Midnight Never Come (22 page)

She hated every heartbeat of it.

But hatred was good; anger was good. They gave her the energy to keep fighting, when otherwise she would have given up.

She would not let her enemies defeat her like this.

Lune slipped barefoot out of the chamber, down a passageway that looked all but disused, lifting the ragged hem of her skirts so they would not leave traces in the dust. Until she began her rat’s life, she had never realized how many forgotten corners the palace held. It was enormous, far larger than any mortal residence, and if it served the function of both hall and city to the fae that dwelt therein, still it was more than large enough for their needs.

Up a narrow staircase and through a door formed of interwoven hazel branches, and she was safe — as safe as she could get. No one seemed to know of this neglected chamber, which meant she had already bypassed one part of Invidiana’s sentence upon her, that she be dependent on others for a place to lay her head. This place was hers alone.

But someone else had found it.

Lune’s body froze, torn between fight and flight, assuming on the instant that it was Vidar. Or Dame Halgresta. Or one of their servants. Her hands flexed into claws, as if that would be of any use, and her bare feet set themselves against the dusty floor, ready to leap in any direction.

She saw no one. But someone was there.

Lune knew she should run. That was life these days; that was how she survived. But the chamber’s scant furnishings, some of them scavenged from elsewhere in the palace, could not possibly be concealing the tall, heavy form of the Captain of the Onyx Guard, and if it were just some goblin minion . . .

She should still run. Lune was no warrior.

Instead she moved forward, one noiseless step at a time.

No one crouched behind the narrow bed, with its mattress stuffed with straw. No one stood in the shadow of a tall mirror that had been there when Lune found the room, its crystalline surface so cracked and mazed that nothing could be seen in its depths. No one waited between the cobwebbed, faded tapestries and the stone walls.

She paused, listening, and heard nothing. And yet . . .

Guided by instinct, Lune knelt and looked into the space beneath the bed.

Tiresias’s face stared back at her, pale and streaked with tears.

Lune sighed in disgust. Her tension did not vanish entirely, but a good deal of it evaporated; she had never once seen the madman attack anyone. And he did not look like he was spying; he looked like he was hiding.

“Come out from under there,” she growled. How had he fit? Small as he was, she never would have expected the seer could curl up in that narrow space. He shook his head at her words, but the violation of even this tenuous sanctuary angered Lune; she reached under the bed and dragged him out bodily. Invidiana was unlikely to execute her simply for manhandling one of her pets.

Emerging into the dim light, Tiresias gave her a twisted smile that might have been meant to be bright. “Not everything is found so easily,” he said gravely. “But if one’s cause is good . . . you might do it.”

“Get out,” Lune spat. She barely restrained herself from striking him, venting the anger she dared not release on anyone else in the Onyx Hall. “You are one of
her
pets,
her
tools. For all I know, she sent you to me — and anything you say might be a trap she has laid. Everything is a trap, with her.”

He nodded, as if she had said something deeply wise. “One trap begets another.” Hiding under the bed had sent his hair into disarray, strands tangling with the tips of his eyelashes, twitching when he blinked. “Would you like to break the traps? All of them?”

Lune laughed bitterly, retreating from him. “Oh, no. I will not hear you. One deranged, pointless quest is enough — or would this be the same one? Will you tell me again to seek Francis Merriman?”

Tiresias had begun to turn toward the door, as if to wander off mid-conversation, but his motion arrested when she said that, and he pivoted back to face her. “Have you found him?”

“Have I found him,” she repeated, flat and unamused. “No. I have not. He is no one at the mortal court — no gentleman or lord, no wealthy merchant, no officer serving in any capacity. He is not a poet or playwright or painter in the city, nor a prisoner in the Tower. If he lives in some future time that you have foreseen, then I doubt me I will be here to see him come, unless my fortune changes a great deal for the better. If he lives now, then he is no one of any note, and I have no reason to seek him.” She glared at him, full of fury, as if all her fall in station were his fault. It was not, but she could and did blame him for how long she had spent chasing a vain, false hope. “I believe you invented Francis Merriman, out of your own mad fancies.”

“Perhaps I did.” It came out unutterably weary, heavy with resignation. He glanced down, his delicate shoulders slumping under a familiar weight of pain. “Perhaps only Tiresias is real.”

The words stole the breath from her body. Anger died without warning, as his meaning became clear. “You,” Lune whispered, staring at him. “
You
are Francis Merriman.”

His eyes held lifetimes of wistful sadness. “Long ago. I think.”

Invidiana’s pets, with their classical names, each one collected for a special talent. Lune had given little thought to where they came from, who they were before they fell into the shadows of the Onyx Court. And how long had Tiresias been there? After so many years, who would bother to recall Francis Merriman?

Except him. And not always then. “Why?” Lune asked, hands lifting in wordless confusion. “You scarcely even remember who you were. What changing tide brought you to speak that name again?”

He shook his head, hair falling forward like a curtain too short for him to hide behind. “I do not know.”

“’Twas in my chamber,” Lune said, remembering. “I was considering my situation. I asked myself how I might better my standing in the Onyx Court — and then you spoke. Do you remember?”

“No.” A tear glimmered at the edge of his sapphire eye.

A swift step brought her close; she took him by the arms and shook him once, restraining the urge to violence. Could she have avoided her downfall, had she seen what lay under her very eyes? “Yes, you
do.
Madman you may be, but ’twas no accident you said those words. You said you knew what she did. Who?”

“I cannot.” His breath caught raggedly in his throat, and he twisted in her grip. “I cannot. If I —” He shook his head, convulsively. “Do not ask me. Do not make me do this!”

He tore himself free and stumbled away, catching himself against the wall. Lune studied his back for a moment, noting in pitiless detail the trembling of his slender shoulders, the whiteness of his fingers where they pressed against the stone. He feared something, yes. But her
life
hung in the balance; she could not stay ahead of her enemies forever.

If the price of her survival was forcing him to speak, then she would not hesitate.

“Francis Merriman,” she said, enunciating the name with soft precision. “Tell me.”

The name stiffened his whole body. He might have done anything in that moment; Lune tensed, wondering if he would strike her. Instead he whispered, almost too faint to hear, “Forgive me, Suspiria. Forgive me. ’Tis all I can do for you now. Forgive me . . .”

His voice trailed off. Francis Merriman lifted his head and turned back to face her, and Lune saw the transcendent effort of his will push back the fogs and shadows of untold years among the fae, leaving his eyes drawn and strained, but clear. The resulting lucidity, the determination, frightened her more than his madness ever had.

With a deliberate motion, he reached out and gripped Lune’s arms, fingertips digging into the thin tissue of her sleeves.

“Someone must do it,” he said. “I have known that for years. You have asked, and you have little left to lose; therefore I lay it upon you. You must break her power.”

Lune wet her lips, willing herself not to look away. “Whose power?”

“Invidiana’s.”

The instant he spoke the name, a paroxysm snapped his head back, and his hands clenched painfully on Lune’s arms. She cried out and reached for him, thinking he would collapse, but he kept his feet and brought his head down again. Six points of red had blossomed in a ring on his brow, flowers of blood, and they poured forth crimson ribbons as he spoke rapidly on, through gritted teeth. “I saw, but did not
understand
— and neither did she. ’Tis my fault she formed that pact, and we have all suffered for it, fae and mortals alike. You must break it. ’Twas not right. She is still c —”

The words rasped out of him, ever wilder and more strained, until the only thing keeping him on his feet was their mutual grip and the splintering remnants of his will. Now his voice died in an agonized cry, and his legs gave way. He slipped free of Lune’s hands and crumpled bonelessly to the floor, his face a mask of blood.

The only sound in the room was the pounding of Lune’s heart, and the ragged gasping of her own breath as she stared down at him.

I cannot,
he had said, when she demanded he speak.
If I —

If I do, I will die.

Lune remembered where she was. In a chamber of the Onyx Hall, with the Queen’s mad seer lying bloody and dead at her feet.

She ran.

M
ORTLAKE AND
L
ONDON
:
April 25, 1590

A man might not be thought strange if he took an early supper before riding the eight miles back to London, nor if he spoke cheerfully of his purpose in coming to Mortlake. Deven’s observations on his way in were true; though some in the village were suspicious of Dee’s conjurations, casual chatter over his food revealed that the astrologer often served as a mediator in local problems, settling disputes and offering advice.

Deven was not sure what to think.

The delay meant a late start back to London, though, and full dark came well before he reached the Southwark end of London Bridge. The bankside town offered many inns, but without a manservant it would be irritating, and Deven was in no mood to stop yet; his mind was too full of thoughts. Though the great bell at Bow had long since rung curfew, he bought his way through the Great Gate House that guarded the bridge, trading on his coin and his status as a gentleman and a Gentleman Pensioner.

Dee could not have murdered Walsingham by black magic. Deven simply did not believe it. But did that mean that Walsingham had died of purely natural causes, as Beale insisted, or merely that Deven had pinned his suspicions on the wrong man? The astrologer might still be the hidden player, without being a murderer. Was he working with Anne, or not? And if so, how much stock — if any — should Deven put in the man’s predictions?

He thought he was keeping at least marginally alert for movement around him. Cloak Lane was deserted, empty of others who like him were braving the curfew, but there might be footpads; alone, without a manservant, Deven had no intention of being taken by surprise.

Yet he was, when a figure stumbled abruptly out of the blackness of a narrow alley.

The bay horse reared, as surprised as his rider, and Deven fought to control the beast with one hand while reaching for his sword with the other. Steel leapt free, his gelding’s hooves thudded into the unpaved street, and he raised his blade in readiness to strike —

— then the figure lifted its face, and Deven recognized her.

“Anne.”

She shied back from him, hands raised as if to defend herself. The sword was still in his hand. Deven scanned Cloak Lane quickly, but saw no one else.

Dee had spoken of enemies and conflict.

He had said that death would send Anne into his path again.

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.

T
HE
A
NGEL
I
NN
, I
SLINGTON
:
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.