A Star Shall Fall

“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 defence 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.”