Defeated, I returned to my house in the city, reasoning that the Faradays would soon come looking for me. However, days passed without any sign of them, and in time I learned that Byron had gone to Lord Faraday, posing as my representative and saying that I had been recalled to Scotland on sudden business, and would not be returning in the foreseeable future. I cursed the Seekers; they thought of everything.
However, I could be resourceful as well, and though I was being kept from Alis, I could help her yet. I began to make inquiries, venturing into the darkest neighborhoods of the city, asking about taverns that folk frequented, and if there were any that were unusual in some way. This line of investigation revealed nothing, save the locations of some of the most sordid drinking houses in all of London.
Just when hope began to fail, chance renewed my quest. One morning, after another night of fruitless searching, as I walked through one of the city’s poorer neighborhoods, I was recognized by a plain‑faced young woman who dared to approach me. Although I did not recognize her, she knew me from the Faraday estate, where she had labored as a servant until a month ago, when she had returned home to care for her ailing mother.
An idea came to me, and I asked the young woman if she knew the families of any of the other servants who worked at the Faraday estate, specifically of the old woman Sadie. She did not, but she knew someone who might–an old aunt who lived a few streets over.
I thanked her and hurried to the house of this aunt. The old woman was suspicious, but a few coins loosened her toothless jaw well enough, and I soon learned the name and dwelling place of a certain niece of the old woman, Sadie, whose last name was Greenfellow.
A visit was paid that afternoon to the niece, who spun wool in a cottage on the fringes of the city. Jenny Greenfellow was pretty despite her middling years and the burdens of a hard life, and after a long look she invited me in. Introducing myself as an acquaintance of the Faradays, I gave her my condolences regarding Sadie’s passing.
“It is kind of you to think of my aunt,” Jenny said, pouring me a cup of tea.
I took a sip. It was fragrant, and tasted like nothing I had drunk before. My pain and weariness receded a fraction.
“You have her look,” I said without really thinking. But it was true. Her eyes were green and bright, as the old woman’s had been.
“Nay,” she said, smiling, “ ’Tis my brother who takes after her. Everyone says he has her spirit.”
“Your brother?”
“Aye. His name is John. He works at our uncle’s tavern.”
My cup clattered to the table, spilling tea. She stared at me.
“Your uncle’s tavern?” I fought to keep my words controlled. “You mean to say the proprietor of this establishment was Sadie’s husband?”
“Nay, sir. He is her brother. Neither of them ever married. Only their youngest brother, my father, ever did. But he passed away some years ago. Now Sadie has followed, and Uncle is getting on himself. I believe he means to leave the place to John when he’s gone.”
I hardly heard these words. It seemed impossible, yet it could only be so. According to the letters, the folk of the tavern knew how to brew elixirs to restore those of fairy blood, and so had Sadie Greenfellow. Feigning no more than polite interest, I inquired after the location of the tavern, then took my leave of Jenny, though not before giving her several coins for her trouble, which were not refused.
I walked fast through the streets of the city, back toward the river, and for the first time in days, hope–real hope–welled up in my heart.
“Be strong, Alis,” I murmured under my breath. “Endure it only a little while more, dearest. I am coming.”
As dusk drifted like soot from the sky, I turned onto the street Jenny had described and craned my neck, peering at the signs hanging over the various establishments, looking for one painted green.
There was none. The street was dirty and empty, save for a stray dog that slunk away into the shadows. No laughter spilled out of doorways, no cheerful clinking of cups. Night fell.
Perhaps I had passed the tavern in my haste. I turned to go back the way I had come, and that was when I saw him. He tried to leap into the shadows, but he had not my skill. I raced after him, catching his arm, and dragged him into the light of a torch.
“Marius,” Byron said. There was fear in his eyes. What must I have looked like at that moment? Fey and perilous, I can only imagine now, my eyes blazing green as my mother’s had years ago.
“Rebecca sent you, didn’t she?” I said through clenched teeth. “Are you her lapdog then, that you’ll do whatever she bids you? Gods, man, have you no pride at all?”
Anger registered on his usually jovial face, then he shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, Marius, but you must stop now. Go back to the Seekers. Beg forgiveness. They’ll take you back if they know you’re sincere. It’s not too late.”
“No.” I turned away from him.
He caught my shoulder. “Please, Marius, listen to me. I know you love her, but you have to let her go. It’s for your own good.”
Rage boiled within me, and I whirled around. “My own good? What can any of you possibly know of my own good, Byron?”
I had thought he would lash back at me, but instead he only sighed. “Marius, my friend, would that I was not the one to give you this news. But there is something you must know. I have just come from–”
“Do not trouble yourself,” I said, “for there is nothing you can say that I would wish to hear.” And before he could protest, I wrapped the shadows around myself and was gone.
As I moved down the street I saw it immediately, and I wondered how I could have missed it before. At the far end of the lane, above a red door, hung a sign painted vivid green. The sign seemed to shine in the gloom, and as I drew closer I read the word inscribed on it: GREENFELLOW’S. Gold light seeped through the crack beneath the door. I reached out, but before I could touch the door it swung open.
“What do you think you’re doing here?” said a growling voice.
It wasn’t until I looked down that I saw him. He was a dwarf, standing no higher than my waist, but well formed. His youthful face was handsome, and he peered up at me with keen blue eyes.
“I’m Marius,” I said, too startled to speak anything but the truth.
“And what’s your business here?” the doorman–for clearly he was such–demanded, hands on his hips. “Don’t think I can’t see through your little shadow trick.”
Despite his diminutive size, there was something perilous about the doorman. I let the shadows slip away from me. “I’ve come seeking help. Not for myself, but for Alis Faraday.”
The doorman’s eyes went wide. “Blood and stone! Why didn’t you say so?” He grabbed my hand and tugged me forward. “This way. Come along, now, no time to waste. She said you would come, and as usual she was right. I don’t know why I didn’t recognize you right off. It was your pesky shadows, I suppose. A pretty little glamour that is! Pretty indeed, though it would fool few enough here for long, mind you, so don’t get any ideas. . . .”
So the doorman went on, his words making little sense to me, as he dragged me down a hallway, through an archway of grimy stone, and into the heart of Greenfellow’s Tavern.
I will not describe the tavern at length, for you have seen it with your own eyes and know it is–that it was–a place beyond words. It was different in that time, of course. Smoke coiled among the sooty beams, straw covered the floor, and the music that filled the air was that of harp and lute, drone and tambour. Yet you would not have found it so very changed. It was, after all, a place outside of time.