Part 32 (2/2)

Irrith hadn't thought of that. Neither Galen nor Lune blamed him, so far as she knew, and no one else had said anything in her hearing-but then, she hadn't spent any time listening for it, either.

She ducked her chin, embarra.s.sed. ”How long will you hide for?”

”There is a s.h.i.+p leaving for Cairo in five days.”

”Cairo? Where is-” It didn't matter where Cairo was. ”You're leaving leaving?”

He nodded.

”What, you're just going to run away? Better hope we can keep the clouds up for five more days; otherwise your s.h.i.+p may burn before you can get on it.” The floorboards creaked mightily beneath Irrith's feet as she stamped toward him. ”You'd best not hope to come back, either. Because if you run away, people really will will think you had something to do with Dr. Andrews's plan.” think you had something to do with Dr. Andrews's plan.”

The genie was at least a foot taller; he held his ground as she glared up at him. ”They already do. How can I convince them otherwise?”

He wanted to. She heard it in his voice, and she believed it. Irrith's anger melted away, and left behind something like her usual grin. ”You can help me. Which is what I came for in the first place. There's a challenge on, to see who can throw their life away more uselessly, the Queen or the Prince. I'm trying to stop them. But right now, our only other plan is to stab the Dragon with a big icy spear. We need something better.”

Abd ar-Ras.h.i.+d frowned thoughtfully and moved away, pulling two battered cus.h.i.+ons from inside the chest at the foot of his bed. He gestured for Irrith to sit on one, and by the time she'd done so, a coffee urn and two bowls had appeared from nowhere. Sighing inside, she accepted one, and hoped he would get distracted before she had to drink it.

”Beyond the spear,” she said, ”there are two other possible plans. One is that Galen thinks gold could be used to trap the Dragon. I don't quite understand his argument, but it has to do with that flodgy-oh, I can never remember the word-”

”Phlogiston,” he murmured.

”Yes, that. Some philosopher Galen knows says it goes into materials that aren't already full of it, and so if we trapped it in something already full of fire, it wouldn't be able to go anywhere. They're planning to use sun-gold.”

The genie's frown deepened, and he cupped his coffee as if it held the answer. ”Because gold does not calcine. It melts, though, and very easily. This trap might work for a time, yes-but not for long.”

As Irrith had feared. ”Can you find a way to keep it from melting?”

”In the time we have? I doubt it very much.”

We. He wasn't getting on that s.h.i.+p to Cairo, Irrith suspected. Not unless the Onyx Court was destroyed in the next five days. ”The other possibility is the philosopher's stone. Even if we had sophic mercury, though, the Queen's afraid it would just create a Dragon He wasn't getting on that s.h.i.+p to Cairo, Irrith suspected. Not unless the Onyx Court was destroyed in the next five days. ”The other possibility is the philosopher's stone. Even if we had sophic mercury, though, the Queen's afraid it would just create a Dragon n.o.body n.o.body can destroy, that would still burn down London.” can destroy, that would still burn down London.”

Abd ar-Ras.h.i.+d jerked, and his coffee almost slopped onto the floor. ”But-the philosopher's stone is perfection. Something that brings brings perfection to others. Surely-” perfection to others. Surely-”

Irrith raised her eyebrows. ”Do you want to gamble London's future on 'surely'? Maybe the best way to perfect things is to destroy them, so something better can be built in their place.”

Alarm filled the genie's dark eyes. ”I had not thought of that.”

None of you did. That was the problem with bringing scholars together. Clever as they were, sometimes they forgot their ideas were more than pretty shapes in their minds. That was the problem with bringing scholars together. Clever as they were, sometimes they forgot their ideas were more than pretty shapes in their minds.

He sipped his drink, frowning once more. ”No, we do not want a perfect Dragon. Even supposing we had the mercury with which to make one.”

They wanted the opposite. And that gave Irrith an idea so startling, she spilled her own coffee. It scalded her hands, but she hardly noticed. ”What if we went the other way?”

”What do you mean?”

”Alchemy perfects things, right?” She put down her cup before she could lose the rest of its contents. ”What if you went the other way? Reverse alchemy. Use it to make something im imperfect. We've said all along that the Dragon is too powerful to be killed. But if we can weaken it, make it vulnerable-”

It was wild speculation, and maybe complete nonsense. The genie's eyes widened, though, and he fair floated up from the cus.h.i.+on on which he sat. His mind had gone elsewhere, and his body only followed. ”Combine it with something that is not not pure. The alchemists combined many impure things, misunderstanding their own work, and achieved no particular result-but they were working with mute substances, not things of faerie.” His gaze sharpened, as if his mind had come back from a voyage into possibility. ”I do not know if it would work.” pure. The alchemists combined many impure things, misunderstanding their own work, and achieved no particular result-but they were working with mute substances, not things of faerie.” His gaze sharpened, as if his mind had come back from a voyage into possibility. ”I do not know if it would work.”

Irrith bit her lip so hard it almost bled. ”It must.” The alternative was too dreadful to think of. Lune dead, or Galen, or both. We have to try. We have to try.

The Onyx Hall, London: April 13, 1759 Galen came through the front door of his chambers and stood blankly for a moment. The hearth was cold and black; the only illumination came from a faerie light, that whisked back to its sconce when its limited awareness realized someone had entered. Beyond that, the room lay still.

Of course. Edward was at Sothings Park. Podder was dead, and the knights who guarded Galen below didn't know he'd returned. In his absence, charms were enough to protect his chambers, while the knights prepared for battle.

He should light a fire. The Onyx Hall was a chilly place, and the gloom pressed in on him. But he was still standing there when he felt eyes upon him.

Galen turned and found Irrith in the open doorway. His heart skipped a beat at the sight of her. She'd discarded the civilized fas.h.i.+ons of the Onyx Hall for rougher garb-perhaps what she wore in the Vale. A short tunic over hose, displaying a figure that, while slender, was not boyish. She s.h.i.+fted from one foot to the other, hands tugging at the hem of the tunic, and said, ”I... was looking for you.”

Waiting for him, judging by how quickly she'd appeared. Galen reached the obvious conclusion. ”Are you leaving?”

Startlement pulled her straight. ”What? No! Is that how you think of me, as someone who runs away?”

He remembered her charging across the ice, pistol in hand, to free Lune. The marks of her exposure in the world above had largely faded now, but there was still a hollowness to her, shadows in her cheeks and along the line of her collarbone. No, she was not the sort to run away.

”I'm sorry,” Galen said, turning back toward the hearth. It was easy enough to do his servants' work, here in this faerie palace; all it took was a whispered request, and fire bloomed in the empty grate. ”I've been with the von das Tickens. The news isn't good. Niklas says gold would only hold the Dragon a little while, before it melted.”

Irrith closed the door behind her. ”Abd ar-Ras.h.i.+d said the same thing. But he suggested-well, I did, but he agreed-that we might be able to weaken the Dragon by doing the alchemical thing badly. On purpose. Combining it with something impure, to make it imperfect. And therefore vulnerable.”

Silence followed, in which Galen fancied he could hear the beating of both their hearts. The pieces hovered in his mind, not quite coming together. A vessel of sun-gold. Filled with something lacking in phlogiston, that would draw the Dragon in, as air was drawn into a vessel from which it had been pumped. Something impure, so they could enact the ”chemical wedding” of the philosophers, with opposite intent.

But what thing?

”Water and earth,” Irrith said, like a schoolboy recalling his-her-lessons. ”Cold and wet. It has to have no fire in it, but it also has to be flawed. Not Not Lune. Something that's vulnerable.” Lune. Something that's vulnerable.”

”Something,” Galen whispered, ”that is mortal.”

Her mouth fell open by degrees, as if all the world had slowed. Irrith stood perfectly still at the edge of the carpet, not breathing. Any more than Galen was.

”Mortal,” he repeated, more strongly. ”Bind the Dragon's spirit into a vessel that can be destroyed-that can be killed killed. You might not even have to do anything; the mere presence of such power might annihilate the vessel, and by doing so, take the Dragon with it.” How could the words be so steady, so calm, as if he were speaking of philosophy only, with no application to life?

Irrith's voice was not so steady. ”There are plenty of stray dogs in Lo...”

She couldn't even finish it. Galen was shaking his head. ”No. It needs more than a dog.”

”Then a beggar. Plenty of those, too. s.n.a.t.c.h one off any street corner-”

”An innocent?” he demanded. His own calm slipped. ”Someone ignorant of this world, this war, tied down for the slaughter without even knowing why? I'll be d.a.m.ned first! It must be someone willing, Irrith.”

His declaration hung in the air. She could make the tally as well as he could. Edward Thorne was half-faerie. Mrs. Vesey? Delphia? There were others in the Hall or a.s.sociated with it, various lovers and pets of faerie courtiers, many of them with no awareness of the larger faerie world, its politics and dangers. It would be his duty as Prince to go among them, to question one after another, asking who would lay down his life for the good of London.

And perhaps one might agree. Perhaps.

But he could never bring himself to ask.

She shook her head, a tiny movement at first, then a more vehement one. ”No, Galen.”

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