The words came by unthinking reflex. At her side, Deven stiffened. The sword would have trembled in her grasp, but she dared not show her own surprise.
The elfin king scowled. “That title is a usurped one. We will reclaim what is ours, and let no pretender stand in our way.”
Hands tensed on spears; the fighting might resume at any moment.
“I am the Queen of the Onyx Court,” Lune repeated. Then she went on, following the same instinct that had made her declare it. “But not the Queen of faerie England.”
The stag-horned rider’s scowl deepened. “Explain yourself.”
“Invidiana is gone. The pact by which she deprived you of your sovereignty is broken. I have drawn her sword from the London Stone; therefore the sovereignty of this city is mine. To you are restored those crowns she stole years ago.”
A redheaded king spoke up, less hostile than his companion. “But London remains yours.”
Lune relaxed her blade, letting the point dip to the ground, and met his gaze as an equal. “A place disregarded until the Hall was created, for fae live in glens and hollow hills, far from mortal eyes — except here, in the Onyx Hall. ’Twas never any kingdom of yours. Invidiana had no claim to England, but here, in this place, she created a realm for herself, and now ’tis mine by right.”
She had not planned it. Her only thought had been to bear the sword to these kings, as proof of Invidiana’s downfall, and hope she could sue for peace. But she felt the city beneath her feet, as she never had before. London was hers. And kings though they might be, they had no right to challenge her here.
She softened her voice, though not its authority. “Each side has dead to mourn tonight. But we shall meet in peace anon, all the kings and queens of faerie England, and when our treaty is struck, you will be welcome within my realm.”
The red-haired king was the first to go. He wheeled his horse, its front hooves striking the air, and gave a loud cry; here and there, bands of warriors followed his lead, vaulting skyward once more and vanishing from sight. One by one, the other kings followed, each taking with them some portion of the Wild Hunt, until the only fae who remained in the streets were Lune’s subjects.
One by one, they knelt to her.
Looking out at them, she saw too many motionless bodies. Some might yet be saved, but not all. They had paid a bloody price for her crown, and they did not even know why.
This would not be simple. Sir Kentigern and Dame Halgresta, if they lived — Lady Nianna — Vidar, if she could find him. And countless others who were used to clawing and biting their way to the top, and fearing the Queen who stood above them.
Changing that would be slow. But it could begin tonight.
To her newfound subjects, Lune said, “Return to the Onyx Hall. We will speak in the night garden, and I will explain all that has passed here.”
They disappeared into the shadows, leaving Lune and Deven alone in Candlewick Street, with the sky rapidly clearing above them.
Deven let out his breath slowly, finally realizing they might — at last — be safe. He ached all over, and he was light-headed from lack of food, but the euphoria that followed a battle was beginning to settle in. He found himself grinning wryly at Lune, wondering where to start with the things they needed to say. She was a queen now. He hardly knew what to think of that.
She began to return his smile — and then froze.
He heard it, too. A distant sound — somewhere in Cripplegate, he thought. A solitary bell, tolling.
Midnight had come. Soon all the bells in the city would be ringing, from the smallest parish tower to St. Paul’s Cathedral itself. And Lune stood out in the open, unprotected; the angel’s power had gone from her. The sound would hurt her.
But it would destroy something else.
He had felt it as they passed through the London Stone. St. Paul’s Cathedral, one of the two original entrances to the Onyx Hall. The pit still gaped in the nave, a direct conduit from the mortal world to the fae, open and unprotected.
In twelve strokes of the great bell, every enchantment that bound the Onyx Hall into being would come undone, shredded by the holy sound.
“Give me your hand.” Deven seized it before she could even move, taking her left hand in his left, dragging her two steps sideways to the London Stone.
“We will not be safe within,” Lune cried. Her body shook like a leaf in the wind, as more bells began to ring.
Deven slapped his right hand onto the rough limestone surface. “We are not going within.”
It was the axis of London and its dark reflection, the linchpin that held the two together. Suspiria had not made the palace alone, because she could not; such a thing could only be crafted by hands both mortal and fae. Deven would have staked his life that Francis Merriman was a true Londoner, born within hearing of the city bells.
As Deven himself was.
With his hand upon the city’s heart, Deven reached out blindly, calling on forces laid there by another pair before them. He had drunk of faerie wine. Lune had borne an angel’s power. They had each been changed; they were each a little of both worlds, and the Onyx Hall answered to them.
The Thames. The wall. The Tower. The cathedral.
As the first stroke of the great bell rang out across the city, he felt the sound wash over and through him. Like a seawall protecting a harbor in a storm, he took the brunt of that force, and bid the entrance close.
A fourth stroke; an eighth; a twelfth. The last echoes of the bell of St. Paul’s faded, and trailing out after it, the other bells of London. Deven waited until the city was utterly silent before he lifted his hand from the Stone.
He looked up slowly, carefully, half-terrified that he was wrong, that he had saved the Hall but left Lune vulnerable, and now she would shatter into nothingness.
Lune’s silver eyes smiled into his, and she used their clasped hands to draw him toward her, so she might lay a kiss on his lips. “I will make you the first of my knights — if you will have me as your lady.”
MEMORY: January 9, 1547
The man walked down a long, colonnaded gallery, listening to his boot heels click on the stone, trailing his fingers in wonder across the pillars as he passed them by. It was impossible that this should all be here, that it should have come into being in the course of mere minutes, and yet he had seen it with his own eyes. Indeed, it was partly his doing.
The thought still dizzied him.
The place was enormous, far larger than he had expected, and so far almost entirely deserted. The sisters had chosen to stay in their own home, though they visited from time to time. Others would come, they assured him, once word spread farther, once folk believed.
Until then, it was just him, and the woman he sought.
He found her in the garden. They called it so, even though it was barely begun: a few brave clusters of flowers — a gift from the sisters — grouped around a bench that sat on the bank of the Walbrook. She was not seated on the bench, but on the ground, trailing her fingers in the water, a distant expression on her face. The air in the garden was pleasantly cool, a gentle contrast to the winter-locked world outside.
She did not move as he seated himself on the ground next to her. “I have brought seeds,” he said. “I have no gift for planting, but I am sure we can convince Gertrude — since they are not roses.” She did not respond, and his expression softened. He reached for her nearer hand and took it in his own. “Suspiria, look at me.”
Her eyes glimmered with the tears she was too proud to shed. “It has accomplished nothing,” she said, her low, melodic voice trembling.