Now that she had experience of London, Irrith understood it. The fae of the Onyx Court lived with one hundred and nine churches above their heads, and more iron than any sensible faerie should get within smelling distance of. But once clear of the city, Irrith had no need of bread on her journeys, and so she hoarded much of her allotment. Sometimes she traded it for favors, using the little morsels like currency, but more often she ate it so she could venture outside in safety.
Proof of her own madness, really. She hadn’t done it as much of late, because of the plague; London was not a friendly place nowadays. She even thought about returning to Berkshire, where she wouldn’t have to worry about such horrors. If she did leave, though, Irrith knew she would return. The mortals here kept changing! New plays, and new broadside ballads, and men’s clothing had recently sprouted masses of ribbons like brightly colored fungus. She couldn’t give up the chance to stare at them.
But she could only do that if she had bread to protect her, and someone had begun pilfering it.
When she realized it, she thought of informing the guards—not the Onyx Guard, who protected the Queen, but the lesser warriors. She preferred not to bother them, though, and so one day, after receiving her allotment from Lune, Irrith left her bedchamber and passed very obviously through a public area where other fae gathered, then circled back by a more secret route.
For all that dwelling encased in stone bothered her, she liked the bedchamber Amadea had found for her. The Lady Chamberlain, searching for something that would evoke Irrith’s home, put her in a room where pillars of silvery marble had been carved to look like birch trees, sprouting leaves of green agate along the arching branches that supported the ceiling. It was in the shadow of one such pillar that Irrith concealed herself, to catch the thief.
She was a patient creature, when she had to be. Fae ate when they felt like it, and so Irrith could sit there for days, if necessary. And she was prepared to.
Patience, unfortunately, was a tedious thing. Irrith didn’t even realize she had dozed off until she heard a click—the lid of the box in which she kept her bread. By the time she had her wits about her, the door to her chamber was swinging closed.
Irrith was on her feet instantly, but not fast enough. The corridor outside was empty, with no footsteps to be heard. Charms for silence were easy things, though; she called one of her own, and stole with rapid, noiseless strides to the corner.
A shadowed figure vanished down another passage just as she peeked around the edge.
Despite herself, the sprite grinned. Very well, then. This was not the woods of Berkshire, and she lacked her bow, but it was a hunt all the same. She would track her quarry, and see where the creature went.
He—she thought the indistinct figure was male—knew the Onyx Hall well, whoever he was. The doorways and turnings he chose were familiar to Irrith only because Lune made her memorize them six years ago. They led her through parts of the Hall rarely used, leaving behind the bedchambers of the courtiers and common subjects. The warren she entered lay near the cathedral entrance Lord Antony had used, though its own passage to the surface came out in Billingsgate, near the Tower.
She suspected her quarry did not aim to go above, though. Her suspicions were confirmed when she stole a glance around another corner and found no one in sight.
There was a door in one wall, though, leading to Mab knew what. And the stone nearby was suspiciously clear of dust—the work of either some hob of single-minded cleanliness, or someone who didn’t want to leave his footprints on the floor.
Irrith had assumed the thief was just some courtier, hoarding the food so he could visit a lady-love in the City, or trade it to get political advantage over an enemy. It was the sort of thing courtiers did.
Now, she was not so sure.
Against her better judgment, Irrith crept forward, ready to bolt if her quarry should emerge, and laid one ear on the door. Faint scuffs came from inside—he had released his charm—and a clunk, as of a heavy object set on a table. Irrith wondered, biting her lip, whether she remembered her path to this room well enough to lead someone else back here.
Someone like a guard, or three.
She got no chance to answer the question. A crippling wave of nausea struck her without warning, dropping her to the stone. It vanished a moment later, and she fled like a wild thing, back around the corner to relative safety before she could even think about it.
Iron.
Her own charm of silence was gone, shattered by the cold aura. Iron, and a lot of it. Irrith gulped, swallowing down her nausea. Then held her breath, shaking, as she heard the door open once more.
She pressed herself into another doorway, trying desperately to keep the movement quiet. The faerie lights that floated through the palace were thinly scattered here, and the shadows were deep. They were enough to conceal her as the figure went by, carrying something before him.
Irrith felt no taint from the box he held, and the faerie she saw was not the one she had pursued. But if he had eaten the bread to protect himself from the iron in that room, he could also be wearing a glamour no faerie could easily break.
There was no time to summon anyone else. She had to follow, and hope she knew what she was doing.
Antony rarely used his bedchamber in the Onyx Hall. It meant a great deal to him, when he first came to this place, that he not treat the faerie palace as his home; his place was in the world above. And Lune had warned him that too much time below could warp his mind. But he made greater use of the other chambers alloted to him, particularly the study, for he also understood that as Prince, he must have a visible presence in the court.
He was less and less in those chambers of late, though, as his work above consumed more and more of his time. The papers spread on the table before him told the tale: the Bills of Mortality, numbers gathered from each parish, organized by cause of death. Plague dominated the list. Every week, more hundreds fell. In the parishes outside the walls, they had begun to dig great pits, into which the bodies were thrown without even the dignity of a coffin.
And in his hand, another list, which told him how little he could do to stop it. At his request, Amadea had compiled an estimate of the bread available within the Onyx Hall. It was shockingly small. Few mortals remained at court, and as for the city… people would not give bread to the faeries, when their own starving children needed it more.
That was the work that devoured almost his every waking minute: keeping London on its feet. Half of the Guildhall was gone, its wealthy men fled to safer homes, but Antony toiled on, with his deputy and councilmen and parish officers of his ward—those of them who stayed. Faerie London was at peace, at least for now; mortal London was coming apart at the seams. Orphans and widows, without anyone to feed them; merchants with no one to sell their goods to, for trade was at a standstill. There were no grand gestures that could sweep those problems away, only one small thing after another, alleviating what misery he could.
Which wasn’t much.
The knock on his door startled him. Few fae had anything to ask of their mortal Prince, when they were so reluctant to go above. Antony did not even have a servant attending him. He sat in a circle of warm candlelight, preferring that to the cold illumination of the faerie lights, and had little sense of the hour; it was easy to lose track of time here. The candles, and the darkness beyond them, always made him think it very late.