“An armillary sphere,” Galen said, accepting the bag on behalf of the Queen. The oilcloth was as filthy as its bearer, but he opened the flap, wiped his hand clean on a second handkerchief, and pulled out a small loaf of bread.
Lune took it from him and inhaled the scent as if appreciating a fine wine. Irrith understood the impulse; one could almost smell the mortality in the bread. A peculiar heaviness, but it attracted as much as it repelled. In that simple mix of flour, water, and yeast lay safety from the human world, tithed to the fae by human hands. The food on her courtiers’ plates was for pleasure, but this, in its way, was life: the ability to go among mortals without fear of iron or other banes.
Nodding, Lune handed the loaf back to Galen. He surrendered the bag to the usher, who took it in white-gloved hands and bowed his way out of the room. “We thank you, Dame Irrith,” the Queen said, with just enough dryness to hint that she hadn’t the faintest notion why Irrith had interrupted their dinner with a simple delivery.
Irrith wasn’t about to admit she’d done it merely to live up to that rash declaration of her own importance. She glanced up enough to see that yes, everyone was watching her; the Lord Keeper, Valentin Aspell, had his thin mouth curled in disdain. “I have something further to tell you, that maybe should be said in private.”
“Very well,” Lune said after a moment’s consideration, and rose. Chairs slid back all down the room as her guests rose in echo. “Please, continue your meal. Lady Amadea, Lord Galen, if you please.”
Galen waved one hand at Irrith, and she followed him, Lune, and the Lady Chamberlain into an adjoining room. It seemed to be a parlour of sorts, with chairs grouped for intimate conversation, and the carpet—while lacking in seed pearls—was luxuriously soft against Irrith’s feet. Amadea murmured a brief charm at the door, so their words wouldn’t be overheard by those in the next room, and then they were alone.
Lune seated herself. She made no gesture for anyone else to do so, but in this more private setting, her expression showed greater warmth. “Irrith. This is an unexpected pleasure; I had no idea you were returning to London. Amadea, if her state bothers you, then have a cloth brought to protect the carpet.”
Amadea went to the far door as Irrith curtsied, feeling a proper clown. “Tom Toggin convinced me to bring Wayland’s payment back for him. What in the name of most ancient Mab has been going on in this place, your Majesty? There’s houses out by Tyburn gallows, and the River Fleet has vanished!”
Amusement danced in Lune’s silver eyes. “The Fleet is still there, just underground. They built a culvert over it, oh, how long ago, Galen?”
The Prince thought it over. “The most recent stretch? Not long after I was born. Perhaps nineteen years? The river can still be seen, Dame Irrith, from Ludgate to the Thames.”
Which gave her some idea of how long she’d been gone. “And how does Blacktooth Meg feel about that?”
Lune’s amusement faded. “As you might expect. River hags are not pleasant creatures under the best of circumstances, and these are rather worse.”
Irrith had seen the hideous creature once before, well before the culverting of the river. Shuddering, she said, “I’m just as glad I didn’t have to cross her, then. But that isn’t what I need to tell you—” A hob popped through the door, interrupting her, and laid down a piece of sturdy canvas, all but lifting Irrith’s feet so the cloth could be placed more quickly. The carpet duly protected, she waited until the hob was gone, then said, “You almost didn’t get that bread. A black dog ambushed me at Tyburn and tried to steal it.”
“What?” The Queen came to her feet in a swift rustle of silk.
“I didn’t roll in the mud for fun—madam.” She added the courtesy address belatedly. Being in the Onyx Hall was bringing back the old manners she’d forgotten in the Vale. “He leapt out at me near the gallows, and tried to take the bag. Fortunately, Wayland gave me leave to take a bite of the bread when I neared London, so I could enter the City unharmed; the black dog wasn’t so lucky. I escaped when the church bells rang.”
Lune pressed one slender hand to her brow, then lowered it. “We do not begrudge you that grant from your King. Did you recognise the dog?”
Irrith shook her head. “Maybe if I’d seen his other face. But it was raining; I can’t even tell you what kind he was—padfoot, skriker, or what.”
The Queen exchanged a glance with her Prince. Irrith didn’t miss Galen’s helpless shrug. New, indeed. But there was something more in his manner, that she didn’t have the time to puzzle out; she didn’t want to compound her rudeness by staring at the Prince. Not in front of Lune.
Well, she’d done her duty, handing over the mortal bread the Onyx Court relied on, and telling of the one who’d tried to steal it. Few people in the vicinity of London tithed bread or milk to the fae any longer; Lune had to trade human curiosities to more distant courts, in exchange for their surplus. Those fae with the sense to live in places less riddled with iron and churches had much less need for protection.
But Irrith knew it didn’t end there. Nineteen years since the Fleet was culverted, the Prince said. Tom had hinted at the passage of time, but Irrith had refused to ask for a number. Now she couldn’t hold the question in. “Your Majesty—how long until the comet gets here?”
The Queen sank into her chair, as if suddenly weary, and gestured for her Prince to answer. Galen said, “We don’t know exactly. ‘Getting here’… we know the time of the comet’s perihelion, but not the point at which the Dragon will make its leap.”
What Irrith knew about astronomy would fit into an acorn cap, so she merely rephrased her question. “How much time do you have left?”
“A year and a half,” he said. “Maybe less.”
She shivered. So little time. They’d had more than fifty years, when the seer’s warning first came. Where had it all gone?
“It will be enough,” Lune whispered. She sounded as if she believed it, and perhaps she did; the Queen of the Onyx Court had faced down challenges before. Her face, however, was more than usually pale. Irrith couldn’t imagine what it must be like, living under such a threat for decades, counting the time like a mortal. Knowing that it was running out. Fifty years of that could, it seemed, sap the life from even a faerie queen.
Seeing that weakness, even for a moment, made Irrith uneasy. “With your permission, madam,” the sprite said, “I should like to clean myself up now. I didn’t want to delay getting that bread to you—”
“I appreciate your care,” Lune said, straightening in her chair, either banishing or hiding her weariness. “Amadea will provide you with a suitable chamber. Unless you intended to return to the Vale?”
Irrith thought about the culverted Fleet, and the houses around Tyburn, and the court under the patronage of a new and inexperienced Prince. So many changes. And little more than a year until the comet returned, possibly bringing this all to an end. “I will stay, at least a while.”
“Good.” Lune smiled, but it was a tense thing, carrying a tremendous weight of care. “This court needs all the friends it can find.”
When the muddy and half-clad sprite was gone with Lady Amadea, leaving Galen alone with the Queen, Lune rose once more. Instead of returning to the dining room, though, she went to the fireplace, and laid her hand upon the stone.
“So,” she said, her voice musical and quiet. “How did your evening go?”
Galen wished Dr. Johnson could see her now, shining with all the regal glory so absent from Britain’s Hanoverian King. There was transcendence in the polished gleam of her hair, and a portraitist might have wept for the opportunity to render her serene likeness on canvas. She was the reason he dwelt between worlds, the hidden Prince of a hidden court—despite the threat they faced.