A Star Shall Fall Read online

  Irrith wasn’t sure she wanted to set foot across that threshold again. She wasn’t even sure she didn’t want to run back to the Vale, where there was earth instead of the Earth, and the fae lived as they had for ages. The Prince meant so kindly, though, that she said, “Thank you, Lord Galen. I—I’ll think about it.”

  He bowed again, and offered his arm. “Then let me guide you back to the rest of the Onyx Hall.”

  Memory: September 2–14, 1752

  In the dark of night on September second, they moved the last components into place.

  Gold drawn from the sun itself, hammered into a perfect disk fifteen feet in height, its face marked with twenty-four engraved hours. The hands were starlight, glittering and cold. Behind it, gears of metal, catching pinions of stone, riding arbors of wood, all taken from every corner of Britain. The toothed escapement wheel was the stuff of nightmares itself, for this theft would happen while most of the kingdom slept: every human who lay at rest when the hour passed midnight would add eleven days to the total stored in this room.

  And that hour had almost come. The von das Tickens hauled on a rope, snarling German curses to each other, lifting the pulley into place. The block was a tree trunk, perfectly circular, its rings marking off a hundred years. The tree was native; the cable wrapping it was not. Lune had bargained hard with the svartalfar for it, a length woven from the roots of a mountain, the noise of a cat’s footfall, the breath of a fish. Nothing less could hold the stupendous burden of the driving weight: a sphere of old age, heavy all out of proportion to its size. The Welsh giant Idris stood ready to wind the pulley for the first time. He would return every year on this date to wind it again, as long as the Queen could persuade him, for only a giant’s strength could achieve it.

  “Hurry,” Hamilton Birch, Prince of the Stone, whispered under his breath. His pocket-watch lay clutched in one sweat-slick hand. If they missed their moment, there would be no second chance.

  The pulley was slotted into place. The giant bent to the crank, grunting. The driving weight began to rise from the floor.

  And the Queen of the Onyx Court stood, dressed in silver, waiting with both healthy and crippled hands outspread.

  The driving weight reached the top of its drop and hung there, too heavy to sway, while Idris braced himself against the crank. “One minute,” Lord Hamilton called out, glancing through the sundial door to check his pocket-watch against the more accurate regulator in the dwarves’ workshop.

  Lune tilted her chin up and raised her arms toward the black ceiling above.

  Far, far above; the dwarves and Ktistes had altered this chamber, raising its ceiling to make room for the clock. And there was something in the stone now, not quite an entrance, more like a hatch, that would permit only one thing through.

  Moonlight.

  The quarter moon hung low in the sky above. Its light struck a lens placed at the top of the Monument to the Great Fire, then a mirror behind; the silvered metal reflected it downward, through the hollow shaft of that great pillar, into the chamber at its base—and then still farther. Obedient to Lune’s call, the light passed through, and shone down into the chamber of the clock.

  Onto the second stone waiting on the floor, just in front of the Queen.

  As the pocket-watch’s hands reached midnight, and the regulator outside struck the hour, the dwarves dragged the wooden supports free. The pendulum bob, a sarsen stolen from Stonehenge, hung in midair, suspended by only a beam of moonlight.

  And then it began to move.

  Idris had let go of his crank, releasing the driving weight to begin its imperceptible drop. Lune stepped back, hands dropping to her sides. Hamilton watched, breath held tight in his chest.

  When the regulator began tolling, it was September second in the world outside this room. When it struck the final chime, the date was September fourteenth.

  And all the days in between, the dates never lived by a single soul in Britain, came flooding into this room. Hamilton felt them come, slipping past like the wasted days of his youth, scented with the experiences that might have been. An enormity of time, and none at all, shivering him to the core of his soul.

  When the last of them had passed, Niklas von das Ticken hauled the sundial door shut, and spun its inner face to lock the mechanism.

  Leaving the five of them alone with the clock.

  “Vell,” his brother Wilhas said, “ve have eleven days, before ve may open it for the first time. Who vould like to play chess?”

  Rose House, Islington: January 23, 1758

  For the most part the economy of the St. Clair household was the province of Galen’s mother, who did her best to reduce expenditures while still presenting a respectable face to the outside world. There were a few points, however, upon which his father had strong opinions, and one of them was the greater expense of a hired carriage over a sedan chair. But Islington was a miserable distance to go on such a cold day, and so Galen paid for the greater shelter of a carriage, riding with foot-warmer and heavy cloak past the grasping edges of the city and through the still-green fields to the village north of London.

  He came this way every month to spend an afternoon in the company of the two people he trusted to teach him what he needed to know, without censure for his ignorance.

  The driver deposited him on the icy ground in front of the Angel Inn. After paying the man, Galen deposited his foot-warmer in the inn; then it was back out into the cold, ostensibly to do business with someone in town.

  His path, however, took him away from the houses, to the back of the coaching inn, and the winter-dead rosebush that stood behind it.

  Rubbing his hands together in a vain attempt to restore circulation, Galen said to the bush, “I don’t suppose a lost and freezing traveler could beg for a hot drink?”

  The rosebush didn’t answer him. After a moment, though, the branches shifted and wove themselves into an ice-gilded arch, over steps that beckoned him inside.

  The warmth of the chamber below enveloped him like a loving embrace. Galen let his breath out in a moan of pure pleasure. “Ladies, I would steal you for my father’s house if I could. Or, better yet, make my home here, and never leave.”

  Galen’s fashionable friends would have dismissed this place as “rustic,” and so it was. Fashion had never touched the furnishings here. Bare wooden beams held up the ceiling, and the furniture was heavy oak, its primary decoration being the years of oil rubbed into its surfaces. The chairs were ridiculous things, their upholstery stuffed with far too much padding, but Galen doubted more comfortable seats existed in all of Britain. Flowers bloomed here and there, despite the cold above, and the smell was of all good things: fresh-baked bread, gentle woodsmoke, and the sweet honey of the sisters’ excellent mead.

  The sisters themselves looked like a pair of poetic country housewives, rendered in three-foot miniature. At least until Gertrude Goodemeade advanced on him with the demeanor of an overwhelmingly friendly army sergeant. Then Galen laughed and fumbled with numb fingers at the neck of his cloak, surrendering it with a bow.

  Her sister Rosamund, almost Gertrude’s twin save for the embroidery of their aprons, handed him a cup of mead once his gloves were gone. “Drink that up, Lord Galen, and come sit by the fire. You look frozen through.”

  Dr. Andrews’s belief in the curative powers of coffee was nothing next to the sisters’ opinion of the mead they brewed. It warmed Galen down to his toes. These were, in his estimation, the two kindest fae in all of Britain. A pair of Border brownies, resident here in Islington for long enough they should have lost their northern accents, Gertrude and Rosamund Goodemeade called nearly everyone friend, and suited action to word.

  While he drained the cup, Rosamund stoked the fire, and Gertrude fetched out the tea set. With her resolutely country mode of dress, it was comical to watch her go through the refined ritual of serving the tea, for all the world as if she were the Duchess of Portland, and drinking from porcelain bowls. He would not have laugh
ed at her for all the world, though.

  Because these two were his best support, better even than Cynthia, who could only advise him in one half of his life. Ever since his investiture as Prince, had had relied upon the sisters to teach him the many things about the Onyx Court he should and did not know. Galen hardly imagined the Prince of Wales ever turned to countrywomen for such things, but the Goodemeades were different. Beneath their cheery and provincial exteriors lurked two very alert minds indeed.

  “Now,” Rosamund said when they were all supplied with tea, “what shall it be this month, Lord Galen?”

  He’d been sitting on this question for nearly a week, awaiting his chance to ask it. “What can you tell me about that sprite from Berkshire, Dame Irrith?”

  “Oh, we’ve known her since the end of the war,” Rosamund said. It took Galen a moment to realize which one she meant. Would he ever grow accustomed to their habit of referencing the previous century’s civil wars as if they were recent memory? They cared little for battles in foreign lands, but remembered those at home quite well. “She’s been by to see us once—”

  “Twice,” Gertrude corrected her. “Oh, but you were in the city the second time; I’d forgotten.”

  Galen frowned over the dark surface of the bohea in his tea bowl. “I . . . Dame Irrith found the Calendar Room. I convinced the Queen it would be better to admit the place’s existence than to punish her. But there seemed to be something between them, and I was hoping you knew what it was.”

  That last was merely a bit of politeness; sometimes he wondered if there was anything in the Onyx Hall the Goodemeades didn’t know. Rosamund sighed unhappily. “Aye, we do. Old history, from your perspective, and not a piece we share with most people; it can lead in dangerous directions. But since it’s important to the safety of Lune’s throne, you should probably know.” Her brow furrowed. “Indeed, Lune should’ve told you. I wonder . . . well, no matter.”

  She wondered why Lune hadn’t. There’d been no reason to, of course, before Irrith’s return. Since then—“I think her Grace is more concerned with the comet.”

  Two curly heads nodded acceptance, if only for the sake of his pride. Rosamund said, “The nasty details of it are neither here nor there, but the heart of it is this: some troublemakers in the Onyx Hall almost tricked Irrith into telling them the location of the London Stone.”

  Galen’s heart skipped a beat. The London Stone . . . it was easy enough to find, if one meant the ordinary lump of limestone that stood on the north side of Cannon Street. Nowadays it was more an obstruction to passersby than anything else, its history as the heart of London forgotten by most. In the Onyx Hall, however, its function as the site of oaths saw very specific use, every time a new Prince was crowned.

  The Stone held both Galen’s sovereignty and Lune’s. Whatever oaths the chosen man swore, whatever rituals the Queen conducted, no one became Prince in truth until he laid his hand upon the faerie reflection of the London Stone. That was why it was hidden away, concealed from all eyes: if someone gained access to it, he could, in theory, try to take the Onyx Hall for himself.

  Rosamund was nodding. “You don’t need me to tell you the danger. This was right after we had word of the comet’s return, and right after they passed that law making England and Scotland one kingdom, too. Which Lune’s enemies used against her. They—”

  “Wait,” Galen said, startled. “The Act of Union? How could that be relevant?”

  Gertrude made a huffy noise, and crossed her arms. “It got rid of the Kingdom of England, and you think it’s nothing?”

  She wasn’t really angry; he’d never seen either of the brownies truly angry. She did seem offended, though. Still baffled, Galen said, “But the two lands have been ruled by the same monarch for over a hundred and fifty years. It hardly makes any difference, except in government.”

  He regretted the words as soon as he spoke them. Galen never would have thought such friendly hazel eyes could blaze, but there Gertrude was, arms clamped down hard, lips pressed white, and child-size though she might be, there was nothing childish about her expression. This was real anger.

  Rosamund laid a calming hand on her sister’s knee, for all the good it did. “Faeries are . . . provincial creatures, Lord Galen, even those that live in London. And Lune’s whole purpose—well, part of it, anyway—is to protect England. So how does it look if suddenly there’s no England anymore?”

  Galen was still half-distracted by the seething Gertrude. He managed to catch himself, though, before he pointed out there was still an England; it was just part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, now. He also managed to catch the undoubtedly disastrous impulse to ask what they thought of Britain’s new German kings. Though had the Scottish Stuarts been any better, in their eyes?

  It’s a strange day, when faerie politics seem the safer topic, he thought ruefully. “Lune’s enemies, then, were using that, and the return of the comet, as an argument to . . . remove her?” That sounded unpleasantly familiar.

  Gertrude had recovered her temper enough to speak. “Yes. Ungrateful bast—”

  “Gertrude!” Rosamund exclaimed, going scarlet.

  “Well, they are!”

  “That doesn’t mean you call them such—”

  “Ladies!” Galen was off his chair, whisking Gertrude’s tea bowl out of the way before she could hurl it to the floor for emphasis. They were Rosamund’s favorite pattern—with roses around the rim, naturally—and he did not want to discover whether that would tip the sisters over into a real fight. “I’m sorry I asked. I thank you very much for the explanation, but had I known—”

  Rosamund’s ire vanished as if it had never been, and she began assuring him that it wasn’t his fault, he was welcome to ask as many questions as he liked, whenever he liked. Gertrude, apparently still smarting from his comments about the Act of Union, retrieved her bowl and drained its contents, slops and all. By the time she was done, she’d calmed down enough that Galen ventured one last query. “Did the Queen banish her?”

  “Irrith?” Gertrude shook her head and began gathering up the tea things. “No, Lune knew she meant no harm. As Rose said, she was tricked. But Irrith left because it was too much of everything she hates about this place: politics, and deceit, and folk stabbing each other in the back.”

  Galen sympathized. Were it not for Lune, he would gladly spend all his time among the common fae, and avoid the intrigue of the courtiers.

  Were it not for Lune.

  “Thank you,” he said. “It makes more sense now. Cuddy thought Irrith was a Sanist, and I believe her Grace suspected it, too, at least briefly.”

  “Irrith?” Rosamund shook her head emphatically. “She’s loyal to Lune. Has been for a hundred years. She would never do anything to hurt her.”

  He was glad to hear it. Then Gertrude said, “We’d love to have you stay longer, but I think you should be going, my dear; it’s started to sleet.”

  How she could tell, with her home buried underground, Galen didn’t know, but he emerged into the bitter air to discover she was right. He rode back to Westminster with fresh coals in the foot-warmer fighting back the chill, and brooded upon Irrith all the way.

  The Onyx Hall, London: February 11, 1758

  Raucous laughter advertised Irrith’s destination before she could see it. This was the underbelly of the Onyx Hall, far from the elegant diversions of the courtiers; here, the dank chill of the river pervaded the stones, and the comforts of upper society were rarely seen. The furnishings of the room Irrith sought were nothing like the delicate mortal fashions that surrounded the Queen and the Prince. Spindle-legged chairs that had been stylish at the restoration of the monarchy clustered around heavy tables that had seen old Elizabeth Tudor’s day, and all of them blackened with ages of use.

  But a few novelties reached this place. The fae gathered in the Crow’s Head—common folk, all—drank coffee and tea and gin, alongside the familiar beer and ale. It was a fashion in its own right, thoug
h one few courtiers would gamble with; those were mortal drinks, and not given in tithe. Consuming them could change a faerie. Irrith, catching a human serving-boy by the shoulder, chose the safety of faerie ale.

  Magrat, she saw, was not so cautious. The church grim sat hunched in a corner, watching the world through the gap between her bony knees, a gin cup clutched in her skeletal hand. It was her usual posture, and Irrith could understand why; the church Magrat had haunted was destroyed back when fat Henry chose a new wife over loyalty to the Catholic Church. She was hardly the only grim dispossessed of her home during those times, either. Some, Irrith heard, had taken to haunting Quaker meetings and the like. It rarely turned out well, though; the white-hot faith of the Methodists and Baptists and other dissenters was too uncomfortable, even for a church grim’s tolerance. Many abandoned the mortal world entirely, fleeing into Faerie itself.

  And a few, like Magrat, made new homes elsewhere. The goblin, who had once known whether the dead were destined for Heaven or Hell, now traded in different sorts of information. It wasn’t political; Magrat didn’t give a priest’s damn what use those secrets were put to. She only cared if she got paid.

  Irrith slid onto the bench across from her and got a nod. “You cost me a child’s first nightmare,” the goblin said, without much rancor. “I bet Dead Rick you wouldn’t return, after that business over the Stone.”

  The sprite’s stomach turned over. Blood and Bone—how had that become public knowledge? It had been a state secret when she left.

  “Don’t worry,” Magrat told her, after a swig of gin. “No one’ll be after you for that anymore. Your knowledge turned to worthless dust when the mortals moved the thing to the north side of Cannon Street. Mab only knows where it is down here, now.”

  Moved the Stone? Irrith did her best to keep the shock from her face. The London Stone was the heart of the Onyx Hall. If the mortals had moved it . . . she was surprised any of the palace was holding together anymore.