Chapter Seventeen

The damnable thing, reader, about collecting stories from your miserable species is that you have no inherent sense of pacing, timing, drama, or irony. Try as my kind might to educate you better, you persist in making decisions based on trivialities like "convenience" and "comfort" and "survival" instead. I despair of you, I truly do.

Thus the Caesars and their sometime allies moved to a space of waiting. It was, I assume, a strategically wise decision, but from my perspective it was inestimably tedious. Then again, perhaps I am selling the interlude short. One cannot, after all, tell a tale that hurtles pell-mell from incident to incident without wearing one's reader to exhaustion.

So let us pause awhile and watch the Caesars as they spin on the threads of narrative and fate.

Mr. Caesar still spent much of his time at the Folly, although he (and, perhaps more pertinently, the captain) felt reasonably certain that he was there by election rather than evasion. A man cannot, however, change his entire nature after a single conversation, no matter how handsome and dashing one's interlocutor. Thus, he remained ever so slightly given to wallowing.

"Have I," he asked; it was not the first time he asked it, "been a terrible brother?"

"Probably," Callaghan told him. "The way my sister tells it, most brothers are."

Mr. Caesar gave him what he hoped was the friendly kind of sour look. "I'm not sure that's a comfort."

"It should be"—this was Barryson—"we're all in the same boat where sisters are concerned. Mine never forgave me for not going into the navy."

"Extremely keen to meet sailors?" asked Mr. Caesar.

"‘You're a Northman, Barry.'" Barryson's voice was distant and a little rueful. "‘You belong on a ship. And magic is woman's craft unless you're fucking Odin, and you're not fucking Odin.' I swear sometimes I think she wants me to sail up the Seine and burn Paris myself."

Not quite sure how to respond to that, Mr. Caesar gave a noncommittal nod. "It sounds like you have a complicated relationship."

"Heather's a complicated woman," explained Callaghan. "A fine woman, but complicated."

Still not entirely over himself, Mr. Caesar stared glumly into his drink and said nothing.

From across the bar, Kumar quietly closed his copy of De re publica and looked up. "I suspect our friend is suffering from a classical education."

"I probably am," Mr. Caesar conceded, "but I'm not sure I see the pertinence here."

"An English gentleman"—Kumar was leaning forwards now with an almost schoolroom air—"is taught to see himself in the style of the paterfamilias of old Rome. Everything in his household is his and reflects on his personal dignitas. Thus he must extend to each part of it his benevolent guidance, for the prosperity and honour of his least subordinate is his prosperity and honour."

Mr. Caesar was about to protest that he didn't see things that way at all, but it would have been hollow. Never especially attentive to his studies, he would not have used quite so many Latin words as Kumar had, but the sentiment spoke to something deep in the part of Mr. Caesar that was indeed an English gentleman, all while drawing sharp reproof from the part that was not. "When you put it like that, it sounds rather selfish."

"That's certainly one way to look at it"—Kumar inclined his head the merest fraction in acknowledgement—"and I'd never call my father a selfless man. I might only say that there are … advantages and disadvantages to his attentions."

Coming from a world where the space when the other man was speaking was the time to think about what you would say next, Mr. Caesar was not entirely sure how to ask Kumar what he meant without giving offence. Coming from a world where offence is an art form, I was delighted. I was somewhat less delighted when he settled on an artless but acceptable "Oh yes?"

"Few men are educated as we were," Kumar explained, "and that has given me opportunities many lack. But when last I returned home I found Latin came to me more easily than Hindi or Bangla. You worry about being unable to do right by your sisters, Mr. Caesar. I can barely speak to mine." As he had been taught, he kept his upper lip resolutely stiff. "Still, neither I nor my father will let them starve. In that regard we are good Englishmen."

Mr. Caesar's gaze drifted forlornly back to his drink. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry."

Grinning, Callaghan leaned in and put an arm around Mr. Caesar's shoulder. "You're not among the gentry anymore. Prying is encouraged."

"Encouraged by you, perhaps." Kumar shot Callaghan a stern look. "Some of us do like to show a touch more circumspection. But in this case"—he turned to Mr. Caesar—"there is no need for apology. I could have remained silent had I wished."

"Thank you then," Mr. Caesar tried. "For your perspective. All of you."

Barryson leaned forwards. "You want to thank us," he suggested, "mebbes get the next round of drinks in."

This much, at least, Mr. Caesar felt able to do. I followed him back to the bar where he ordered another of whatever everybody had just had, plus something for the barmaid and something for himself. And there he hovered awhile, wondering a hundred and seven different things all at once.

But, reader, I am not here to watch mortals wonder. Any contemplation Mr. Caesar wished to do in this moment he was more than welcome to do without my observation. Besides, I had other matters to attend to, for his sisters were both still players in this little drama, and it would have been remiss of me to go too long without checking in on them.

I returned, therefore, to the Caesar home where I slid into Miss Caesar's chamber and adopted the role of Ferdinand the puppy. There is, I should stress, nothing unusual about this. It is the kind of merry jape my people play all the time. It certainly bespeaks no undue partiality on my own account. It is no concern of mine if a young woman's choices lead her down a path of heartbreak. Certainly I am not in the business of comforting mortals. That would be beneath me.

I nuzzled against Miss Caesar's ankles, and she stooped to pick me up and, in stooping, saw that the cracks were, by now, stretching all the way to her knees.

She remained hard for me to read, being glass and light and hope wrapped in enchantment and the memories of a different girl, but in this I needed few of my ordinary senses to perceive her mood. She carried me to her bed and sat down.

"I feel nothing," she told me.

I ruff ed again.

"I think perhaps I should?" Carefully, she ran her fingertips over the spiderwebbing tracery of weakness that was spreading slowly but surely up her body. There was beauty in it still, as there is always beauty in destruction, but now she was looking, she could see how her every movement exacerbated the problem. Not, of course, by any great amount; infinitesimally, but observably.

She was not afraid. Fear is a product of biology, a wash of adrenaline secreted from little mounds of flesh that squat atop your kidneys and tell you that your horrible mortal bodies are worth preserving. When one of my kind takes an interest in one of yours, the capacity for that particular emotion is the first thing we look for ways to circumvent. Still, the new development was concerning to her, and she needed to think. Stretching herself out on the bed and holding as still as possible, she shut her eyes.

"I have not slept," she told me.

" Ruff. "

"I used to have such dreams. I would go to so many places and do so many things."

I curled up next to her. She was cold, which a mortal would have found strange but I found merely … atypical. " Ruff. "

"I suppose … I suppose I hoped I would not have to do them alone."

Having only one syllable with which to communicate and being prohibited by strict laws from actually advising her in any way, I ruff ed once more.

A glass tear slipped from her eye and fell, perfectly preserved, onto the sheets.

And then I sensed a movement in the air and although I was nowhere near the window, I was certain that a star had fallen. I rose to my feet and growled.

"Oh, don't be so dramatic, Ferdinand," said the Lady, rebuke in her voice and malice in her eye. Or perhaps it was the other way around. "It's only me."

Unable to make an intelligible reply, I left her free to address Miss Caesar at her leisure.

"Why do you weep, child?" she asked once more. "Have I not given you all you asked for?"

A properly brought-up young lady, Miss Caesar could not bring herself to receive a guest—even an unnatural guest—while supine. She sat up and swung herself into a sitting position, wincing slightly at the thought of what the motion was doing to her ankles. "You have," she admitted—never admit this, reader, it's the equivalent of saying sorry after a car accident. "But I find that I am"—she looked at her legs and hoped that the Lady would understand what she meant—"this was not what I expected."

"Beauty is fragile," the Lady replied. "Had you wished for strength, I would have given it to you."

"Then I wish for strength?" Miss Caesar tried.

And the Lady laughed. I have described her laughter many times before, but I shall do so again now. We are a laughing people. Everything you need know about us, you can learn from how we laugh, and when we laugh, and what we laugh at.

What I was hearing—what you would be hearing were you present, though you may trust that my words conjure the sensation quite precisely if you let them—was the ending laugh. A laugh like water just the moment it falls over the edge of the waterfall. A laugh like a flash flood. A laugh like moonlight on broken glass.

"My dear, wonderful child," she chided, "how many wishes do you think you get?"

With a defiance I could not help but admire, Miss Caesar looked up. "Three is traditional."

"From a different kind of spirit. My people will give you one gift, and what you make of it is up to you."

Miss Caesar stood, and though nothing had changed from the night before, or the night before that, the knowledge that she was falling inexorably into fragments weighed upon her. "I am not ungrateful. I am only learning that there are … limitations."

"Every gift is tied with a ribbon."

Looking down, Miss Caesar steeled herself. Or perhaps glassed herself. "Your gift seems slowly to be breaking me."

"That is the ribbon. And if you have no wish to climb mountains or swim oceans, you will not miss the strength of your limbs. The body I gave you is good enough for dancing."

As much as she might have wished to, Miss Caesar had not quite the courage to say that she did indeed wish to climb mountains and swim oceans, that she had not quite realised how badly she might wish to until the chance to was taken from her, or that while dancing was wonderful it was not all she wished to do for the rest of her days. But she began to weep again, sharp crystal tears scattering on the carpet where, had I been a real dog, they would doubtless have stuck in my paws.

Gliding closer to Miss Caesar, the Lady placed two fingers beneath her chin and tilted her face upwards. "Suppose," she said, "I were to bring you to another ball."

"You have brought me to enough balls, I think."

The Lady smiled. Worlds have died for that smile. "Only two. And you said yourself that three is the traditional number."

"Except for wishes."

"Except for wishes. And the ball I intend to bring you to will be one like none you have seen in your lifetime."

Miss Caesar tried hard not to sound tempted. "If you mean the ball for the queen's birthday, that was last month, and Maelys tells me it was dull."

"Your cousin does not know everything. And royal birthdays are not the only cause for royal balls. Nor are your rulers the only rulers."

There were a finite number of things that the Lady could have been implying, and I offered a helpful ruff to nudge Miss Caesar's thinking in the right direction.

"You are speaking of Titania," she concluded, "of the Other Court."

"It has been too long since there was a formal visitation from our rulers to yours. And at such a ball … who can say what manner of gentleman you may meet?"

Miss Caesar blinked. "I am satisfied with Mr. Bygrave, thank you."

"Your sister then."

In the intervening days, the Caesars had been brought at least mostly up to speed on the tiny matter of Miss Anne's new beau being a murderous devotee of a militaristic mystery cult. And while Miss Caesar had initially taken some pleasure in her fortunes outstripping those of her younger, more conventionally pretty sibling, the novelty of the victory had worn off some time ago. "What about my sister?"

"It could be arranged for her to catch the eye of a real prize. Of Prince William, perhaps?"

It was a peculiar suggestion, and not one that appealed to Miss Caesar's sensibilities, or that she expected to appeal to her sister's. "He is an old man recently separated from an actress. What could possibly attract Anne to him?"

"He will be king someday."

At this, Miss Caesar laughed. And touched as she was by my people, her laughter likewise spoke volumes. It was a laugh of victory misplaced. "You know little of our courts, I think. The prince regent will take his father's throne, and then if he has no son—which seems ever more likely—Charlotte will rule after he is gone."

The Lady shook her head. "Princess Charlotte will depart this world before her twenty-second year. There will be chaos for a while"—she smiled, as did I—"and then William will be king. And it would take little for Anne to be his queen."

"She is fourteen."

"But for a throne? There is no better way to secure the future of the family."

There were few young women in England—the England of the day, at least—who would not find the offer tempting. "There is no possible way you can promise such a thing."

It was an empty statement, and Miss Caesar knew it, and the Lady knew that she knew it. "‘Where the bolt of Cupid fell,'" the Lady quoted, and I yapped at her in protest—she knew exactly what she was doing, "‘it fell upon a little western flower. Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound.'"

With commendable pluck, Miss Caesar set her lips into an expression of firm displeasure. "Your proposition, then, is that you drug the prince regent's brother, causing him to fall for my sister in the hope that a sequence of improbable deaths will propel her to the throne?"

I ruff ed once more in approval.

"Improbable deaths happen all the time. And as for a drug … why do you scruple now at attracting a partner by magical means?"

The Lady, I have always felt, is incomparable in her role, but one must be so careful when one confronts mortals with their hypocrisy. They are strangely prone to take it ill. "What do you mean?" asked Miss Caesar, knowing full well the answer.

"‘Who that hath an heed of verre, fro cast of stones war her in the werre.'" It was a more acceptable quotation. And since the Caesars had made certain to educate their daughters appropriately, one that was understood. "At the very least you should, perhaps, give your sister the choice. It is, after all, not so very different from the one that you had yourself."

The Lady faded from mortal sight, and I growled at the place where, from Miss Caesar's perspective, she had lately stood.

Absently, she scratched me behind the ears. "Oh, Ferdy," she mused aloud, "whatever shall I do?"

I had no answer. I was not sure what answer I wanted to give.

In the immediate aftermath of the Lady's visit to Miss Caesar I had certain vital duties to attend to. Our kind are inveterate liars, but the bargains we offer are always exactly as stated and if the Lady announced a royal ball three days hence, then such a ball would occur irrespective of the wishes of any mortal agency. It would, I had no doubt, be held at Carlton House (or at least primarily in Carlton House; any event attended by the Queen of Moonlight would extend along at least six axes into realms otherworldly) and my master would expect to be informed.

So I informed him.

The wonder, glory, and honour of being in my master's presence was so great and so unspeakable that I shall not speak of it. Certain things are, after all, too sacred to be shared with mere humanity. My master, in this context, is very much a pearl and you, my gentle readers, are most certainly swine.

Fortunately the natural swiftness, sleeplessness, and efficacy of my people permitted me to resolve all of my courtly duties in the night that Miss Caesar was using to ponder her available options, and to return to the house in time for breakfast.

Matters that morning were subdued, for the family had adopted something of a siege mentality. Not an unexpected outcome, given that they were in many ways being besieged. Captain James had become a near-permanent resident at the house and the various members of the Irregulars visited, well, irregularly to keep him and the family informed of pertinent developments.

It was, therefore, into an already tense atmosphere that Miss Caesar introduced the news of the Lady's most recent offer.

"No," said the younger Mr. Caesar at once, his tone more fearful and less severe than I might have expected from him. Then he looked to his father for reassurance. "It is unconscionable, surely?"

The elder Mr. Caesar set down his fork. "You will be head of this household when I am gone, John, not before. Although I agree that this whole matter should be treated as suspect."

Miss Anne, who had calmed a little since accepting that her latest gentleman was a murderer, was beginning to backslide ever so slightly. "Well," she said, "I don't see that it's so very wrong for me to take advantage of the same powers Mary has been employing."

"I don't think it is necessarily an advantage," Lady Mary cautioned. "It seems like it might be—"

"A trap," finished Captain James, whose dashing-ness in the eyes of the Misses Caesar had been elevated by Miss Bickle's approval then subsequently dulled by familiarity. "You want my advice, miss, I'd not trust it far as you can spit."

"A lady," Miss Anne pointed out, "does not spit at all."

Captain James nodded. "Exactly."

Staring blankly into his coffee—now prepared in the English style, which was to say terribly—the younger Mr. Caesar was beginning to lose himself in the pursuit of unknowable contingencies. "But do we know what sort of trap it may be?"

While the company were affirming their ignorance, Miss Caesar looked down at her feet. "I think I may need to do something. "

The rest of her family followed her gaze. Having no idea what to do about her gradual fragmentation, they had thus far refrained from discussing it, although most of those present had observed the change by now.

"I am in no pain," she clarified, "but I am concerned that if I continue at this rate I may—I do not know what I may."

The elder Mr. Caesar turned his attention to the captain. "Would Mr. Barryson know anything about this?"

"No idea," the captain replied. And then, almost as an afterthought, "And he's not a mister; there are no gentlemen in the ranks."

The elder Mr. Caesar's lips curled into half a smile. "Such distinctions mean little in this house, and I prefer to treat men with respect until they prove unworthy of it."

Conscious that the conversation was taking a turn away from her control, and aware that if she did not speak now her courage might desert her entirely, Miss Caesar attempted to moisten her lips, realised that she had no saliva with which to do so, and then said, "I may also know a witch."

"You mean the woman you met after—" Lady Mary began, although she did not quite have the stomach to say your brother failed to bind the fairy that did this to you in the first place.

Miss Caesar nodded. "I am not sure if she can be trusted, but she has a house—near Covent Garden, I think—"

On hearing this Captain James turned his eyes skyward in frustration. "Fuck me, she went right past us."

This drew sharp responses of "language" from most of the family and a rejoinder of "It's a large city, she could have been anywhere" from the younger Mr. Caesar.

"She glows, John. Even in London a glowing girl stands out."

The elder Mr. Caesar, however, had other concerns. "When you say, Mary, that she has a house near Covent Garden."

"I believe it was a gaming hall of sorts?" Miss Caesar suggested. "Although she said also that it was a temple to Isis-Fortuna."

Lady Mary's eyes narrowed. "But not a temple to Venus. There are many temples to Venus in Covent Garden and they are not places a young girl should be wandering."

"Covent Garden after dark's no place for anyone to be wandering," the captain told her. "Chancers, bawds, thieves, and theatregoers. And the last lot's the worst."

Miss Caesar batted brittle lashes at the captain. "I am sure I would come to no harm if you were to accompany me."

Unbidden, a light glowed inside her and a music underlaid her voice.

"Hold now, miss." Captain James raised a hand. "I'll have none of your sorcery. But if your family's a mind I'll help you."

Lady Mary and Mr. Caesar exchanged glances. Theirs was not an especially traditional household, and given their own various histories they felt little compulsion to hold their daughters to the arbitrary diktats of the ton. But even they had some compunction about permitting their daughter to consult with a self-confessed witch.

"Is this wise?" asked Mr. Caesar.

"Or safe?" added his wife.

"Or seemly?" put in Miss Anne, who nobody had asked but who was beginning to feel that she had gone far too long without being addressed and sought to rectify that error by the most direct means possible.

Almost unconsciously, the younger Mr. Caesar reached for Captain James's hand. "I think," he said, "that we should probably risk it. We can consult with Barryson also, and anybody else who might have insight into the situation. I am in correspondence with one of the Galli, but she lives in Bath and word would reach her too late. Lady Georgiana has the ear of another witch, but the same problem applies."

Still not content with the response to her contributions thus far, Miss Anne decided to take a different tack. "And suppose I decide I do wish to be queen after all?"

The younger Mr. Caesar sighed. "Anne, have you seen Prince William? The man is nearly fifty."

"But a naval gentleman," Miss Anne persisted. "So I am sure he is very dashing."

"He has children who are older than you," added Lady Mary. "And before you say that would be companionable, I assure you it would not."

"And," added Mr. Caesar, increasingly determined to crush this line of reasoning in its infancy, "if the plan is truly to ensnare his affections with witchcraft, it would be profoundly wrong."

At the other end of the table there was a chime of glass as Miss Caesar clasped her hands together more sharply than she had intended. "That's another thing," she said, hesitantly. "I believe if Papa would accompany me, I may need to pay a visit this morning. To a friend."

The elder Mr. Caesar looked at his children in that planning way that parents sometimes do when they have a strong sense that what they think best will not be that which is best received. "Perhaps John should take you."

This suggestion was taken well by the younger Mr. Caesar, who saw it as a sign of faith in his stewardship, but poorly by his sister, who saw it the same.

"I think John would be quite unsuitable," Miss Caesar protested. "He is not—" But she got no further, because there really was very little he was not. At least very little he was not that was immediately pertinent.

"He is male," Lady Mary pointed out, "and a relative. Whatever disagreements there may be between you, you surely cannot deny he meets those criteria."

And indeed, she could not.

"I am glad you are convinced of my adequacy," Mr. Caesar replied, rather acidly. Which earned him a disapproving look from the captain and a reply of "barely" from his sister. All of which contributed to a beautiful atmosphere of tension when the little party set out visiting a few minutes later: Mr. Caesar, Miss Caesar, the captain, and my invisible self, promenading through the streets of London in an unconvincing facsimile of harmony.