Marie Brennan - In Ashes Lie

As he had every right to. And Lune had an obligation to answer the Prince’s call.

In Mab’s name, I swear to you that I will do everything I can to preserve London and its people from disaster—and let fear hinder me no more.

Her own words echoed in her ears, spoken a bare year before. This was the very purpose for which she had chosen Jack; the physician was no courtier, but he was devoted to the safety and well-being of London. She could hardly ask him to champion that cause, then ignore him when he did so. Even without an oath to bind her.

The part of her mind that cowered like a mouse before a hawk protested shrilly that it was not fear hindering her, but cold calculation; what help could she spare Jack, with the Cailleach howling death in their ears?

A great deal. Lune had already confiscated all the bread in the Onyx Hall, once she realized her people were likely to flee before the onslaught. That was what Nicneven wanted, why she had sent the Blue Hag against them: to empty the palace, leaving it unguarded against a physical assault. But Lune could give some of her people a respite, and send them to aid Jack.

She extended her senses upward, feeling the heat scorching the stone and earth of those two streets. No comfort there; her whole body shuddered, caught between fire and ice. But now she had the shape of it, and the direction.

“Billingsgate is clear,” she said. “Take any half-dozen you feel will be useful—any you can trust not to leave. More if you need them. You have the bread.” Casting her eye around the table, she settled on Irrith. The Berkshire sprite did not know London well at all, but much more of this wind and she would break. “Go with the Prince. Be our messenger, in case he needs aught else.”

Irrith bowed to her and to Jack. He smiled reassuringly at the sprite, but did not reach out; without the tie that bound him to Lune, Prince to Queen, his touch did more harm than good. Amadea had screamed when he tried before, weeping that she felt the decay in his flesh.

“I’ll do what I can,” he promised, before hurrying out the door. “Perhaps we can turn this to our advantage against the Hag.”

RIVER THAMES, LONDON: six o’clock in the morning

Jack Ellin was no graybeard doctor, but he had worked through fever and plague, in the face of fell death itself. He knew the value of a comforting lie. Belief in a hopeful future, no matter how unfounded, could give a patient strength, and Lune needed strength right now.

But the truth was that he had no idea how to turn the heat above to combat the cold below. Jack was a curious man, always hungry for knowledge; when it became apparent that the unnatural wind was the breath of the Cailleach Bheur, he began asking questions about the Scottish hag. His curiosity went mostly unfed: the London fae knew hardly anything of her, and were too distracted by unfamiliar thoughts of death. It gave him little to work with.

I’m more inclined to take it the other way, he admitted ruefully as he hoisted himself out of a shaft into the tiny courtyard of a Billingsgate house. If he could strangle the fire with cold, he would; conflagrations were terrifying things, in a City built so largely of timber. And with the summer so dry…

Up here, however, the wind bore no particular chill, for all that it blew from the east, against the habit of the region. All those fine gentlemen in their Covent Garden houses will be smelling the City’s stink, he thought, blinking in the morning twilight. It did not amuse him as much as he hoped.

Behind him, his troop of faerie helpers followed him out of the entrance. Jack hoped they would do some good; he still was not entirely certain what fae were capable of. Surely their arts would have use, though. And he had bypassed the courtiers, seeking out Lune’s humbler subjects; the goblins and hobs he chose were tougher and more used to physical labor. Fighting fires was hard, grinding, filthy physical labor indeed—even, he imagined, with magic to help.

Three goblins, two hobs, and one sprite, all covered by concealing glamours. They did not have to look hard to spot the fire; its sullen glow made a false dawn above the rooftops to the northwest, not far away at all. “To the river,” Jack told his companions, after a moment’s consideration.

“We can’t go that way?” Mungle demanded, pointing toward the smoke. Judging by the filth that caked his body, the bogle had not gone within arm’s-length of water for longer than Jack had been alive. “My lord,” he added, as an afterthought.

“Not quickly,” Jack answered the goblin. “And I’m not ‘my lord’ here, nor Prince of the Stone. We shall have enough to do without someone asking when I was ennobled, and whether I can help them at court. As to your question: the fire is tending south and west; we’ll be more use on the other side. But the streets are packed with people moving their belongings out of harm’s way, so we shall get a wherry and come at it from the river.”

With only a little grumbling—Mungle wanted a fight, and did not seem to understand that his opponent was not one to be met with fists—they sought out the nearest river stair. Plenty of wherry-men floated within hailing distance; most were gaping at the smoke, and the rest were rowing passengers who gaped on their behalf. Jack got a boat large enough for them all, and gave instructions for their man to take them through the races of the bridge, landing them on the other side.

Where they would do…something. Firefighting was not what I expected, when I joined a faerie court. But it would be a fine opportunity to see what fae were capable of.

The tide was low, and at slack water, so the wherry ventured forth into the river. The oarsman had to thread his way through the other boats, though, so their progress was slow. And before they reached the stone piers of the bridge, a sudden flare of light brought all their heads around as one.

With a roar like a terrible beast, one of the many warehouses lining the river’s bank burst into orange and gold. Heat seared their faces, and Irrith flinched hard enough to almost go over the gunwale. The wherryman, a member of the London class most renowned for its command of profanity, put all his foul words to use, staring at the sudden expansion of the fire.

“Pitch and tar,” the hob Tom Toggin said when the wherryman was done. He was not swearing, Jack realized after a moment. “Or oil. Or hemp. Prob’ly pitch, it going up like that.”

And then it was Jack’s turn to curse. Seizing the oarsman’s shoulder, he said, “You know the wharves well, yes? How many of the warehouses contain such material?”

The man seemed to have lost the ability to blink. “Er—don’t rightly know—”

“How many?”

The boat drifted aimlessly on the current as the man shrugged. “Most of ’em?”

Another roar, another wash of heat. The next warehouse in the row had caught.

And in the heart of the flames, something stirred. It might have been nothing more than a curling tongue of light, a ripple of fire along the collapsing line of a roof. But the fae in the boat saw with different eyes than a mortal might, and Tom Toggin grabbed Jack’s sleeve, pointing with a finger that shook from pure terror.

Salamanders, Jack thought, curious despite his concern. There were a few in the Onyx Hall, creatures of elemental fire; he kept meaning to study them. But from what he knew, they were hardly a thing to inspire such fear.

Then he looked more closely, and his eyes widened.

He had seen such a thing before, yes—but much, much smaller.

In the hottest part of the blaze, a sinuous shape uncoiled, flexing its newfound power. Not a salamander, a mere lizard born of fire’s light. Conceived in the inferno’s womb and fed by the combustible treasures of London’s wharves, it was far larger, far stronger, and worthy of a greater name.