Chapter Twelve

After the kiss, which lasted only two-thirds of a heartbeat—enchantment is powerful but in so many ways society is more powerful still—Miss Caesar and Mr. Bygrave returned immediately to their senses. He straightened his jacket and she moved to straighten her dress, though no mortal power was capable of disarranging so marvellous a garment.

Unable to justify any further dalliance, Mr. Bygrave made good his promise to escort Miss Caesar back home, not realising until after he had parted from her that his gloves had been cut when his fingertips brushed the glass roses, and that blood was now seeping through the fine cloth.

When Miss Caesar had returned to the bosom of her family, it was to less admonition than she had received last time. While her parents and brother had been concerned for her well-being, the conclusion that there was nothing they could do until the transformation and all of its attendant consequences were reversed had kept them from excessive panic.

Still, a tension remained in the household. The elder Mr. Caesar spent longer at his correspondence, Lady Mary longer at her meetings, and Mr. Caesar longer visiting the Folly. Only Miss Anne was without means of escape from the realities of family life, and even she grew more given to lurking in her bedchamber.

Those members of the family who were directly involved in the plan against the Lady had eventually selected Lady Etheridge's forthcoming ball as the best opportunity for striking at their enemy. It had the advantage of proximity, being the next event on the calendar, and also of being one to which the Caesars would actually be invited. Not only was Lady Etheridge of too low rank to risk insulting the Earl of Elmsley by excluding his grandchildren, but she was at any rate a friend of the abolition and so held fewer objections to Lady Mary's choice of husband than many in the ton.

It was during my observations of Mr. Caesar's (and Miss Bickle's, since she had found herself with rather a central role in proceedings) planning sessions alongside his new associates that I discovered quite how much at odds the Lady's schemes and my own could wind up being. One of the first difficulties our intrepid band would need to overcome was their quarry's ability, common to all my people, to vanish from sight and slip our mortal guises at will. And it was through their discussions around this matter that I learned that Barryson possessed, or at least believed himself to possess, the knowledge of seeing-runes.

"The thing with elves," he explained to the assembly, the night before the plan was to be executed, "is that they think they're smarter than we are."

In our defence, we are. And in case you are concerned, reader, elf is also an acceptable term for our kind and is considered pejorative only if used in conjunction with the words Santa or Keebler (the history behind that last sponsorship agreement is long, sordid, and leaves neither of our species looking our best selves).

"She'll not expect us to be able to see her," he continued, "but the ones making the grab, they'll have runes painted on their eyes to show them hidden things. Which might take some getting used to, but I'll do it early."

Miss Bickle, whose father did not know where she was but was too wrapped up in poetry to care, squealed delightedly. "Oh do. I should so love to be shown hidden things."

"Not you," Barryson clarified. "She'll know if you can see her, and the runes are obvious. Means you're not getting them either." He nodded to Mr. Caesar and the captain. "Can't go to a ball with paint on your eyes."

Mr. Caesar gave an easy smile. "That rather depends on the ball."

"There's a ball John refuses to take me to," Miss Bickle explained, "where apparently gentlemen do that sort of thing all the time. "

"Which is why you're not coming," confirmed Mr. Caesar, lapsing briefly back into the elder-brotherly tone that he otherwise shed around the Irregulars. "It's called the Gentleman's Ball for a reason."

Captain James frowned into his beer. "I don't like going in blind. If she can vanish on us, I should be able to see her."

At the other end of the table, Kumar had been making notes and drawing diagrams, but he looked up now. "Barryson's right. We need you on the inside. You'll have to rely on the rest of us for the catch."

Within the strict camaraderie of the regiment, rely on the rest of us had almost the power of a magical incantation, and the captain accepted it with good grace.

Miss Bickle, however, was not so easily put off. "Well, it seems very unfair to me that I should play so central a part in the scheme yet get to see no wonders as a consequence."

"Now, now." Sal laid a hand on the back of Miss Bickle's chair. He was a soldier today, a fact that Miss Bickle had not let pass her by. "I've offered to show you wonders and you've refused."

"I did not refuse," she protested, "I had refusal thrust upon me."

Mr. Caesar continued to do his very best to look severe. "It's bad enough that you're here, Lizzie; it would be unforgivably remiss of me if I were to allow you to be despoiled by a common infantryman while you were under my protection."

"But I should so like to be at least a little despoiled," replied Miss Bickle.

"And," Jackson added, "Sal is no common infantryman."

"I am," offered Callaghan helpfully. "Common as dirt. Though the wife has made it very clear my despoiling days are over."

What little authority Mr. Caesar had, he was sure, was fast slipping away. "Nobody is despoiling Lizzie. Nobody is painting anything on Lizzie's eyes. And anybody who gives her any ideas to the contrary will live with the consequences."

Moving silent as a pike through a lake, Jackson came to Mr. Caesar's side. "What consequences might those be?" he asked with the low menace of a man used to the law of eat-or-be-eaten.

"I'm sure you could paint something on my eyes," Miss Bickle mused. "It's far more acceptable for ladies, you know, and I might even start a trend. And think what a coup that would be. You could abandon soldiering entirely and launch a line of ladieswear."

Mr. Caesar nodded illustratively. " Those consequences. Nobody should ever give Lizzie ideas. She has far too many of her own already."

The night of the ball arrived and, with it, the Lady in her silver carriage. I had been wondering if, or perhaps hoping that, she would choose to miss this particular event. Since Miss Caesar had been invited to the dance already an escort to it would be less likely to engender gratitude and thus would play less into the purposes of a fairy abductor. But consistency was a virtue also, and while none of my kind are virtuous as you mortals understand, we make play of it from time to time in order that we might earn your trust.

Except for me. My virtues are entirely genuine.

Miss Caesar, therefore, proceeded in the Lady's conveyance while Mr. Caesar, Miss Bickle, and Miss Anne proceeded in theirs. Or rather, in the Earl of Elmsley's—Nancy was a skilled young woman, but the role of coachman was beyond her and at any rate the Caesars could not afford to keep their own carriage or horses.

Wishing, on this day, to avoid the society of the Lady, partly out of a desire not to interfere in a scheme that might see her brought low, and partly out of a more general social distaste, I rode with the mortal party. In the shape of a spider, I clung to a corner of the carriage, and huddled.

"Why so glum, Anne?" asked Miss Bickle, who had chosen that evening to dress in the manner of a milkmaid, complete with a pail that nobody could dissuade her from carrying. It was, of course, a choice considered gauche in the eyes of the ton, but Miss Bickle's inordinate wealth made her gaucheness surprisingly forgivable.

Miss Anne was gazing forlornly out of the window, wearing a look of tragedy that only a conventionally pretty fourteen-year-old could properly execute. "Mr. Bygrave has quite lost interest in me," she explained. "He has eyes only for Mary now."

"Well …" Miss Bickle showed every sign of considering her words carefully, which she did from time to time—it was one of her less appealing qualities. "She is the elder. And you are both young enough that there will be plenty more—"

"There will not be plenty more," Miss Anne complained, "because I am quite sure Mary will take away any gentleman who shows the slightest interest in me."

"Mary is …" If anything, Mr. Caesar was choosing his words yet more carefully than Miss Bickle. "She is going through a lot right now. Coming out was difficult for her and it is only natural that all this"—he waved a hand—"magical intervention has gone to her head a little."

For some unfathomable reason, Miss Anne was not in a mood to show empathy for her older sister. "It is unfair."

"Yes," agreed Mr. Caesar. "It is. But it was also unfair that gentlemen used to slight her in favour of you."

"That's different," replied Miss Anne with typical consistency.

Mr. Caesar arched a practised eyebrow. "How?"

To which Miss Anne was able to answer only: "It just is."

With which eloquence they arrived at the London home of Lady Etheridge to find the ball already in full swing, and already to some extent disrupted by the appearance of the Lady and her exquisite creation.

Lady Etheridge was many, many steps further down the curiously fine-grained social hierarchy of the day than the Earl of Semweir and her ball was consequently less lavish. The candles were fewer and slightly cheaper, the guests were of a lesser pedigree, and the floor of the ballroom wasn't chalked. Still, it remained a fine enough occasion for those who attended, and all the finer for its having, at its centre, the remarkable creature of glass.

The dancing was already under way when Mr. Caesar, Miss Bickle, and Miss Anne entered, and the relative anonymity this afforded them suited Mr. Caesar's purpose, if not that of his sister. Miss Bickle it at least afforded an opportunity to put down her milk-pail without attracting undue comment. The three of them settled discreetly into a corner, Miss Bickle and Miss Anne looking available, Mr. Caesar looking watchful, and the three of them waiting to be approached by appropriate suitors.

Their first visitor was not a suitor at all—at least not for the ladies—but Captain James. He sidled up to the group making, I thought, excellent accommodation for the Lady's preternatural hearing and murmured to Mr. Caesar without looking directly at him that things were in motion and people were in place. From there Mr. Caesar made a polite observation about the quality of the dancing and moved over to relay the same information to Miss Bickle, who dutifully took up her milk-pail and awaited further instructions.

"I really, really don't think you will need that," Mr. Caesar told her.

"Perhaps I shall not," she conceded. "But I see no harm in its presence. And maybe a little milk will distract"—she cast a meaningful glance in the direction of the Lady, who was still watching her protégé with the smug air of one watching a plan unfold to perfection—"in the event that she attempts to make off with me."

Knowing better than to attempt to dissuade his friend from a course of action already decided, Mr. Caesar let the matter rest and turned his attention to the young officer approaching his sister. The flesh-and-blood sister, that is.

He was tall, fair-haired, and handsome in a way only a certain kind of man can be. His eyes were a piercing blue and his cheekbones were so high and sharp that other men could have shaved with them. Had I not been able to hear the disgusting workings of his biological organs as they pumped his blood and mulched his dinner, I might almost have thought he came from my own land. By his side walked Lady Etheridge, whose duty as hostess was to make certain that nobody spoke to anybody to whom they had not been formally introduced.

"Miss Anne," she said with the light grace of the perennial hostess, "might I introduce you to Lieutenant Reyne."

He gave a low bow. "It seems wrong so fine a young woman should stand alone while others dance. May I have your hand for the next set?"

"I would be delighted," Miss Anne replied.

"Then I shall return when the couples change." His tone was soft when he spoke, and his smile winning. And while Mr. Caesar took note of him—for reason of his sister, I should say, not for any other reason that he might sometimes take note of soldiers—I personally was rapidly losing interest. It took an especially mortal kind of banality to think that the question of who a particular lady danced with mattered in any way, to anybody.

Besides, I had an ambush to watch.

The Irregulars had taken up positions in the garden square across the road from Lady Etheridge's fashionable residence. Jackson, dressed as a reasonable facsimile of a society gentleman, walked alongside Sal, dressed as a reasonable facsimile of a society lady, around the perimeter of the garden while Barryson lounged beneath a tree, Kumar lurked in the branches above him, and Boy William, looking deeply uncomfortable in borrowed livery, ran back and forth across the garden in the guise of a page.

Adopting the appropriately ominous form of a raven, I swooped low over the garden and took up a position in a different tree. I took this approach because I wished to know two things—how effective Barryson's seeing-runes would prove to be, and how adept the Irregulars would be at concealing their efficacy, should it become necessary.

The answers, it seemed, were "extremely" and "it varied distinctly." Boy William, with the poor impulse control of his limited years, stared at me quite openly and gawped like a guppy. At the other extreme, Sal and Jackson showed no sign of noting me at all.

"Not her," Barryson called up to Kumar, who I was a little disquieted to note had already trained his musket on me. "In fact," he mused partly to himself, "I reckon this is the one as has been watching us a while."

I cawed a noncommittal caw back.

The various soldiers settled into their positions and their roles, while inside the dancers continued to whirl away the evening or, quite frequently—given the kinds of dance that were fashionable in the day—walk-up-and-down-in-straight-lines away their evening.

Eventually, having decided that the time was right for her to take on her new role as bait, Miss Bickle emerged from the house, still carrying her milk-pail, and went waltzing through the garden as though she had no idea where she was or what was going on. Which may well have been true.

The plan, such as it was, had the virtue of simplicity and the vice of relying entirely on the Lady drifting away from the ball at the promise of an innocent debutante and a drink of milk. To the great good fortune of the planners, our kind are indeed selfish, opportunistic, and easily distracted.

The Lady descended from the house in a shimmer of pale blue and silver. Birdsong followed in her wake and the stars above shone just that little bit brighter to illuminate her. She swept into the garden trailing fairy dust and walked all smiles and secret offerings towards Miss Bickle, who was still staring fixedly at the sky, as though renaming constellations.

"Are you lost, child?" asked the Lady.

Whether from supreme art or genuine distraction, it took Miss Bickle a moment to acknowledge the Lady's presence. "Oh no, I'm just enjoying the evening. And I'm not a child, I'm almost twenty."

And the Lady laughed like bells. "All your people are children to my people. Tell me, she of the almost twenty years and the enjoyable evening, do you know what I am?"

Miss Bickle nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. You're a fairy. And I have so longed to meet a fairy. I have told all of my friends that what I long for more than anything in the world is to meet a fairy."

"Then"—the Lady's smile was every cat and every shark and every lie all folded together—"I am glad to have granted your wish. And quite without cost."

The thought of having had a wish granted by a fairy, even as part of an elaborate scheme to ensnare said fairy in a yellow cord, was sincerely delightful to Miss Bickle, and she beamed like a saint or a fool. "Would you like some milk?"

It was the milk, perhaps, that made the Lady wonder if she had been anticipated. The milk and the dawning awareness that the other inhabitants of the park were watching more warily than mortals should.

"Perhaps," the Lady suggested, "you would like to take my hand. I can show you remarkable things, child. If you trust me."

I have spoken often about the good credit that Miss Bickle's tendency to think well of my people does her, and so it was with grudging approval that I watched her hold out her hand to let the Lady take her away to an unknown but marvellous fate.

She didn't quite make contact before Jackson and Sal, as casually as if they had been any couple out for a walk, sauntered over to intervene.

"A fine night," Jackson observed in an accent that was not his own. Not that the one he usually spoke in was his own either.

"Very fine," Miss Bickle agreed, snatching her hand back at the last second and bobbing a curtsey. "This lady was just about to take me somewhere extremely interesting."

Jackson nodded. "How generous of her. Tell me, is the invitation an open one, or was there something about this girl that caught your eye in particular?"

"It's the milk," Miss Bickle explained.

"It is not the milk," the Lady replied.

While this exchange was taking place, Mr. Caesar and the captain were just entering the square from the house-side, and Sal was sidling around in the other direction, her hands straying to her skirts where a long yellow ribbon was artfully concealed.

My kind are swift in our actions, and attacking us relies on swift execution and precise timing. Timing that the Irregulars almost missed. But right on cue, Kumar lined up his shot, and fired.

The musket-ball caught the Lady in the temple, a shot that would have been fatal to any mortal and even to a creature of the Other Court was a distraction and an impediment. Her blood, a deep indigo blue like a spilled inkwell, trickled down the side of her face, arcing across her cheekbones and staining her lips.

Being shot in the head threw the Lady off for just long enough that the captain could advance upon her, sword drawn, Barryson could begin whatever incantations he felt would be helpful in this situation, and Sal could position herself for the complex operation of binding a resisting supernatural being at the throat and wrists with a single length of cord not at all designed for the purpose.

It was not, however, long enough that the Lady was unable to shift to a space orthogonal to the garden and conceal herself, or so she thought, from mortal sight.

The captain could see nothing any longer, but if the Lady had thought herself safe from the other Irregulars she was to be proven quite, quite wrong. Unfortunately if the Irregulars thought themselves to have an insurmountable advantage they were quite, quite wronger.

From his position in the tree, Kumar was in no place to take a safe shot with Miss Bickle and the others so close, while Barryson's words of binding, chanted as he walked widdershins around the melee, were proving similarly ineffective. Jackson's sword, meanwhile, came alive in his hands, twisted out of his grip, and levelled against his throat. All around the square, faces were appearing in windows, and from the door of Lady Etheridge's residence, guests were beginning to spill outside to investigate the commotion.

Choosing her moment, Sal extended a length of ribbon between her hands like a garrotte and moved forwards with impressive swiftness, for a mortal.

Between the ribbon taking hold and whatever sorcery Barryson was weaving, the Lady dropped back into visibility. Her animation of other people's swords, however, remained resolutely intact.

Keeping his grip on his own weapon, Captain James did his best to neutralise Jackson's but found it a losing endeavour since a blade moving under its own power had nothing to incapacitate. Still, repeated strikes against the metal sufficed to keep it distracted long enough for Jackson himself to join Sal and a finally emergent Boy William in piling onto the Lady in the hopes of restraining her long enough to tie her hands as well as her throat.

I, in this situation, would have been shape-shifting. But the Lady was not that sort. She travelled as a fair woman in blue, or as light, and nothing else. And the light option was curtailed by the band at her throat.

Steadfastly neutral in the conflict as I was—I ordinarily favour my own over mortals, but Titania's court is an enemy of my master and thus an enemy to me also—I watched through the dispassionate eyes of a carrion bird and judged this particular conflict to be a win for humanity. Unprepared for runecraft, overly reliant on enchantments, and with a ball of lead still lodged somewhere where, had she been mortal, her brain would have been, the Lady had a number of disadvantages any one of which could have proved critical.

Of course, she had also a single, crucial trump card.

Miss Caesar broke free from the ever-expanding crowd of onlookers and raced past both her brother and the captain in an effort to pry the other Irregulars from her patroness. Although she was beyond biological limitations, her new body had been built for beauty rather than strength, and so her capacity to overpower was limited. But glass had its own dangers, and the leaves that wound through her hair cut deep into Jackson and Boy William as they tried to pull her away. And for a moment I quite lost track of the combatants in a mess of blue and yellow and blood and mirrors and—

"Mary." Mr. Caesar tried to address his sister with a tone of command, but he lacked his father's gravitas. He was also deeply conscious that he had, despite the warnings, come out wearing a cravat. "Step away and let us finish this."

In the tangle of limbs and multicoloured bloods, Sal managed to tie one of the Lady's wrists to her throat, restricting her enough that Jackson's sword fell lifeless to the floor and Mr. Caesar's imminent fears for his airway were at least somewhat abated.

"There is nothing to finish," Miss Caesar pleaded. "Except this terrible scene that you and your new friends are making in front of half the ton."

Materialising like an unwelcome spirit, Mr. Ellersley drifted to the front of the crowd. "This is more than a scene," he said, and Mr. Caesar had the unwelcome impression that he was saying it to a very general audience. "This is a criminal disturbance."

Whether from a distaste for civilian interruption or lingering resentment from earlier run-ins, Captain James glared at the newcomer. "Don't recall asking you."

Her strength recovering rapidly and the new presence of Miss Caesar vastly restricting the Irregulars' capacity for violence, the Lady shook Sal off at last, though ritual and old compacts forbade her from unbinding herself. "My protégé did not ask your assistance either," she pointed out, her voice just a fraction weaker and more mortal than it was when she was untied. "Yet you interfered."

"Respectfully," the captain told her, "shut up."

With a decorous cough, the Lady expectorated the musket ball into her palm, spattering it with bright blue blood drops. Then she turned to Miss Caesar. "Be a dear," she said, "and untie these."

While the literal undoing of all their hard work was the source of some concern for Mr. Caesar, his attention was caught by something differently disturbing. Fine cracks spiderwebbed up from his sister's ankles and midway up her calves, visible through and in the strange fabric of her dress. "Mary," he said again, but more gently now, "you are not well."

One knot undone, Mary turned. "I shall be the judge of whether I am well, John. You are my brother, not my keeper."

"Let us stop this. " Far from authoritative, Mr. Caesar's tone was imploring now. He had not, perhaps, quite understood until now how close he was to losing one of his sisters.

Paying him no mind, Miss Caesar hooked her delicate glass fingernails into the knot at the Lady's throat and tugged the ribbon free.

Stepping back a little, although not, I couldn't help but notice, so far that she could be shot without risk of hitting Miss Caesar, the Lady gave a satisfied nod. "Well, hasn't this been a wonderful evening. I believe it is best that I bid you all adieu."

And then, unbound, she did indeed become starlight. As did her carriage, her coachmen, and the last wisps of enchantment that had fallen over the evening, save those that still lingered within Miss Caesar.

For a moment, the glass girl stood staring at her brother and his companions, wearing an expression of rank betrayal. And then, before he or anybody else could make apology or explanation, she turned and fled weeping into the night.

And where her tears fell, they shattered.