Edward dropped his blocking arm with a scowl. Like all good valets, he could read his master’s mind: if this had to do with the comet, then it couldn’t be postponed. The days ticked steadily away; already it was spring, and once winter came, astronomers would begin searching the skies.
His engagement was to escort his mother, Cynthia, Miss Northwood, and Mrs. Northwood through the British Museum’s collections in Montagu House, and Galen was looking forward to it, but he had a little time before he must depart. “Have you come up with an idea?”
“Yes,” she said, passing Edward with an expression just this side of sticking her tongue out at him. “And I told the dwarves, and that should have been the end of it. But now Lune wants me to make it happen.”
Her tone and posture clearly proclaimed that there was a problem somewhere in this. Galen could not see it. “What is it you wish me to do?”
“Convince her to have someone else do it!”
“Dame Irrith…” Edward was hovering with his hat and shoes, but Galen gestured him back for the moment. “I was under the impression you were interested in helping us.”
She shifted, not meeting his eyes. “I am.”
“Then where’s the problem?”
He heard the catch in her breath, before she turned and became very interested in the porcelain figure of a hound on a nearby table. “I can’t possibly do it. Because I haven’t the slightest idea how.”
That hound might have dragged the admission from her, it came out so strained. Galen bit his tongue. He was so accustomed to Lune, who rarely betrayed anything of her inner state, even when it was in turmoil; or her closest courtiers, who followed the model of their Queen. He wasn’t used to someone like Irrith, whose attempts at guile fell as flat as his own.
It gave him a sense of kinship with her, though. Neither one of us is half so polished as this place would like us to be.
“What is the idea?” Galen asked, and listened as Irrith summed it up. No one, to his knowledge, had suggested hiding from the Dragon; he had to admit the notion held some appeal. As for how to make it happen, though, he was forced to admit he had no more notion than she did.
Floundering for a starting point, he said, “Don’t fae have some means of hiding from mortals? Charms and the like?”
“Yes, but we aren’t trying to hide from a mortal, are we?” Irrith gesticulated with the porcelain hound, and Galen spared a moment to hope she wouldn’t throw it into a wall for punctuation. The piece was a gift from the French ambassador, the faerie one—though in truth, Galen wouldn’t miss it all that much.
What protected mortals against faerie-kind? Iron. Christian faith, whether expressed through prayer or church bells or other signs. But London was already armored with those—and besides, they didn’t conceal anything.
Edward coughed discreetly. Galen looked up, ready to insist on just a few more minutes’ delay, and found his servant had put aside the hat and shoes. “Begging your pardon, sir, but I believe there’s a way for mortals to hide from faeries. Dame Irrith—if a man turns his coat inside out, doesn’t that give him a measure of invisibility?”
Her shifting green eyes went wide. Irrith stood, gaping, and then a grin split her face. “You’re a genius,” she announced. “What’s your name, anyway? Geniuses should have names.”
The servant gave her a shallow bow. “Edward Thorne, ma’am.”
“Edward Th—” Curiosity flared to life. “Are you Peregrin’s son?”
A second, deeper bow. “I have that honor, yes.”
“Hah! You’re cleverer than your father, Mr. Thorne. Ask me sometime about when he first came to Berkshire, the adventure he had with a milkmaid. Just don’t ask when he’s around.” Irrith bounced on the balls of her feet. “Inside-out clothes! I should have thought of that.” Her face fell as she turned to Galen. “But London isn’t wearing any clothes.”
He didn’t have an answer to that, but Edward had at least given him a notion of what advice to offer. “Her Majesty may have instructed you to make this happen, Dame Irrith, but I doubt she meant you must do it on your own. May I suggest recruiting help? Others may have useful suggestions, which you can coordinate into a proper plan.”
Irrith wrinkled her nose at him. “Do I look coordinated to you?”
“You are a model of grace.”
“That isn’t what I meant, as you well know,” Irrith said, but she colored a little. Galen had spoken the words in jest, but they were also true; she moved like a young fox, with natural rather than studied elegance.
Edward had picked up the shoes and hat again. Galen sighed and beckoned him forward. “I have every confidence you can make this happen, Dame Irrith, and it may do us crucial good. If time in the Calendar Room would aid your thoughts, I’m sure her Grace will approve it. In the meantime, I must beg your forgiveness, but—”
She was nodding before he finished. “Right. Sorry I kept you. But this helped a lot.”
“I’m glad,” he said, settling the hat upon his head. “Let me know if I can be of further use.”
Ktistes might have been a statue of a centaur, his hooves planted foursquare on the grass, looking off into the distance where several courtiers were chasing each other around a fountain. Their giggles and false shrieks of surprise made Irrith want to bellow at them to be quiet, but she had no illusions as to the weight her knighthood carried. Even if she told them she was trying to save their frivolous little lives.
“Difficult enough,” the centaur finally said, “to hide London. The City itself, within the walls, that could be done; it is only a square mile or so. Since that is the part reflected in the Onyx Hall, and the power of this palace is what the Dragon craves, it might be enough.”
Irrith shook her head. “Do you really want to wager that it will be? It’s already burnt enough, Ktistes. I’m not going to let it do the same thing again.”
He sighed, hooves shifting restlessly, breaking the illusion of the statue. “Then will you hide the entire world? There are cities elsewhere, and faerie realms, too. You cannot be certain it will not strike the Cour du Lys, or my brethren in Greece, or folk in lands you’ve never heard of. Folk who are not prepared.”
“It might,” she admitted. That was the worry that, as the mortals said, kept her awake at night—or would, if she slept. The nervous intensity of Galen and all the rest had infected her, making sleep a luxury for later. “I don’t think it will, though.”
The centaur rarely wasted words; he merely studied her patiently, awaiting an explanation.
Biting her lip, Irrith said, “You never saw it, Ktistes. I did. I was there when it tried to eat the Onyx Hall. After it’s eaten London, it will turn somewhere else—all those other places you named. Because it can never eat enough. But it won’t move on until it has this place.” It had the scent—or rather the taste—like a bloodhound. And it needed no huntsman to chivvy it on.
“Then as I said before: you need not cover the entire island.”
She grinned. It was better than showing her uncertainty. “Well, I don’t want to bet it wouldn’t gobble up Oxford on its way to London. Better not to let it get a foothold, right?” The grin faded, though she tried to hold on to it. “Never mind the scale. Help me figure out how to do this, and then we can argue over whether it can be done so widely. What counts as clothes?”
Ktistes lifted one hand, letting the quaking leaves of an aspen trail over his fingers. “What clothes the land,” he murmured to himself.