Wilhas shook his head, and she breathed a little more easily. Iron would seem like the logical choice; after all, the Dragon was just a kind of salamander—a really, really overgrown salamander—and therefore a creature of faerie-kind. But the box Lune had imprisoned the beast in at the end of the Great Fire had been solid iron, and that only worked for a little while. The Dragon’s power was just too great to be confined so easily.
Still, the box had given them ten years of peace, and its weakening structure held together for another six, until they hit upon the idea of exiling the Dragon to a comet. If Niklas could achieve half that result, it would still be more than they had now.
She hopped up onto the edge of Wilhas’s table, and got a scowl like his brother’s as he moved various tools to safety. The dwarves fascinated her almost as much as mortals did. They’d come to England when the crown passed to a German cousin, George I, and as near as Irrith could tell, they considered Lune the counterpart of the Georges: Queen over all of faerie Britain. So long as they didn’t say that where any of faerie Britain’s other monarchs could hear—or their ambassadors—Irrith supposed it didn’t hurt. At least it meant they worked hard on Lune’s behalf.
On various things, some more plausible than others. “What do you think?” Irrith asked.
“Of vat? Of my brother’s cage?” Wilhas shrugged, which was probably a wise move when Niklas was standing right there. Not listening, or at least not appearing to, but Irrith had already broken up more fistfights between them than she wanted to.
“Of the current plans,” Irrith said. “Or lack of same.”
The blond dwarf fiddled with a mirror, mouth twisted into a grimace. “There are plans. Many plans. Keep the Drache on its little star; trap it ven it comes down; kill it if ve can. Any of those vould be good, ja? If ve can make them vork.”
Which made them no plans at all, as far as Irrith was concerned. “Wayland made a sword once, ages and ages ago, that— Hey!” She gestured at the two stocky faeries. “You two are dwarves!”
Niklas spun to face her, a tiny hammer clutched in one meaty hand. “You are going to ask about Gram.”
“I’m from the Vale of the White Horse,” she reminded him. “Our King, Wayland Smith, was the one who made that sword. But he said Gram was broken and reforged before it was used to kill the dragon Fafnir—and that a dwarf did the reforging. Can’t you do something similar?”
“Reginn vas Nordmann,” Niklas said, face reddening to almost the shade of his beard. “Nicht Deutscher. You understand? Not from our land. Ve are not all the same, happy little Schmiede hammering away in—”
Wilhas clapped a hand over his brother’s mouth to stop the flood of words, fewer and fewer of which sounded like English, and Irrith threw her hands up. “I’m sorry I asked! I just thought— Never mind.”
Niklas had by then clawed free of his brother and gone back to his work, snarling more German under his breath. “Honestly,” Irrith said, “I’d rather it stay on the comet, or get trapped here, and we avoid battle entirely.”
Shaking out his hand—Irrith rather thought Niklas had bitten it—Wilhas said, “There is nothing wrong vith fighting.”
“There is when you don’t have a weapon! Segraine tells me they’re still wrestling with that jotun ice, but they haven’t gotten very far. Bonecruncher wants to hack chips off for shot.”
Wilhas chewed on an available bit of mustache, before shaking his head. “Even if you could make it round enough, I do not think the bullets vould survive the explosion. Too much fire, and ice is too brittle.” The chewing turned into a meditative sucking, and he rolled his eyes up to contemplate the ceiling. “Unless you could do it vithout fire…”
“Afraid of a little battle?” That came from Niklas, though he didn’t bother to turn around.
He sounded like he was trying to needle her. Irrith, however, felt no shame about her cowardice. “Have you looked at me? I’m not one of those fae who look like twigs and feel like stone giants; the Dragon broke my arm at Pie Corner, with just a swat of its tail. If battle comes…”
He turned his head far enough to sneer at her. “Vat? You vill run avay?”
Run away…
“Or hide,” she said, eyes widening.
Wilhas came out of his contemplation and shook his head. “You vould be safer to run. Hiding—”
“Not me,” Irrith said. “London.”
Now both dwarves were staring at her.
“Hide the city!” she said. Inspiration goaded her off her perch on the table; she had to pace. “The Onyx Hall is a place of power, right? The Dragon ate a little of it back then, and wanted more. Everybody’s pretty sure it will come looking for us again. But what if it can’t find us?”
“Then it vill go elsevere,” Wilhas said.
Then it will be someone else’s problem. Irrith didn’t say it, though. What if the Dragon went for the Vale, instead? “Hide all of England, then.”
She didn’t know if it was possible for someone’s eyes to literally bulge out of his head, but the dwarves’ were certainly trying. Irrith grinned. “I know, I know. A whole island—might as well toss in Scotland while we’re at it—I’m insane. You might have noticed, though, that we’re standing in a rather insane place. Ash and Thorn—who looks at the biggest city in England and says, I think we need a faerie palace underneath it? Who steals eleven days from millions of people and traps them in a room? If anyone can hide us from the Dragon, it’ll be someone in this court, if only because they’re too mad to realise it’ll never work.”
Niklas crossed his arms belligerently. “Say it vorks. Say ve hide England. Say the Drache stays on its comet instead of going somevere else—it’s a lot to suppose. But even then, it only delays the problem. The beast still comes back.”
He was just saying it to be contrary; the set of his glare had shifted. Irrith answered him anyway. “And in the meantime, you’ve had seventy-five more years to figure how to chip jotun ice into usable bullets.”
She got to enjoy a brief moment of pride; then Wilhas deflated her with a single word. “How?”
“Don’t ask me,” Irrith said, putting her hands up in protest. “I said someone would be mad enough to figure it out. I haven’t been here in fifty years; my lunacy’s out of practice.” Wilhas was still looking at her. “What? You need a puck for this, not a sprite! They’re the ones with all the tricks!”
“Then ve vill get you pucks,” he said, with a decisive nod. “How many do you need?”
“None. I came up with the idea; my work is done.”
Wilhas smiled. “Ve shall see vat the Queen says.”
Irrith realised, far too late, that she should have kept her mouth shut.
Remembering Irrith’s first visit to his chambers, Galen had told Edward to let the sprite through if she came calling again. When Irrith tried to barge past him without even the barest courtesy, though, the valet stopped her with one efficient arm. “Dame Irrith, I have told you—”
Her undoubtedly obscene response got swallowed when she saw Galen standing a few feet away, dressed save for his shoes and hat. Galen said, “My apologies, but I’m afraid I have an engagement. Can your matter wait?”
She answered with her usual impudence. “As long as you don’t mind losing another day.”