But the doctor stopped him with one hand on his arm. “I am well enough to walk,” Andrews said, “if we go slowly. And you were right; this is something my servants should not hear. Come, Mr. St. Clair, and tell me more.”
Irrith sat with her back to the wall, eyes trained on the opening that led to Newgate above, waiting for Galen to fall through.
She couldn’t be certain he would come this way—at least not any time soon—but she preferred waiting to facing the Queen with news of the Andrews incident. Galen could do that part. It was his duty anyway.
So why am I waiting for him? He can thank me later. But she wanted a chance to explain herself, before he questioned too much why she’d been following him. Assuming she could think of a believable explanation that wasn’t the truth.
She’d been waiting only a short while when Galen came floating down into the chamber, confirming her guess. Before Irrith could say any of the things she’d thought of, though, the Prince saw her—and flared into sudden fury.
“What were you thinking?” he demanded, with no prelude. “The man could have died, Irrith; he’s a consumptive! And what were you doing out there in the first place?”
Anger made sense, on the face of it—but she’d never seen Galen angry. His mild blue eyes took on a fire she wouldn’t have believed possible; Irrith had to stop herself before she could retreat. Summoning up what she could of her usual confidence, Irrith said, “You needed an example. Something he couldn’t ignore. If you’d told me you were planning such a thing—”
“I didn’t tell you,” Galen said through his teeth, “because I didn’t need your help.”
She confined her doubt to her eyebrows, and tried to make her spoken answer more conciliatory. “It was helpful, though, wasn’t it?”
Galen bit down so hard she swore she could hear his jaw creak. It wasn’t anger, though—or if it was, his eyes were lying. As was his reply. “I’m the Prince of the Stone, damn it. I should be able to do these things without help.”
“And who told you that?” she asked, bewildered.
“Lune trusts me—”
“To do everything yourself?” Irrith snorted. Ash and Thorn, he really is young. “She cares about results, Galen, not methods. So long as you don’t bring half of London down here on a Grand Tour, she doesn’t care how you do it. Or whom you ask for help.”
But he did. That was painfully obvious. The notion that Lune might be more impressed by a few shreds of common sense than some heroic determination to do everything himself was clearly very foreign to him.
Galen asked the floor, “Did she send you to follow me?”
“No,” Irrith said. Now they were both embarrassed. “I, er, was keeping watch over you. For the good of the Onyx Court.” That was close enough to the truth to pass.
He laughed soundlessly. “And so you saved me from my own mistake. I suppose you were worried he would say things he shouldn’t, tell someone about that mad St. Clair boy and the nonsense he spouts. Well, I have his assurance of secrecy now, so you can rest safely.”
“He didn’t believe you,” Irrith said. That still rankled. The need to make Galen understand why drew her closer to him, across the black stone floor. “Men like him don’t, not anymore. As far as they’re concerned, I don’t exist. And someone like you, who does believe… if he weren’t so angry, he would have laughed at you. I couldn’t let that stand, for me or you.”
Galen’s head came up, and only then did Irrith realise just how near she’d drawn. They stood bare inches apart, and then his gaze flickered, in a way she’d seen countless times across the countless ages.
But he didn’t move. So she did it for him, closing that last gap and capturing his lips with her own.
He wrenched back an instant later. “Dame Irrith—”
“What?” she asked, confused and a little hurt. “I saw your eyes move. You wanted to kiss me.”
“No! Well, yes, but—” He shook his head, hands up in midair as if warding something off. “It isn’t right.”
“Why not?”
He opened and closed his mouth a few times, like a man with several explanations competing to come out first, none of them entirely satisfactory.
Irrith sighed. “You aren’t married. You aren’t even betrothed. Are you a virgin?”
“What? I—no—it’s none of your business!”
As if he were the first gentleman to make use of a whore’s services. Irrith guessed it was a whore; the sort of young man who seduced servant girls or the neighbour’s daughter usually didn’t blush like that. “So fornication isn’t the problem. Do you think it’s especially sinful, with a faerie woman? But you don’t mind being in love with—”
He didn’t have to stop her; she stopped herself. The answer was so obvious. But Irrith wasn’t used to accounting for such things. “But—she doesn’t even know how you feel.” Or so he liked to think.
Galen said, very stiffly, “That doesn’t matter. I know, and would feel ashamed.”
“But why should you?” Irrith advanced; he retreated. Step by step, they crossed the roundel beneath the entrance; mercifully, no one chose that moment to fall from the City above. “She doesn’t love you back, and you know it. You’ll never be with her, and you know that, too. Why not have what you can?”
Galen halted just before he would have hit the far wall. “Do you love me?”
Of course he would ask that. Irrith couldn’t remember the entirety of her existence, but surely she would remember if she’d ever encountered another man ruled so deeply by his heart. It defined him—and that, of course, was why he fascinated her so much.
“No,” Irrith said. “But I don’t need to.”
This time when she reached for him, he didn’t try to escape.
PART FOUR
CONJUNCTIO
Summer 1758
Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.
The first vapors wisp free. Tenuous as ghosts, they soon vanish into the blackness; but they are there. The comet’s surface is warming.
Inert blackness converts to a radiant glow. Encouraged by the sun, the subtle matter bursts forth, creating something like air around the solid core. For the first time in more than seventy years, the beast begins to breathe.
Cold. Still too cold. Its awareness is sluggish, stupid, like a lizard left too long in shadow. Once it was mighty, a beast of flame and char, consuming all within its path. The efforts of humans were nothing, a mockery, a mere game for the creature they fought. To be reduced to this, drinking in the sun’s nourishment like a babe at the teat, is a terrible fall indeed.
But with every passing moment, its strength returns, and its mind. Dreams resolve into thoughts. Memories of the past, and plans for the future.
Wisps, as yet. But growing stronger, as the sun draws near.