worse after he’d gone above—necessary departures, for the sake of his mortal sanity, though he kept them as infrequent as he dared. But the rest of his sudden weakness …
It was blinding, delirious hope.
If they could weave the elements of faerie reality into whatever shape they described with those crystal plaques, then they could weave new material for the Onyx Hall.
The genie supported him with one arm under his shoulders, and called for someone to bring a chair. Hodge allowed himself to be lowered into it, too dazed to care about the indignity. Never mind the wings and automata and all the rest; this had been the chiefest project of the Galenic Academy since its founding more than a hundred years ago. Find some way of mending the Onyx Hall. Stop, or better yet undo, the decay that had been going on since the beginning of the eighteenth century.
Hodge had known, even before he became Prince, that it wasn’t likely to happen. The creation of the palace had been a legendary work, carried out ages before, by a faerie woman and a mortal man. But they were long dead, and so were the powers that had helped them: Gog and Magog, the giants of London, murdered. Father Thames, silenced by iron. Hodge couldn’t hope to equal their deeds. He’d devoted his time and energy to slowing the disintegration of the Hall, holding together what remained of London’s faerie court, and preparing for the exodus he knew must inevitably come.
An exodus they might—perhaps—be able to avoid after all.
Someone pressed a cup into his hand, and he drank instinctively. Mead, sweet and fortifying, slid down his throat. Then Master Wrain was there, showing a distress Hodge didn’t understand at all. “My lord—”
If he was being formal, then something really had gone wrong. “What?”
With deep reluctance, the sprite said, “It doesn’t last.”
Hodge’s gaze went past him to the lion, which was now almost completed. The tail lashed, and the paws shifted in place; it was peculiar to see something so apparently real still missing the bulk of its head. No sign of unraveling—but it was in the protected space of the Galenic Academy. The oddly warped relationship between the City and the palace that reflected it meant the Academy lay uncomfortably close to the railway works even now proceeding down Cannon Street—but not so close that it was one of the bad patches of the Hall, where the decay was at its worst.
What the loom produced was pure faerie material. It wouldn’t survive for long, if it came into contact with mortal banes.
“How long?” he asked, and downed another gulp of mead.
Niklas answered for Wrain and Ch’ien Mu, in a gruff voice still colored by traces of a German accent. “Ve haven’t tested it yet. It vould slow the problem—”
“But at a cost,” Wrain finished, when Niklas hesitated. “It wouldn’t just unravel; the elements that make it up would be destroyed. And we cannot generate those out of nothing. To craft new pieces of the Hall, we would have to distill the raw substance out of existing materials.”
In other words, render down the contents of the palace. If that would even be enough. Hodge was out of mead; he stared moodily into the empty cup. Given time, they might be able to find other sources—but even with this machine, time was sorely lacking.
Well, he could set someone to looking, and in the meantime, try to solve the underlying problem. “What would make it last longer?”
Because this was the Academy, he didn’t get a wave of helpless shrugs; he got a deluge of speculative answers, everyone talking over each other. “The original anchoring—”; “—given the capacity of the human soul to shelter—”; “—a more suitable weft, perhaps—”; “—perhaps the Oriental elements—”; “—write to Master Ktistes in Greece; he might—”
Hodge put up his hands, and the speculation trailed into silence. “You don’t know. All right. Get to work on finding out.
It was blinding, delirious hope.
If they could weave the elements of faerie reality into whatever shape they described with those crystal plaques, then they could weave new material for the Onyx Hall.
The genie supported him with one arm under his shoulders, and called for someone to bring a chair. Hodge allowed himself to be lowered into it, too dazed to care about the indignity. Never mind the wings and automata and all the rest; this had been the chiefest project of the Galenic Academy since its founding more than a hundred years ago. Find some way of mending the Onyx Hall. Stop, or better yet undo, the decay that had been going on since the beginning of the eighteenth century.
Hodge had known, even before he became Prince, that it wasn’t likely to happen. The creation of the palace had been a legendary work, carried out ages before, by a faerie woman and a mortal man. But they were long dead, and so were the powers that had helped them: Gog and Magog, the giants of London, murdered. Father Thames, silenced by iron. Hodge couldn’t hope to equal their deeds. He’d devoted his time and energy to slowing the disintegration of the Hall, holding together what remained of London’s faerie court, and preparing for the exodus he knew must inevitably come.
An exodus they might—perhaps—be able to avoid after all.
Someone pressed a cup into his hand, and he drank instinctively. Mead, sweet and fortifying, slid down his throat. Then Master Wrain was there, showing a distress Hodge didn’t understand at all. “My lord—”
If he was being formal, then something really had gone wrong. “What?”
With deep reluctance, the sprite said, “It doesn’t last.”
Hodge’s gaze went past him to the lion, which was now almost completed. The tail lashed, and the paws shifted in place; it was peculiar to see something so apparently real still missing the bulk of its head. No sign of unraveling—but it was in the protected space of the Galenic Academy. The oddly warped relationship between the City and the palace that reflected it meant the Academy lay uncomfortably close to the railway works even now proceeding down Cannon Street—but not so close that it was one of the bad patches of the Hall, where the decay was at its worst.
What the loom produced was pure faerie material. It wouldn’t survive for long, if it came into contact with mortal banes.
“How long?” he asked, and downed another gulp of mead.
Niklas answered for Wrain and Ch’ien Mu, in a gruff voice still colored by traces of a German accent. “Ve haven’t tested it yet. It vould slow the problem—”
“But at a cost,” Wrain finished, when Niklas hesitated. “It wouldn’t just unravel; the elements that make it up would be destroyed. And we cannot generate those out of nothing. To craft new pieces of the Hall, we would have to distill the raw substance out of existing materials.”
In other words, render down the contents of the palace. If that would even be enough. Hodge was out of mead; he stared moodily into the empty cup. Given time, they might be able to find other sources—but even with this machine, time was sorely lacking.
Well, he could set someone to looking, and in the meantime, try to solve the underlying problem. “What would make it last longer?”
Because this was the Academy, he didn’t get a wave of helpless shrugs; he got a deluge of speculative answers, everyone talking over each other. “The original anchoring—”; “—given the capacity of the human soul to shelter—”; “—a more suitable weft, perhaps—”; “—perhaps the Oriental elements—”; “—write to Master Ktistes in Greece; he might—”
Hodge put up his hands, and the speculation trailed into silence. “You don’t know. All right. Get to work on finding out.
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