But his mother, eager to maintain the forms of gentility, had invented the tale of the horse. It served Galen’s purposes; that would make the respectable rounds, lending credibility to the Covent Garden tale. The subterfuge gave him something to think about other than the massive bruise that was painting his shoulder spectacular colors.
He looked a shabby thing indeed as he went to Mrs. Vesey’s house; the tight fit of his own coats was unendurable, and so he was wearing a castoff of his father’s. But to her he could tell the truth, and so he looked forward to the visit.
Until the footman escorted him into the parlor, where Galen almost dropped his hat in surprise.
Delphia Northwood rose from her chair and curtsied. Next to her, an insufferably smug Mrs. Vesey did the same. After a moment, Galen remembered himself and bowed. “Good morning, Mrs. Vesey. Miss Northwood—I thought your family had gone into the country, now that the Season is over.”
“They have, Mr. St. Clair,” she admitted. “But Mrs. Vesey invited me to stay here with her for a time.”
“Her mother was suffering vapors over her upcoming marriage,” Mrs. Vesey confided. “And speaking of which—come, Mr. St. Clair, the two of you are to be married. Surely it isn’t too much for you to address your intended by her Christian name? You wouldn’t mind, would you, my dear?”
Miss Northwood colored and looked as if she wished she hadn’t left her fan on the table by her chair. “Only if he insists on calling me Philadelphia.”
“I have nothing against Greek names,” Galen said, smiling. Jonathan Hurst had teased him upon that point, speculating as to other Greek-named fellows that might make husbands for Galen’s sisters. Which had plunged Mayhew into a melancholy over Daphne, of course. But perhaps, once the Northwood money was securely invested, Galen might persuade his father to let at least one sister follow her heart.
Mrs. Vesey was looking expectantly at him. “Then let it be Delphia,” Galen said, stepping into this brave new territory of intimacy. She shifted slightly, as if she, too, felt the thrill the word brought.
Their hostess beamed in satisfaction and said, “Come, let us have tea. And you, Mr. St. Clair, can tell us of your poor shoulder. Does it hurt you terribly?”
“No, I am quite well,” he said—a polite little lie.
The tea things were already set out on a table, except for the hot water; Mrs. Vesey rang a bell for it as they settled themselves once more. She then bent her attention to unlocking the tea box, but spared enough to go on questioning him. “Now, it is clearly utter nonsense that you were struck by a horse, for I know you would not be on foot in the middle of Fleet Street. I am no gossip, of course, and neither is Miss Northwood; you can trust us with the truth. What really happened?”
Too late, he saw the trap she’d so neatly laid. He’d come here anticipating the opportunity to speak freely; she, perhaps guessing that his injury had something to do with the fae, had deliberately surprised him with Miss Northwood. She could just as easily have asked Yfaen, but it seemed Mrs. Vesey had not given up on her mad notion that Galen should reveal the Onyx Court to his intended bride.
As if Mrs. Vesey did not know exactly what she was doing, Galen said repressively, “The tale is not fit for this company.”
It did precisely as little good as he expected. Delphia came unwittingly to his rescue, though, once the maid had brought in the hot water. “I believe it’s customary for young men approaching their weddings to enjoy one last bout of foolishness. I promise you, Mr. St. Clair, I will not hold it against you.”
Which gave him license to recount an expurgated version of the Covent Garden story. Galen kept it to the footpads’ attack, declining to go into detail about what either he or Byrd had been doing there. Mrs. Vesey did not bother to hide her disbelief, and so once Miss Northwood had made appropriate noises of sympathy for his pain and approval for his valor, he fled to a safer topic. “Will you be in London long, Miss—ah, Delphia?”
She glanced sidelong at their hostess, who smiled into her tea. “Yes—ostensibly to ready myself for the wedding,” his bride-to-be said. “But Mrs. Vesey, as she hinted before, was rescuing me from my mother.”
“And there is a great deal of London Miss Northwood has not experienced,” Mrs. Vesey added serenely. “For one who has grown up here, she has seen shockingly little of the city. Perhaps we could arrange some excursions, Mr. St. Clair—what do you think?”
I think you are a meddling old woman. But he couldn’t put any real venom behind it. His proposal to Miss Northwood had been shaped by the desire for honesty; Mrs. Vesey’s suggestion offered him a way to remove yet more barriers of deception. For that, he could not fault her.
Still, it was out of the question. Telling the truth would mean telling Miss Northwood about Lune, and he feared the consequences if the mask that covered his adoration slipped in his future wife’s presence. Besides, Galen had enough to concern him already. “Well, if the purpose of your visit is to escape your mother’s watchful eye, M— Delphia, then perhaps I can arrange an evening at the theater. Or have you ever been to the opera?”
By means of such diversions did he shift them to safer topics. Mrs. Vesey, however, let pass no opportunity to refer in cryptic fashion to the fae, until surely a girl as intelligent as Delphia had to wonder what second conversation was being conducted under her nose. Galen could do nothing about that, short of contriving to chide Mrs. Vesey in private, so he endured the awkwardness as best he could, and escaped as soon as it would not be abominably rude.
But as the sedan chair carried him home from Clarges Street, his mind kept drifting away from Dragons and faerie science in favor of imaginary conversations with Miss Delphia Northwood. His experience with Dr. Andrews had taught him valuable lessons, ones he could make use of . . .
Ridiculous, he told himself firmly. Dr. Andrews was making valuable contributions to their planned defense. This was a matter of sentimentality, nothing more, and not justifiable in its risk.
Still, he could not stop thinking of it.
You are a fool, Galen St. Clair. And that was one statement even his divided and disputatious mind could not argue with.
Covent Garden, Westminster: October 3, 1758
Three hundred sixty-four nights out of the year, Edward Thorne was a loyal protector of his master’s secrets.
On the three hundred sixty-fifth, he told Irrith, without prompting, where Galen could be found.
Or at least his general location. She unearthed the Prince in the third tavern she tried, spotting him with ease, even though he’d obviously made some effort to dress as less than a gentleman. After all, not every footpad here was a disguised faerie playing a trick. Galen wore a baggy, shabby coat over equally shabby clothes, but his wig was too neatly groomed. Irrith spotted it from clear across the tavern. Someone would steal it if he wasn’t careful.
He was staring moodily into a cup she hoped didn’t hold gin. Magrat had warned her that the poor of nearby Seven Dials still adulterated their spirits with turpentine or acid, and Irrith feared Galen was too sheltered a soul to know that.
When she dragged a stool closer, Galen glanced up only long enough to see her. “I’m too tired for guessing games,” he said, slurring the words.
“Irrith,” she said. “I thought you might like company.”
He went back to his contemplation of the cup. “I don’t need a nursemaid.”
“Never said you did.” Irrith leaned forward and sniffed. The familiar burn of gin reached her nostrils, but she didn’t smell anything wrong in it. Good; he bought the legal kind. “One question, though, and then I’ll hush up and help you drink yourself under the table. Edward says you go drinking every year on this night, but usually someplace nicer than Covent Garden. Why so grim this time?”
She had observed of him before that he often tried to discipline his expression, and also that he was very bad at it. On this occasion, he didn’t even try. Irrith saw the full play of his shame, despair, and hopeless love
. Galen choked down a sip of the bitter gin, then said, “Because this year, I am betrothed.”
Since it was Galen, Irrith tried hard to understand why that should matter. True, it was the Queen’s mourning night. Until dawn, Lune would keep solitary vigil in the night garden, grieving for her first Prince, who lay buried in the Onyx Hall. She did so every year on the anniversary of his death. It was a painful reminder to Galen that her love was not for him—but why should his own step toward marriage drive him to cheap gin in a filthy tavern? It didn’t put Lune’s heart any further out of his reach than it already was.
She tried to understand, and failed. Instead she said, “I think you need distraction. But finish your drink first.”
He lifted the cup, paused, and said, “Please, for the love of all that’s unholy—change your glamour before I go anywhere with you.”
Irrith grinned. She’d forgotten she was disguised as a rough young man. While Galen downed the remainder of his gin, she went outside and found an unoccupied shadowed corner; by the time she came back, this time as a woman, he’d given the tavern’s owner a shilling for the best room in the house. It wasn’t a good room, especially for that price, but it was preferable to the Onyx Hall on this night—or Leicester Fields on any night—and if the mattress was home to a troop of bugs, neither of them was in a mood to care.
Afterward, they lay curled together against the chill of the October night. Irrith ran one hand over Galen’s short hair, soft against her fingers. Without his wig and coat and walking stick, she reflected, he was not Lord Galen, Prince of the Stone, nor the gentleman Mr. St. Clair. Only Galen, a tumultuous human heart wrapped up in a body that seemed scarcely able to contain it.
Those absences made him vulnerable; the darkness made him brave. “I sometimes think,” Galen whispered, “that it would be better if she knew.”
“Which one?”
An injudicious question. He curled tighter, like a snail pulling into its shell. But his shell was draped over the rail at the foot of the bed, or dropped carelessly on the floor. After a moment, he said, “Both, I suppose.”
Irrith didn’t know Delphia Northwood. She did know Lune. Before she could doubt her own impulse, Irrith said, “The Queen does know.”
That sent him flying away from her as if propelled by a bow, almost falling off the narrow bed before fetching up against the rail. He said, helplessly, “Oh God, no.”
The word glanced off the protection of the tithe, but Irrith flinched nonetheless. Then she pushed herself upright, studying him. The light coming through the room’s one narrow window was scant indeed, only what filtered in from the inadequate lanterns on Covent Garden square; it was just enough to trace the wing of his collarbone, the line of his uninjured arm clutching the rail, the right-hand side of his face. Not enough to see his eyes.
No way out but through the truth. Some of it, anyway. Galen didn’t need to hear that the rest of the Onyx Court knew it, too. “She’s known for a while.”
He stayed motionless for three heartbeats, then buried his face in his hands.
“You said it might be better,” Irrith reminded him. “Think about it, Galen—if it bothered her, you would know.”
His reply was muffled by his palms. “Except now I must face her. Knowing that she knows. Damn it all, Irrith—why did you have to tell me?”
Because I thought it would help. Because I still can’t tell how your heart works, what will make you happy, what will send you off in despair.
This time, she’d clearly done the latter. Galen dropped his hands and said, “She never should have chosen me.”
The dark hid her second flinch. Irrith hadn’t forgotten what the Goodemeades told her. Would this man have been Prince, if Lune had another choice?
It didn’t matter. He was Prince, and was striving with everything he had to be a good one. This doubt was his greatest enemy. “Lune isn’t stupid,” Irrith said forcefully. “You love her; don’t you trust her? She wouldn’t have chosen you if she thought you weren’t suitable.” No matter what her courtiers said. Lune had ignored them before, when she had to; she would have done the same here.
Irrith wasn’t sure he’d even listened to her. After a moment, though, Galen spoke. “Do you think I’m a good Prince?”
She was as bad a liar as he was. A simple yes would be obviously trite; a longer assurance would give away her own doubts. And she’d always preferred honesty, anyway. “I think you’ve been dealt the worst hand of cards of any Prince I’ve ever known. Comet, Sanists, your own family interfering with your life . . . and then there’s Lune. The old Princes all had problems of their own, but you had yours from the start.”
“So you think I’m a failure.”
“No. You didn’t let me finish.” Irrith tucked her feet up, leaning forward to seek out his eyes in the shadows. “The Princes have all been different sorts of men, who bring different kinds of strength to the Onyx Court. They’ve all shared one thing, though: they care too much to give up. Whatever trouble the court faces—and believe me, there’s been a lot—they keep fighting. If the day ever comes that you run away, then I’ll call you a failure. But not before.”
His back had stiffened at the thought of running away, proving her very point. Galen seemed to realize it, too. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, then sat thinking. One hand scratched absently at his ribs, and Irrith thought she felt something crawling up her own leg. They might be ignoring the bugs, but the bugs weren’t ignoring them.
“If she knows,” he said at last, “then I cannot possibly tell Miss Northwood.”
“About the Onyx Court?”
He nodded. “I had considered it, but—no. Mere foolishness.”
“Why? There’s always the risk that a mortal will attack us, or tell everyone we’re here, but we risk it just the same. What are you afraid will happen—that she’ll cry off once she knows what you do with the other half of your life?”
His drifting hand stilled, then lowered to his thigh. “I had thought—” Galen began, but stopped.
Irrith waited patiently. This time, she was fairly certain that anything she might say would frighten him off.
Galen sighed, with less of a melancholy sound than she expected. “I’d considered the possibility of telling her after our marriage. But you are right; if I did it before, she might cry off.”
Which he would consider a good thing. He wasn’t thinking of his family right now, Irrith could tell. Only of Lune, and of the voice in his head that told him it wasn’t right to serve two mistresses at once.
On the other hand, this would give her a chance to observe Miss Delphia Northwood for herself. Irrith had of course spied on the young woman a little, because she was curious, but turned up nothing worthy of remark. Seeing her with Galen would be much more interesting.
“I think you should,” Irrith said. “It’s only fair.”
He made a wordless, frustrated noise. “But I’ll have to ask the Queen first. And that will be . . .”
Uncomfortable. To put it mildly. Oh, how Irrith wished she could be a fly on the wall for that conversation.
Another, heavier sigh. “I’ll consider it,” Galen said.
Irrith crawled over to where he sat and put her hands on his shoulders. “Tomorrow. I think you’ve done enough thinking for tonight.”
The Onyx Hall, London: October 13, 1758
Since establishing his residence in the Onyx Hall, Dr. Andrews had thrown himself into the work the fae set for him. Podder had unearthed notebooks belonging to Jack Ellin, a previous Prince, which indicated that he suspected the refraction of a prism might have an unknown effect upon the Dragon’s spirit; that was why they’d used a modification of Newton’s reflecting telescope for its exile. Andrews, remembering their startling results with the experimentum crucis, had decided to conduct further optical experiments with the salamander.
Galen was delayed by Mrs. Vesey’s insistence upon him dining with her and Miss Northwood, but he hurried to Billing
sgate as soon as he could and descended into the warren that held Andrews’s chambers. Upon entering the laboratory, he found Andrews pacing in agitation. The man’s face was pale and dewed with sweat, and the rims of his eyes were red. “What result?” Galen asked.
The doctor gestured to the other end of the room. “See for yourself. The light faded too fast for me to try.”
The apparatus stood facing a sheet tacked to the wall, a prism on a stand. The stand’s platform held a blackened pair of tongs and—
Galen poked at the shriveled thing with one fingertip. “What is this? It doesn’t look like a salamander.”
“It’s the heart of one.”
He shot upright. On the table nearby lay an empty cage and an unmoving form: the corpse of the captured salamander. Its belly gaped open, revealing a charred cavity where the heart had been.
“A curious thing,” Andrews said, still pacing. “I would swear the creature had nothing but a heart. No lungs, no intestines. I can’t be sure; even making the incision without being burnt was difficult. And everything seemed to alter subtly when it died.”
Horrified, Galen spun to face him. “You cut this creature open while it lived?”
That finally halted the doctor. Andrews, much taken aback, said, “How else am I to understand how it functions?”
“But—you—” Galen flung one hand toward the prism. “I thought this was an experiment with light!”
“It was.” Andrews came forward and collected the leather gloves he’d evidently dropped on the floor. “And how was I to get that light? Oh, certainly the creature spat fire while it lived—but it was only fire. I could detect nothing strange about it at all. It is the essence of the creature we wished to pass through the prism, and I’m told it was the Dragon’s heart they used before. Unfortunately, this one burnt out too quickly.” He paused, gloves in hand. “Animal vivisection is a common practice in medicine, Mr. St. Clair. We must know how the body works before we can heal it.”
Galen could not stop looking at the salamander’s corpse. He knew well enough that their research sometimes involved uncomfortable things; he had, with reluctance, authorized Andrews’s work with Savennis, observing the effects of prayers and church bells both with and without the protection of bread, and the faerie’s sensitivity to the proximity of iron. This went further, though—and Galen had not thought to include the salamander under his authority. It wasn’t an intelligent creature, of course, not like Savennis. Still. He, as Prince, had brought into the Onyx Hall a mortal who killed a faerie.
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