly forward, dragging her off the roof. The contents of her pockets rained down, making hazards for his feet, but he managed to lift her onto his shoulder and carry her to the ground. Had the Sanists attacked her? But if so, why had they left her alive?

The flapping of wings gave him half a second of warning. Galen had just enough time to lay Irrith down before the approaching faerie transformed in midair, falling out of the sky to land in humanlike form. She was a sharp-faced creature, none Galen knew by name, but her predatory leer told her intent clearly enough. And she stood between him and the relative safety of the street.

Ever since fleeing Red Lion Square, the shame of having abandoned Lune had burnt Galen alive. Now Irrith lay helpless in the mud at his feet. Once the goblin woman finished with him, the sprite would not last long.

No.

That single word was the only clear thought in Galen's head as he lunged for the fallen contents of Irrith's pockets. It gave him speed: he came up with the pistol in his hands just before the goblin reached him, and fired from a mere foot away.

The hammer of the gun snapped down-and nothing happened.

She'd slid to a halt in a vain attempt to dodge. Now she laughed and raised her claws.

Galen struck her in the head with the empty pistol. The goblin staggered. He struck her again, a third time, a fourth, beating her down into the mud, until his sweaty grip failed and the gun flew from his grip. But by then the goblin wasn't moving.

He didn't trust it. Any moment now she would rise again, and then he would be doomed, because he was no soldier or brawler; he was a gentleman, and had never come closer to battle than his fencing lessons as a youth.

Galen dragged Irrith out of the mud. How he fit both of them into the cramped alcove of the entrance, he would never know; but a moment later they were in the relative safety of the Onyx Hall, and then he began shouting for help.

The Onyx Hall, London: March 16, 1759 His cries seemed to have summoned fae out of every crevice of the Hall, and half of them were now crowding into the room. Galen didn't even know where they were; it was some courtier's chambers, he thought. Whatever had been nearest when help came running. But the result was chaos, and they were wasting time. wasting time.

He bellowed loud enough to make Gertrude drop the bandage she was wrapping around his hand, and was rewarded with a ragged fall into silence. "Out," "Out," he snarled. "I need Sir Peregrin and Sir Cerenel-the Goodemeades can stay-and the scholars, get me Lady Feidelm, Abd ar-Rashid, any of them you can find. Everyone else, he snarled. "I need Sir Peregrin and Sir Cerenel-the Goodemeades can stay-and the scholars, get me Lady Feidelm, Abd ar-Rashid, any of them you can find. Everyone else, get out get out."

Sir Adenant took up his orders and repeated them, herding almost everyone from the room. Now Galen could see Rosamund, crouching over Irrith, trying to chafe warmth back into the sprite's limp hands. "What's wrong with her?"

"Iron," the brownie said, not looking up. "And holy things, and everything else. She was up there without bread, Galen, I don't know for how long."

Would she recover? He couldn't spare the time for that worry, not right now. Gertrude tied off the bandage as Sir Peregrin came in with his lieutenant. Abd ar-Rashid was not far behind. Good enough to start with.

Galen told them of Red Lion Square. He wanted to be concise, but every word made his face ache, and his thoughts kept scattering to the four winds; Gertrude pressed a cup of mead into his good hand, and he drank it down, shaking almost badly enough to choke. Where were the rest of the scholars? Abd ar-Rashid shook his head when Galen asked. "Lady Feidelm and Wrain are in the Calendar Room. I cannot find Savennis."

"He's dead."

The paper-thin whisper came from Irrith. Rosamund had tucked her into the bed of the courtier whose chambers they'd usurped, where she looked like a small child, wasted by illness. Her shifting eyes had dulled to a flat, muddy green. "In the cellar. Andrews was experimenting. They're all dead."

I tried, Mr. St. Clair, but they all died.

The doctor's words echoed in his head. The vivisected salamander, the laboratory beneath Andrews's house-the questions about what happened when a faerie died. Christ. Lune. Christ. Lune.

Galen stumbled blindly toward the door. "We have to go now now. She-she may already be dead..."

Cerenel caught him before he could get far. Rosamund hurried to his side, with hasty words of comfort. "She isn't, lad; you'd know if she were. The Hall would tell you. But you have to plan before you go rushing in, because of a surety they'll be waiting for you."

"We don't have the time!"

Abd ar-Rashid's accented voice brought him down to earth, unreasonably calm in the face of his own panic. "I think perhaps we do. If I understand Dr. Andrews well enough."

Galen stopped fighting Cerenel's hands. "What do you mean?"

The genie folded his arms, frowning. "He seeks the moon queen, yes? Then he will want the moon. Full would be best, but he has missed that; he will not wait for it to come again. But the... extraction will be tonight."

"Then why s.n.a.t.c.h her now?" Peregrin demanded. "When it gives us time to respond?"

"Because he needs time to prepare."

Cerenel allowed Galen to step back. The pause had checked the fire in his veins; now, at last, he began to feel the beating he'd taken, the throbbing heat of his hand, the protests of his right ankle when he put weight on it. But the mead gave him the strength to keep going.

Everyone was looking at him. Prince of the Stone, and in Lune's absence, the voice of authority in the Onyx Hall.

He tried to focus, past the unpleasant pulsating of his bruised face. Abd ar-Rashid's calm response to Peregrin sounded plausible, but he suspected it was more of a guess than the genie admitted. If the extraction was now...

"Lune was supposed to go alone," he mumbled, mostly to himself. "Not with me."

"Aspell must know she's been sneaking out of the Hall," Irrith said, struggling to sit up, against Gertrude's insistence.

"Aspell? The Lord Keeper?"

Peregrin's teeth bared in a snarl. "The Sanist. Dame Irrith told us, while you were away."

The knight likely didn't mean it as an accusation, but it cut Galen nonetheless. Irrith brushed lank hair from her face and said, "I followed him to Dr. Andrews's house. I didn't know what they were planning, but I was trying to get back here to warn the Queen."

They shared the same shame, the same failure. He saw it in her face, as no doubt she saw it in his.

So the intent had been for the Queen to go in secret, by herself, or at most with one attendant. There was no reason to suspect Dr. Andrews, and no reason to take a guard. By the time her absence was remarked, and her location determined, it would be too late.

"But they know now that we know," Galen said. He lowered himself stiffly into the nearest chair. "Andrews won't use his cellar laboratory. By now they'll be gone. But to where?"

Silence. The a.s.sembled fae looked from one to another, seeking answers, finding none.

Andrews had nowhere else to go, not that Galen knew of. He could not kill a faerie woman inside the house of the Royal Society. "Does Aspell have any familiar haunts, outside the Hall?"

More silence, shaking heads. It sparked Galen's anger. "Come on! There must be something. Where can they be safe? Abd ar-Rashid, give me the alchemical answer. What place is best for the work he intends to do?"

The genie closed his eyes and began to murmur to himself in rapid Arabic, unintelligible to them all. Then, still without looking, he changed to English. "Ablution. Washing the material in mercurial waters to reach albedo, the white stage before the creation of the stone. He will need to purify her... he would not have done this in his house, I think, even without being found. He needs a source of water, away from iron or other things that will harm her."

Galen's mind offered up an enormous list of water sources in London. "The ponds in St. James' Park. The Chelsea Reservoirs. The Serpentine. Not Holywell-the New River Head-"

"No," Rosamund murmured, cutting him short. "Think, Galen. The Thames."

The answer so obvious, he overlooked it. Abd ar-Rashid's lip curled delicately. "It is an open sewer. Not clean at all."

"But the heart of London, and connected to the Onyx Hall," Galen said. "Which is part of what Andrews is relying upon. Rosamund is right: he will use the Thames."

Abd ar-Rashid was right, though, about the state of the waters. Somewhere upriver, then, where they were less fouled. Galen thought back to his Vauxhall visits, what he had seen from the barge. Westminster-no, too many wharves. The swampy banks of Lambeth, perhaps. Or Vauxhall itself? But while all of that, strictly speaking, fell under Lune's authority-which extended to more than just the Onyx Hall itself-the farther he went, the farther he took her from the London Stone, and the heart of her realm. And Aspell knew about the Stone. Surely he would have told Andrews.

Galen stared blankly at the far wall, seeing in his mind's eye the journey upriver. The wharves floating by, the fine houses along the Strand, the Palace of Westminster.

Upriver and down. Cleansing before the extraction. No one place would serve, but...

"What about a barge?"