“The Dragon,” he whispered.
She had to try three times before the word came out. “Dead. Do—do you remember?”
The question sent a shudder down his spine. Galen was dressed as he had been in death, free from all the armour of elegance, but his shirt was whole; no mark of the beast’s flame showed on him anywhere. “I… I remember pain.”
“You were burning,” Irrith said, voice wavering so badly it was almost unintelligible. “It would have killed you eventually. And maybe that would have killed the Dragon. But I—”
“Destruction.” Galen might not have heard anything she said; he was lost in the fog of his own memories. “For its own sake, at first; that was the fire of the Dragon. Then destruction for the sake of making others suffer. And that was my fire.”
His gaze pinned Irrith, swift as an arrow. “I hurt you.”
She shook her head so hard, pain flared in her neck. “No. That wasn’t you.”
“It was. The me that was the Dragon. The two of us as one…” He trailed one ghostly hand across his chest, where she had stabbed him. “The ice put out the flames. I think some part of it is still in me—I remember the comet, and the vastness of space. But there is no more fire.”
The tears were coming again. She’d done this much for him, then: that beast would not add to his torments. Scant comfort.
The ghostly substance of Galen’s body rippled, then firmed once more. Looking around as if seeing his surroundings for the first time, he said, “I thought I would be in Hell.”
Lune smiled. A strange radiance had suffused her: serenity, unshakeable as the foundations of the earth. “No, Galen. Your soul is not bound for Hell.”
“But he killed himself,” Irrith said. “Even I know where suicides go.”
Delphia pushed herself to her feet, careful as a cripple walking for the first time. She said, “I won’t quote the words of scripture directly, not in this place—but it tells us the greatest love of all is to give up one’s life for the sake of others.”
“For the sake of faeries.” The words tasted bitter in Irrith’s mouth, all the more so because she wanted to hope, and didn’t dare. “We don’t matter, in Heaven’s eyes.”
“Yes, we do.” The joy in Lune’s smile was like nothing Irrith had ever seen before. “We are not creatures of Heaven, but when love joins our two worlds, even the angels do not condemn it. I have seen it myself, long ago.”
She sounded like a madwoman. The shining certainty in her eyes, though, dissolved the ache that had lodged within Irrith’s breast since Galen first offered himself for the sacrifice. He isn’t damned. He’s given up his life—but not his soul.
Through her own dignified tears, Delphia said, “Go on, Galen. Heaven awaits you.”
He hesitated. Irrith thought some lingering fear held him back, until he shook his head.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
To leave Lune—but he said it to all three of them, his wife, his lover, and his Queen. Irrith’s throat closed, with sudden hope. “He’s a ghost,” she said, as if no one had noticed. “Haunting the palace. He doesn’t have to go anywhere, does he?”
She looked hopefully to Lune as she said it, but saw the elfin woman’s radiance dim. “Have to—no. But Galen… do not trap yourself in that fashion.”
“It isn’t a trap if I choose it,” he said, and all the passion of his soul was in those words.
Sorrow touched Lune’s lips. The fading that had come upon her, the exhaustion of the Onyx Hall’s decline, had only made her beauty more poignant. “But think of what you are choosing. For today, it would be a blessing; you would remain among those you love. What of tomorrow, though, and the next day, and all the days to come? Forever adrift in these halls, as mortals pass and faerie memory dissolves into forgetfulness, until even your friends scarcely remember who you are and why they once cared for you.”
Irrith wanted to insist it would not be so. But then she thought of past Princes—or tried to. Lord Antony, Jack Ellin, Lord Joseph. The names were there when she reached for them, and even the faces; that was not how fae forgot. When she tried to recall Jack’s sense of humour, though, or the respect she felt for Lord Joseph when he heard the news of the comet’s return… nothing. They might have been people from a history book, not men she’d known.
That would happen to Galen, too. The only way to hold on to such memories was to love. And then his lingering would be an endless source of pain to them both.
“This place would become a prison to you,” Lune said, softly, regretfully. “Do not condemn yourself to that Hell.”
His face was taut as if he would weep, but death had robbed him of all tears. “I cannot abandon this place, though. If I knew all danger had passed—the Dragon is gone, but the enchantments are still fraying. How can I leave you to face that alone?”
He couldn’t go, and he couldn’t stay. Irrith remembered the moans of the ghosts on All Hallows’ Eve—then thought of other ghosts. The ones they didn’t sweep away each year.
“Then come back,” she said.
No one understood her. Irrith fumbled for an explanation. “There’s a manor house in Berkshire that’s haunted by the ghost of some lady. Not all the time; just on the night of her wedding. I have no idea where she goes the rest of the time, but couldn’t Galen do that? Come back once a year—at least until this place is safe?” Until the desire binding him to this world faded enough for him to let go.
Lune didn’t answer immediately. She turned instead to Delphia. Any normal woman might have argued, out of confusion or piety or simple instinct, but Galen had married one who understood; she nodded. Then Lune said, “I cannot promise it will be so; that, I fear, lies beyond me. But I can leave the door open. If you wish to return, nothing here will prevent you.”
It wasn’t certainty. It was enough for Galen, though. A smile broke across his face, like dawn breaking clear after the endless months of clouds. The image spread across Irrith’s memory like a balm, blotting out the horror of Cannon Street and the black holes of his eyes, and the relief brought her almost to tears. “Good-bye—for now,” she whispered, and heard Delphia and Lune echo her with their own farewells.
And the light grew. It came from everywhere and nowhere, shining through the fading substance of Galen’s ghostly body. It should have burnt, like church bells and prayers; Irrith felt in it that same holy force, the touch of the divine. It could have burnt, if it chose. But the light passed through her without harm, shining in the depths of London’s faerie realm, and then it was gone, as if it had never been.
Irrith drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said to the Queen, “Yes. I’ll stay.”
EPILOGUE
Frederick Parsons stepped away from the eyepiece and grinned. “And there it is. Just like it was seventy-six years ago.”
His companion raised both eyebrows dryly. “Not just like, I should think. May I see?”
Frederick waved him forward. His companion had to bend farther to reach the eyepiece, but despite the discomfort, stayed in that position for a long time, studying the heavens above.
Far in the distance—unimaginably far, though not incalculably so—a “star” blazed across the sky. They weren’t the only curiosity-seekers at Greenwich, come to observe the return of Halley’s famed comet, but they were the only ones to bring their own telescope. The Royal Observatory yet remained far enough outside of London’s gaslights and filthy smoke to be a good point from which to see such wonders.