It proved to be her attendant Nemette, who curtsied. “Your Grace, my apologies. Lord Valentin wishes to speak with you.”
Good news, or bad? Nemette could not answer that question for her. “Send him in.”
The Lord Keeper’s expression told her no more than her attendant had. “I am sorry to disturb you with what may just be an idle rumor, your Majesty, but—”
She waved him past the rest of the courtesies. If it was important enough for him to call on her, rather than waiting for one of their ordinary meetings, then she would listen. “It may be,” he said, “that the Sanists are considering a more… political solution to their concerns than we thought.”
Now she understood his ambivalence. A “political” solution could be good news, or not. “Of what sort?”
“They seek a successor to your throne.”
His choice of term gave her pause. Those who took power without leave were more commonly called “usurpers”; his phrasing implied something more legal. Inasmuch as such a word could be used for a faerie realm, where laws were haphazard things, when they existed at all.
But her realm had more laws than most. And while faerie monarchs rarely designated heirs as mortals did—after all, they could in theory rule forever—it wasn’t an absurd thought here.
“How did you learn of this?”
Aspell spread his hands. “Fourth-hand rumor, I’m afraid; it may be entirely false. But I believe there was a meeting yesterday, of the Sanist cabal. Somewhere above.”
Lune laid aside the pen she was still holding and frowned at the stain where it had dripped. “Where do they expect to find this successor?”
“Not Lady Carline—I beg your pardon, the former lady—if that is what you were thinking, madam. Possibly elsewhere in England. Some faerie monarch with whom you could be persuaded to form an alliance, perhaps, and who in time would rule here.”
As if she were a mortal Queen, to wed and pass power to her husband. Lune cleaned her pen, to give her hands something to do while she thought.
Aspell waited, then said delicately, “Madam, without meaning to give any sanction to the Sanists… might it not be a wise choice, to make some kind of provision for your court? If it should come to pass that—”
He didn’t finish the sentence, for she stopped him with a glare. “Do you recall Elizabeth Tudor? She, too, had councillors who pressed her to name an heir, and she, too, resisted. Because she knew the moment she declared the succession, her own position would weaken; others would begin to look to the next monarch, and she would become…” Lune’s lip curled. “Dispensable.”
She heard him draw slow breath. Were it someone other than Valentin Aspell, she would have said it was to steady his temper. “I do recall her,” the Lord Keeper said. “And I also recall the uncertainty her people suffered, wondering what would become of them when she was gone, and the intrigues that resulted.”
“Yes, well, unlike Elizabeth Tudor, I have the option of living forever.” Lune stacked her papers and stood. “If any of my fellow monarchs are approached, I’ll hear of it. In the meantime, continue with your own work, and trouble me no more with talk of a successor.”
Galen expected a lecture when he came in the front door of his house. Or at the very least a summons to his father’s study; he could hardly expect the man to wait around on the staircase in anticipation of his feckless son’s return. Especially when that return had become so unpredictable of late. But the footman took his cloak and hat without comment, leaving him free to follow his valet up the stairs. “Just turn down the sheets, Edward,” he said through a yawn. “I need sleep more than food.” And if it was scarcely sunset, he didn’t care. Galen could not remember the last time he’d slept properly.
With his thoughts full of soft pillows and warm blankets, and the anticipated threat of his father escaped, Galen thought himself out of danger. He was entirely unprepared when the door beyond his own flew open and Cynthia emerged, dressed only in her shift and stays and trailing a scandalised Jenny.
“There you are,” his sister said, and seized his arm. “We need to talk.”
She hauled him into his own room before he had a chance to say anything. “Out,” she commanded Edward, who, to his credit, stood his ground long enough to receive Galen’s nod. Then he shooed the wide-eyed maid out and closed the door behind them both.
Cynthia let go, leaving Galen adrift in the middle of his floor. “Cyn, what’s wrong?”
“You can tell me that better than I can,” she replied. “Where have you been?”
His father wasn’t the only one capable of noticing his absence. Up until now, however, Charles St. Clair had been the only one who made noise about it.
Galen sank wearily into a chair. It was true; he hadn’t been home much of late. Too much time in the Onyx Hall—maybe more than was good for him—but what else could he do, with their time running out? If it weren’t for the eleven days that would elapse, he would have long since taken his chances with the Calendar Room. Abd ar-Rashid was in there right now. It should be Dr. Andrews, who had proposed this matter of the philosopher’s stone in the first place, but his health wouldn’t permit it. When the genie emerged, Galen hoped, they would have a way to translate Andrews’s mad alchemical dream into reality.
None of which he could tell Cynthia. “Your friends came by yesterday,” she said. “Mr. Hurst, Mr. Byrd, and Mr. Mayhew. They said you haven’t been to your club in weeks—nor have you answered their letters.” She nodded at his writing desk, which held an entire pile of unopened envelopes he hadn’t noticed. “I’d thought you might be carousing with them, one last bit of bachelor wildness before you settle down with Miss Northwood… it wouldn’t be like you, no matter what Father thinks, but perhaps you decided to try. Apparently not, though. Galen, where have you been?”
That was twice she’d asked. A third time, and I’ll have to answer, he thought vaguely. Like a faerie. Not that it was true for faeries, not that he’d noticed. But perhaps some of them were bound in that way. Stranger things had happened.
“God,” he moaned, and buried his face in his hands. “I can’t even think straight. Cynthia, my dear… I’m sorry.”
She sank to her knees on the carpet in front of him and took him by the wrists, in a gentler grip than she’d used before. “You don’t have to apologise! Mother all but jumped over the moon after you offered for Delphia; you could light her boudoir on fire and she’d forgive you. Even Father hardly cares what you do, so long as you march down the aisle and collect a bank note from Mr. Northwood at the other end. But I’m worried for you. When was the last time you slept?”
He couldn’t have answered that if he wanted to; it was in the Onyx Hall, and he didn’t often check his pocket-watch while there. “I was intending to go to bed now,” he said, lifting his head so he could nod toward his pillow. Edward had gotten halfway through the task of turning down the sheets, and a pan of coals was warming for him in the hearth.
“I won’t keep you long,” Cynthia promised. “But don’t think I haven’t noticed you avoiding my question.”
Fortunately, she didn’t ask it a third time. Faerie weakness or no, he wasn’t sure he’d have the wit to give her a safe answer. “Attending to affairs,” Galen said after a moment.