The Realm of the Faerie

The Lord of the Faerie turned, his face breaking into a smile, and held out his arms. Noah ran into them, hugging the Lord of the Faerie tightly.

Jane watched, careful to keep her emotions from spilling forth onto her face. Ostensibly they’d been off to do more training—that is certainly what Weyland thought—but instead of going to the Tower, Noah had used her own powers to transport Jane and herself to The Naked.

“Noah, what is it?” the Lord of the Faerie said. “Why do you need to see me so badly?”

“Am I not allowed to see you from time to time?” “Noah…”

She sighed. “I need to see Louis. Badly. Very badly. You are the only one who can arrange that for me.”

“But he has not completed the transformation. And you—”

“I know! Gods, Charles, or whatever I should call you, I need to see him. Badly!”

“What is it? What is so wrong?”

The tip of Noah’s tongue wet her lips. “I need to speak with Louis.”

“Is it Weyland?”

“No. Please, can you arrange it?”

“It is the plague, isn’t it?”

Noah frowned. “The plague? No, I—”

“I would have thought that the fact Weyland has sent plague to consume London would have been reason enough, Noah.”

“What?”

The Lord of the Faerie sent a querying look to Jane.

“I did not tell her,” Jane said, her voice low. “I’m sorry. I did not have the courage.”

The Lord of the Faerie looked back at Noah, and sighed. “Weyland has caused this malevolence. He sent his imps to Elizabeth with a message for Brutus-reborn: Gather in the kingship bands, and hand them to me, and only then will the death stop.”

Noah stepped back from the Lord of the Faerie. “No. I cannot believe that. He would not…no…Weyland could not have done this.”

The Lord of the Faerie stared at her. “You cannot believe it?”

Noah looked bewildered. Veins of colour stained her pallid cheeks, and she clasped her hands together, wringing them about. “I can’t believe that he would do such a thing. The imps…no. No. He doesn’t control the imps. You said the imps sent the message?”

The Lord of the Faerie nodded, still watching Noah carefully.

“The imps are not in his control any more. If the imps have sent a message, then that message is from the Troy Game, not from Weyland.”

The Lord of the Faerie did not immediately respond. He stood, his eyes on Noah, his chest drawing in deep slow breaths as he thought.

“Noah,” he said eventually, “why would the Troy Game send plague to visit London? The Game is dedicated to protecting the city from evil, not instigating it. Its very purpose is protection. This plague stinks of Weyland, not of the Troy Game.”

Noah had regained her composure. “I no longer believe the Troy Game is dedicated only to protection. I think that it has infinite capacity for harm. It wants completion, and it will allow nothing to stand in its way.”

“Noah,” Jane said very slowly, very deliberately, “what are you saying?”

Noah looked only at the Lord of the Faerie. “I need to see Louis more than ever. Soon. Can you arrange it?”

The Lord of the Faerie nodded, his eyes intense as he gazed at Noah. “I can do it. But, by all the gods, Noah, it will be dangerous. Interrupting his transformation…”

Noah smiled, very sadly. “Danger is all about us.”

The Lord of the Faerie sat on his throne atop The Naked. He was alone. Not Jane, not even the magpie, kept him company.

He thought on Noah, and as he thought, so the fingertips of his right hand thrummed slowly against the armrest.

She was walking a dangerous path. The Lord of the Faerie was not sure if Weyland had corrupted Noah away from her allegiance to the land, or if her closeness to Weyland had enabled her to see the dangers about them far more clearly than he could himself.

There was a bleakness hanging over the land, somehow infecting it. The Lord of the Faerie had felt that on the day of his crowning, the instant the crown had settled on his head. Then he’d thought it was, as always, the presence of Asterion.

But what if it was not? What if the alliance between land and Troy Game was not beneficial, but cancerous?

The Lord of the Faerie sat on his throne, looking out over the rolling infinity of wooded hills, and wondered which might prove to be the more deadly. Noah? Or the Troy Game?

The Lord of the Faerie’s fingers stopped thrumming as he came to a decision within himself.

It might be a highly dangerous path, but in a previous life, when he had been Harold, he had promised to walk that path with her.

All every path needs is a companion with which to share it.

He sighed, and rose from his throne.