It would have been prettier if it were clean, Irrith thought with grumpy distaste. But prettiness wasn’t to the purpose. For the making of clouds, the Thames’s cloudy water was very good indeed.
The hairs on her arms and neck were rising, in response to the presence gathering above. The night was clear—for the moment—but something waited in the sky, a power both foreign and familiar. Lune’s negotiations through Ktistes had spoken of the winds by their Greek names, because the Greeks knew how to form deals with them, but surely these were the same winds that had blown across England since the beginning of time. Call them Boreas, Euros, Notos, and Zephyros, or simply North, East, South, and West; it makes no difference. Some fragment of their power had agreed to serve as temporary shepherds for what the earth-dwelling fae would create tonight.
The time for that creation had come. Galen walked alone across the courtyard to the mirrored bowl. He turned a little as he searched for a good grip on the Arabic-inscribed rim, and so she saw the strain on his face as he heaved the thing upward; it had not been light when empty, and now it contained twelve pitchers’ worth of water. Lune should have been there to help him, Irrith fumed. Instead the Prince had to set his feet and force it above his head without aid. Hurry, Irrith whispered silently. Before he drops it.
As if they heard her, the nephelae drew close, lifting their fog-robed arms toward the bowl’s rim.
The water within began to stir.
At first it was just a wisp, too faint to be certain it had been there at all. Then a mist arose, clearly visible above the rim, glowing faintly in the night. The mist thickened, and grew, and billowed slowly upward, into the empty and waiting sky.
Mortals said that clouds, however dark, contained silver linings. If clouds were the clothes of Britain, then to turn those linings outward required something of silver: a bowl, whose mirrored interior showed the world upside down, reflecting skyward the clouds that were born in its heart. Up they floated, to be met by their guides; will-o’-the-wisps leapt free of their holders’ hands and, to the tune of Il Veloce’s continued piping, danced away from the hilltop, toward the island’s far-distant edges. Errant breezes stirred Irrith’s hair against her cheeks, little brushes this way and that, as the winds above coaxed the nebulous masses of the clouds toward their new homes.
Still the clouds issued from the bowl. One of the dancers was the sylph Yfaen, and another was a river nymph, both with some touch on the weather; Irrith had never seen such a large effort from either. How much water could be left inside, with so much fog already streaming outward from Greenwich? It wasn’t nearly enough to cover the entire island, but that was the purpose of the next two weeks: to grow from this seed, until all of Britain was protected.
Surely they had enough for that now. Yet Galen still stood, arms trembling, head thrown back, teeth clenched with the effort of keeping the bowl aloft. His body arched like a bow beneath the weight. Irrith almost ran to support him, but her hands would not reach so high, and she couldn’t disrupt the ceremony. Lune should have been here. He can’t do this alone.
At least one nephele seemed to think the same. Her hand twitched foward, as if to take some of the burden. But whether that broke the ceremony, or she was simply too late, it did no good; with a cry, Galen dropped the bowl. It clanged off his left shoulder as he tried to wrench clear, its remaining water leaping outward, and then the metal rim struck the ground, denting and sending the whole thing rolling away.
Irrith hurried forward, cursing under her breath. The nephele was supporting Galen on his good side, while he let out a flood of his own foul language. Even in pain, though, he remained aware of those around him; not a single word belonging to Heaven slipped out.
“You did well,” Irrith said, knowing he wouldn’t believe her. “We have enough to protect us.”
“Yes,” the nephele murmured, too quietly for anyone beyond Irrith and Galen to hear. “You did very well indeed.” And then her eyes flicked upward, toward Irrith, and even through the shimmering uncertainty of her mask, they gleamed silver.
The sprite had enough sense not to blurt out the realization that came into her head. She waited until she could say something safe, then offered, “He should sit down. Once he’s feeling better, I’ll take him back to the Onyx Hall. I’m sure the Queen will want his report.”
“I’m sure she will.” The nephele rose with fluid grace and backed away. “Thank you, Dame Irrith.”
You’re welcome, madam. Irrith glanced around at the hovering fae, then at Galen. He was standing on his own now, with his right hand clasped to his injured shoulder, and his face beaded with sweat. Even with his brow knitted in pain, though, he watched the disguised Queen go, and joy brightened his eyes.
Sighing, Irrith tugged him away from the fallen bowl. “Come on, Lord Galen. You’ve taken care of Britain; now let others take care of you.”
PART FIVE
SEPARATIO
Autumn 1758
The beast hungers. It starves. There is too little sustenance in this stone, this dust and frozen matter; it needs more. There was wood once; there was plaster and straw, pitch and oil and tar. A feast for the flames. More than any creature could ever eat, but the more it consumed, the more its appetite grew, until all the world was not enough to sate it.
It remembers that. And it remembers something else, too: fuel of a different kind. There was a place, a city, a shadow beneath; there was power there, of a kind like the beast itself. Not kin like the sun, bright fire—this was cool and dark. Born of the sun’s eclipse, but shaped by creatures who, like the beast, were made of something other than matter.
They named it Dragon. They fought it, and trapped it, and bound it to this frozen prison, exiling it to the farthest reaches of the sun’s realm.
The Dragon remembers. And it hungers for vengeance.
Dear Mr. St. Clair,
I was very sorry to hear of the injury to your shoulder. The daisy chain of gossip from your mother to Mrs. Northwood to Mrs. Montagu to me says you were kicked by a rearing horse in Fleet Street, from which I conclude there is a much more interesting story I have not heard. I implore you to call upon me at your earliest convenience so we can discuss it further over tea. I have something here that I believe you will be interested in, as well.
No one would believe the story of the horse; that was why Galen had not tried it. Instead he’d taken advantage of his father’s bad opinion of him. That his only son might be set upon by footpads while heading toward a Covent Garden brothel was easy enough for Charles St. Clair to believe—especially when there was a witness. At Lune’s suggestion, he’d dulled the pain with wine, then dug Laurence Byrd out of his customary midnight carouse. Not ten feet out the door, a pair of disguised goblins had set upon them, one feigning the strike to Galen’s shoulder, before both fled Byrd’s enthusiastic fists. It left Galen’s father in a profoundly foul mood, but not a curious one, which might have led him to inquire where his son had been so late at night.