She was backed against the shuttered wall of a shop, like an animal brought to bay. The sight slipped under his defenses, sparking sympathy against his will. Deven compromised; he dismounted, so as not to loom over her, but kept the sword out, relaxed at his side. “Anne. ’Tis me — Michael Deven. Is someone chasing you? Are you in trouble?”
She had changed, since last he saw her; the bones of her face stood higher, as if she had lost weight, and her hair looked paler than ever. Her clothing was a sad imitation of a gentlewoman’s finery, and — she must be running from someone — she stood barefoot in the dirt.
“Michael,” she whispered. The whites of her eyes stood out starkly in her stricken face. She started to say something, then shook her head furiously. “Go. Leave me!”
“No,” he said. “You are in trouble; I know it. Let me help you.” A foolish offer, yet he had to make it. He extended his left hand, as if toward a wild horse that might bolt.
“You cannot help me. I have told you that already!”
“You have told me nothing! Anne, in God’s name, what is going on?”
She flinched back at his words, hands flying up to defend her face, and Deven’s blood froze as she changed.
-Hair — silver. Gown — black feathers, trembling with her. And her face, imperfectly warded by her hands, refined into otherworldly beauty, high-boned and strange, with silver eyes wide in horror and fear.
The creature that had been wearing Anne Montrose’s face stood a moment longer, pressed against the wall like she expected to be struck down on the spot.
Then she cried out and fled into the darkness of the city.
THE ANGEL INN, ISLINGTON: April 25, 1590
The veil of glamour she threw over herself as she ran covered her imperfectly, a bad attempt at a human seeming, until she was nearly to Aldersgate. Then the bells tolled and it shredded away like mist, leaving her exposed. Lune fled the city as if the Wild Hunt were at her heels.
She fled north, without pausing to consider her course, and arrived panting at the rosebush behind the Angel Inn.
What she would tell them, she did not know. But she cried out until the doorway revealed itself, then threw herself down the steps to the room below.
Both of the Goodemeades were there, Rosamund catching her as she came through. “My lady,” the brownie said in surprise, then looked up at her face. All at once her expression changed; the concern stayed, but steely determination rose up behind it. “Gertrude,” she said, and the other brownie moved.
At a gesture, the rushes and strewing herbs covering the floor whisked away into tidy piles, revealing the worn wooden boards beneath. Then these groaned and flexed aside, and where they parted Lune saw more stairs, with lights blooming into life below. She had no chance to ask questions, and no mind to frame them; the hobs hurried her through this secret door, and the boards grew shut behind them.
The room below held two comfortable beds and a hearth now flickering with fire, but no other inhabitants. Rosamund led her to one bed and got her to sit, putting Lune at eye level with the little brownie. Her face still showed concern, and determination, and a sharp-eyed curiosity that was new.
“Now, dear,” she said in a gentle voice, holding Lune’s hands, “what has happened?”
Lune drew in a ragged, shuddering breath. She hadn’t thought about what to say, what story she would offer them to explain her distracted state; too much had happened, Invidiana, the seer, Michael. All her wary instincts failed. “Tiresias is dead.”
Soft gasps greeted her statement. “How?” Rosamund whispered. Her plump fingers trembled in Lune’s. “Who killed him?”
Lune could not suppress a wild, short laugh. “He did. He knew it would mean his death, yet still he spoke.”
The sisters exchanged startled, sorrowful looks. Tears brimmed in Gertrude’s eyes, and she pressed one hand to her heart. “Ah, poor Francis.”
“What?” Lune snatched her hands from Rosamund’s, staring at Gertrude. “You knew who he was?”
“Aye.” Gertrude answered her, while Rosamund pressed one kind hand against Lune’s shoulder, to keep her from rising. “We knew. Francis Merriman… we remember when he bore that name, though precious few others do. And if he died as you say…”
Rosamund finished her sentence. “Then he has betrayed her at last.”
The brownie did not have to try hard to keep Lune in place; her knees felt like water, trembling from her headlong flight, with Deven’s oath and the tolling of the bells still reverberating in her bones. Lune dug her fingers into the embroidered coverlet. “-How—”
“The jewel,” Rosamund said. “The one she wears on her bodice. We’ve suspected for ages that she laid it on him, not to speak of certain things, on pain of death. ’Twas the only explanation we could find for his silence. And we could not ask him to speak — not when it would carry such a price.”
Lune remembered the six points of blood appearing on his brow, where the claws of the jewel had touched. Never before had she seen its power strike home.
She swallowed down the sickness in her throat. She had asked him to speak. Forced him.
“Lass,” Gertrude said, coming forward to lay a hand on Lune’s other shoulder, so she was hemmed in by both sisters. “I would not question you, so soon after his death, but we must know. What did he say?”
His blazing, lucid eyes swam in her vision. Lune shivered, feeling suddenly closed in; the brownies let her go when she tried to rise, and she went toward the hearth, as if its flames could warm the cold spot in the pit of her stomach. “He told me to break her power. That she… that she had formed some kind of pact. And that it was harming everyone, both mortal and fae.”
She did not see the sisters exchange a glance behind her back, but she felt it. Standing in the hidden room beneath their home, Lune’s sense finally gathered itself enough for her to wonder. The Goodemeades helped those in need — that was why she had come to them — but otherwise they stayed out of the politics of the Onyx Court. Everyone knew that.
Everyone who had not heard their questions, had not seen the alert curiosity in Rosamund’s eyes.
They paid more attention than anyone credited.
“This pact,” Rosamund said from behind Lune. “What did he tell you about it?”
Lune shivered again, remembering his hoarse voice, desperately grinding out words through the pain that racked him. “Very little. He… he could barely speak. And it struck him down, the — the jewel did — before he could tell me all. She misinterpreted some vision of his.” Hands wrapped tightly around her elbows, she turned and faced the Goodemeade sisters. “What vision?”
Gertrude shook her head. “We do not know. He never spoke of it to us.”
“But this pact,” Lune said, looking from Gertrude to Rosamund. Their round, friendly faces were unwontedly solemn, but also wise. “You know of that, don’t you?” The sisters exchanged glances again, a silent and swift communication. “Tell me.”
A flicker of wings burst into the room before they could speak. Lune twitched violently at the motion; her nerves were frayed beyond endurance, and the fear-inspired energy that drove her this far had faded. But the little brown bird settled on Gertrude’s hand, flirting its reddish tail, and she saw it was merely a nightingale — not even a fae in changed form.
But it must have been touched by fae magic, for it chirped energetically enough, and the brownies both nodded as if they understood. They asked questions of it, too, questions that stirred more fear in Lune’s heart — “Who?” and “How many?” and “How long before they arrive?”
And then, after another burst of birdsong, “Tell us what he looks like.”