A Star Shall Fall

by Marie Brennan

  “You should have consulted me before you did this,” he said quietly.

  Andrews, tidying up his equipment, paused again. “Ah. I didn’t realize. Will this anger the Queen?”

  “I don’t know. And that is why you must consult me.” Galen yanked his hat off, then made himself stop before he could fling it across the room. Is this not what you brought him here for? To apply mortal methods of learning to your faerie problem?

  The doctor nodded with good grace. “I see. My apologies, Mr. St. Clair. I did not mean to cause trouble.” Then his expression brightened. “Oh—but my experience with the salamander gave me an interesting thought. Come, let’s sit down, and I will tell you about it.”

  Sitting down meant going to the other end of the room from the corpse and its shriveled coal of a heart. Galen doubted that was coincidence. He went willingly, but waved away Andrews’s offer of coffee.

  “It had to do with what that Arab fellow said,” Andrews began, “concerning alchemy. Now, most alchemists were mountebanks or poor deluded fools, and I very much doubt if any of them ever made an ounce of gold out of anything else, unless it was the hopes of their credulous clients. But what if it works here? Among the faeries?”

  Galen frowned. “Dr. Andrews—I love a good conjecture as much as the next man, but how does this help us against the Dragon?”

  “It doesn’t,” the doctor said, with far more excitement than those words merited. “But it may provide a way to make the Dragon help us.”

  Which explained the excitement, but not its cause. “I don’t follow you.”

  “Do you know anything of alchemy?” Galen shook his head. “It wasn’t just about turning dross into gold. That transformation, as they conceived it, consisted of purging a metal of its flaws and impurities, bringing it into a more perfected state. And the same thing, Mr. St. Clair, could be done to the human body.”

  Galen shook his head a second time, still not following.

  “I am talking,” Dr. Andrews said, “of the philosopher’s stone.”

  He’d heard the phrase, in much the same way he’d heard of faeries before he saw Lune in the night sky. A foolish fable, indicating something dreamt of but unreal. In this case, the means of achieving mankind’s dearest dream.

  Immortality.

  But what could the Dragon have to do with that? Dr. Andrews said, “The details are complicated—indeed, over the centuries men devised a hundred variants upon the theme, and as I said, I doubt very much if any of them worked. Much of it, however, comes down to two substances: philosophic sulphur, and philosophic mercury.

  “These are not to be confused with the substances we know, brimstone and quicksilver. They represent principles, an opposing pair. Sulphur is hot, dry, and active; it is fire and air, the red or sun king, brightly burning.”

  “In other words,” Galen said, his mouth drying out, “the Dragon.”

  Andrews nodded. “It seems very likely that this beast is the embodiment of the sulphuric principle. Mr. St. Clair, if the alchemist can conjoin and reconcile those two opposing principles . . . he creates the philosopher’s stone.”

  Had they been sitting in Andrews’s house on Red Lion Square, it would have seemed absurd. The philosopher’s stone? Immortality? But they were in the Onyx Hall, where even the mundane trappings of chairs and carpets and tables could not disguise the fey quality of the place, the hushed mystery of London’s shadow.

  Here, perhaps, it might be possible.

  Andrews might as well have reached inside Galen’s head and turned his brain upside down. Not to fight or imprison or banish the Dragon, but to use it. Transform a threat into a tool, and once they had done so . . .

  Galen’s fancy immediately slipped its leash, imagining not just the defeat of the Dragon, but the consequences of that success. Fame, fortune—the King was almost seventy-five. What might he give to the men who could restore his youth?

  A dose of common sense helped. “As I understand it, alchemists worked with laboratory equipment, boiling and distilling things. How in Heaven’s name are we to wrestle your philosophic sulphur into any kind of conjunction, when it will be trying to burn us all alive?”

  “I haven’t the first notion,” Andrews said. The gleam in his eyes chilled Galen, even as the possibility that sparked it quickened his breath. “That, Mr. St. Clair, is what we must devise.”

  The Grecian, London: October 14, 1758

  Under most circumstances, Irrith would have enjoyed the chance to go into the city on someone else’s bread. After all, every bite she got from another was a bite that didn’t come out of her own meager store, and then she had a whole day of safety in the world above.

  Most circumstances did not involve Valentin Aspell, and a meeting she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to attend.

  They shared a hackney, which put her much closer to him than she wanted to be. The uncomfortable silence lasted for a few minutes before Irrith said, “Aren’t you going to make me swear an oath?”

  His whisper-thin eyebrows rose. “An oath?”

  “Not to tell anyone about this.”

  Aspell glanced out the window of the carriage, at the crowded streets creeping by. “Dame Irrith, do not insult my intelligence. At the first hint of such a demand, you would run as far from me as you could—and with good cause. Oaths are for conspirators with something to hide. The people you will see today practice a degree of secrecy, yes, because it would be easy for someone to use our words against us. But I assure you: those you will meet are no different than you.”

  She squirmed uncomfortably on the stained bench. If they’re no different from me . . . then I’m no different from them.

  But Aspell had assured her the purpose of this meeting was to discuss a means of preserving the Onyx Hall, against both its fraying and the Dragon. True, clouds blanketed the sky above them; the ritual had done its work. That didn’t get rid of the beast, though. And it did nothing to reverse the Hall’s decay.

  Hence today’s meeting. Irrith wasn’t surprised to find it taking place above. Lune kept a good eye on both worlds, but there was no way she could watch London as closely as the Onyx Hall. If fae wanted to do something secret, their chances were better among the humans, whose teeming masses would take little notice of anything they did. Still, the choice made Irrith frown. Aspell had handed her a piece of bread without so much as a blink—not that he blinked often anyway. That kind of generosity wasn’t normal, especially nowadays.

  She thought again about the black dog that ambushed her on her way into the city. Had there been other such attacks? If so, Lune had kept them quiet. But she would, wouldn’t she? Doesn’t want anyone to know if she can’t keep the tithe safe.

  Her stomach was doing a queasy dance even before they arrived at their destination and she discovered it to be another damnable coffeehouse, under the sign of the Grecian. Foul drink; just what her nerves needed. If Aspell insisted she have some, she would run away.

  They didn’t sit at the tables, though. Aspell spoke briefly to the owner, then led Irrith into an upstairs room, where a coal fire tried to warm the air and mostly just stained it with smoke. Several people already waited there. Fae, obviously, concealed under glamours, just as she and the Lord Keeper were. It had the feel of conspiracy, however much Aspell insisted on their good intentions.

  He counted them swiftly and nodded. “We are all here. Let us begin.”

  This was all? Irrith made it only eight in the room, not counting the two of them. Then again, it would be too suspicious if a lot of fae all vanished at once. No doubt some of these would report back to friends of theirs. And Aspell must have some means of identifying those who came, or a spy could join them without anyone knowing. He was too clever for that.

  She wished the word spy hadn’t crossed her mind.

  “We have a newcomer among us today,” Aspell said, gesturing to her. Irrith was glad of her habit of masculine glamours—then she wondered. Everyone in the Onyx Hall knew of that habit. Sh
ould she have looked female today? At least Aspell had the wit to use the right pronoun when he said, “I have asked him here to tell us what he’s seen of the Queen.”

  Blood and Bone—she hadn’t expected to be shoved into this so quickly. Rising, Irrith made an awkward little bow, and tried to figure out how to begin. “Er—the Queen. She’s . . . at first I thought it was that she’s tired. And, you know, that could be from a lot of things. We don’t have to sleep like mortals do, but working all the time the way she does—that would tire even a hob.

  “But I don’t think it’s that. She’s tired, but there’s something else, too.”

  Irrith swallowed hard. Hob was another word she shouldn’t have thought; it summoned up an image of the Goodemeades. What would they say, if they knew she’d come here today?

  She’d come for a reason. Not for Aspell’s sake, or out of disaffection with Lune and the Onyx Court. No, she was here because she didn’t want to see those things lost.

  Irrith said, “I think her Majesty’s fading.”

  With those words out, it was easier to go on. “My best guess is that the Hall is calling on her strength to hold itself together. Only a little; it’s hard to see the effect. I wouldn’t have noticed it except I—” She caught herself before she could say anything that would betray her identity. “It’s slow. But if Ktistes can’t find a way to mend it, and especially if the mortals tear down more bits . . .” Irrith gestured helplessly. “It will only get worse.”

  “Like two cripples holding each other up,” one of the fae said. “Keeps either one from falling over, at least for a while. But it doesn’t make either one whole.”

  “The Queen isn’t crippled,” Irrith said sharply, forgetting Lune’s hand for a moment. That’s only a hand, though. “And Ktistes already made the entrances work again, after they burnt in the Fire. He’s clever; he’ll probably find a way to repair this, too.”

  Aspell made a placating gesture. He’d disguised himself as a pale-faced clerk, though he’d forgotten to put inkstains on his fingers. “All of us are here because we share a common goal, and that is the preservation of the Onyx Hall. If the centaur could restore our home to health, we would all be satisfied.

  “But he cannot, because the foundation is too badly cracked. The sovereign is her realm. It cannot be whole unless its ruler is.”

  “Has anyone tried healing Lune?” Irrith asked.

  It produced grumblings around the table. No doubt they’d been through all of this before, maybe years ago. And she’d just made it obvious that whoever she was, she’d only recently come to the Onyx Hall—if they hadn’t guessed that already. “Well, have they?”

  The man at the far end of the table said, “There was talk of getting her a silver hand, like that Irish king. But silver doesn’t make you whole.”

  “And besides,” another added, “there’s the iron wound. You can talk all you like about healing her hand, but nothing heals what iron does to you.”

  Nothing they knew of. Irrith wondered if Abd ar-Rashid could do it. Apparently iron didn’t bother his kind, and he said he knew a lot about medicine. If he could heal the Queen, this whole problem would go away.

  Or would it? Irrith honestly didn’t know whether making Lune whole would do anything to help the Onyx Hall. It might rob the Sanists of their best argument against her, and that would be something—but the real malcontents would still say that Lune had failed as Queen, because her first duty was to hold her realm together.

  Aspell said quietly, “There is another issue.”

  The grumbling and argumentation quieted. The Lord Keeper waited until he had perfect silence, apart from the noise of the coffeehouse downstairs, before he spoke again. “The Dragon.”

  “We’re hidden from it,” someone said immediately. “Aren’t we?”

  Irrith bit back her answer; that really would betray her identity. Aspell gave a sinuous shrug. “We’re hidden, yes. And the Dragon was imprisoned; and the Dragon was exiled.”

  And all of it, ultimately, had failed. Irrith wished she could argue, but the concealment had been her own idea in the first place. She, of all people, was aware that it might not last.

  She asked, “What does that have to do with the Queen?”

  He placed his hands carefully on the table, bowing his head. The tallow dips around the room didn’t give off much better light than the smoky fire, but despite the gloom, he looked more weary than sinister. Irrith just wished she could tell whether that was a pose. “An unwelcome thought has come to me,” Aspell said. “One I have labored mightily to dismiss, but it will not go. It is my great hope that we find some other defense against this threat; I want no one here to doubt that. If, however, we do not find another answer, then we must consider this, our last, most desperate resort.”

  Irrith’s heart sped up with every word out of his mouth. Whether he meant malice or not, his need for such a preface could not bode well.

  The Lord Keeper sighed heavily and went on. “While the Queen hunts answers in the world above, we cannot afford to lose sight of our own world, and the lessons it teaches us. She spent a great deal of time some years ago soliciting advice from other lands, asking after great dragons in their past, and what had been done to address them. In this, I believe, is an answer we must consider.”

  “Just say it already,” Irrith snapped, unable to bear the delay any longer.

  He lifted his head and met her gaze. “The sacrifice of a woman to the dragon.”

  No one said anything. A fellow somewhere beneath Irrith’s feet shouted merrily to one of his companions, until she wanted to run downstairs and bid him be silent. A strange day, this is, with faeries above and mortals below.

  And a far stranger day, Irrith of the Vale, when you stand here and listen to Valentin Aspell propose feeding Lune to the Dragon.

  Because that had to be what he meant. “You cannot be serious,” Irrith said, through numb lips.

  “She’ll take the whole damn Hall with her!” someone else exclaimed.

  The Lord Keeper straightened swiftly, hands raised. “Hear me out. First and foremost, I tell you this: I intend nothing against the Queen’s will.”

  It broke through the shell of horror that had encased Irrith’s body. Her heart, which seemed to have stopped, leapt back into action with a bone-jarring thud. “I am not advocating regicide,” Aspell went on, distinctly enough that Irrith spared a moment to hope someone had done something to keep their voices from escaping the room. Regicide was not a word to toss around lightly in either world. “But let me explain my reasoning to you, and the course of action I see before us.”

  Again he waited for his audience to quiet. When they had done so, he spoke in a softer tone. “The Dragon has had a taste of her Majesty. It knows her scent, if you will.”

  Irrith shook her head. “It knows the scent of the Onyx Hall.”

  “Both, then—but in such circumstances, as I understand it, as to make the Dragon connect the two. And certainly, as matters stand now, they are connected. The loss of her Grace would almost certainly mean the loss of the Hall.”

  Loss. A delicate word, much less ugly than the two it replaced. Death. Destruction.

  “However,” Aspell went on, “were the Queen to be separated from her realm—to be no longer the Queen—then I believe she would still attract the Dragon’s interest, without endangering the palace. And in that manner, we might divert the beast from its purpose.”

  Some of the gathered eight were shifting uncomfortably in their seats. Others had an avid gleam Irrith did not like at all. One of the shifters said, “What’s to stop it from devouring her, then moving on to the rest of us?”

  The man next to him nodded. “I’ve heard those stories, too. A maiden a year, or some such. Appeasement isn’t safety; it’s just a bit of breathing space.”

  “We could use it to bind the Dragon, though,” another said. “Not just one year, but seventy-five years of safety—or seventy-six, or however long it is.”


  “And how much good has more time done us? The Queen’s got that Calendar Room of hers, but it hasn’t given her an answer, has it?”

  More voices rose, the entire thing degenerating into just the kind of squabbling that Irrith most hated. But arguments aside, she realized, this was the closest thing to an actual plan she’d heard anyone offer. It was already autumn. The comet would reach its closest point to the sun in March. That meant that even now it drew near, and only a thin veil of clouds protected them. It was all well and good to say that natural philosophy would save them, but so far it didn’t seem to have provided any real proposal for how to do that.

  The sacrifice of the Queen might be the only option.

  And Lune would do it, too, Irrith thought. The Sanists’ ordinary arguments might fall on deaf royal ears, but the Dragon could well be a different matter. Aspell didn’t have to intend anything against the Queen’s will: if the beast stood before them, and no other option presented itself, then Lune might sacrifice herself freely, for the sake of her people.

  Which was the thing Carline had never understood. Whatever mistakes Lune had made, she always put the interests of her court ahead of her own. That was a rare thing in a ruler, faerie or mortal. Who else could be trusted to do the same?

  “We will decide nothing here today,” Aspell said at last, cutting through the general clamor. “As I said, this is a matter of final resort. But we must bear in mind the possibility.”

  He looked at each of them in turn as he said it, and last of all at Irrith. She nodded, awkwardly, as if her head were on a string held by some careless puppeteer. A strong part of her wished she had never come to this place, to hear the possibility that Lune’s death was the only thing that could save them.