Lament

"I just don't see what all the big rush is, Faerie, you hardly know the man and now you're going to be married to him?" This was Mrs. Landry, for Lily and I were at their house for luncheon the next day before my formal engagement party, later on that evening. Victoria gaped at her mother and gasped a loud 'Mama!', and I flushed just a little. This was the same question Lily had asked me this morning at the breakfast table and as I heard the question the second time, I knew I could not answer the way I had this morning: with a change of subject.

Instead I just spooned some soup into my mouth and let myself take a few moments before answering. In truth, I knew it was because I wished to forget about Alphonse as quickly as I could. I knew it was to get away from all of my troubles. I knew I was using marriage as an escape, and I knew I'd regret it later on in life. I also knew Jules had his reasons for asking me so soon, for speeding up this courtship. I remembered how, at Deathcreeke, I had not felt warmth towards the idea of a courtship: from Prince or Alphonse. I remembered not wanting to be married just yet. That was months ago, though. Back before I'd ever truly been disappointed. I'd felt sad and bitter and angry, but that was before I had been betrayed by my father, my mother, Charles and Alphonse.

Victoria har-umphed. "Mama, when two people love each other like Jules and Faerie love each other, they don't need to wait. Besides, it wasn't as if Mr. Smythe courted me for a long while before you unceremoniously threw me into a marriage with the man." Victoria's father wasn't there, but still, Mrs. Landry gave her daughter a sharp look.

"Don't say those sorts of things in front of guests. Besides, Mr. Smythe will be here soon. I'm sure he will show you what a gentleman he can be."

"That's very doubtful, Mama," Victoria replied in a sing-song tone. I knew underneath that playful retort was hurt and anger and I understood. How could her mother simply throw her onto a man like Mr. Smythe? And yet I knew as well as Victoria did. Mrs. Landry had as much say in who her daughter would marry as her daughter herself did. It was Mr. Landry who approved of Mr. Smythe and it was Mr. Landry who had thrown his daughter to the sharks.

Lily smiled serenely at Mrs. Landry and Victoria. "Either way, I know it will be a lovely wedding. Is your dress coming along nicely?" she questioned, eager to smooth over ruffled feathers and maybe to push the conversation off myself and my own new engagement. It seemed as if I was glancing down at my left hand at Jules's signet ring every ten minutes. The Haverford family crest was sealed into the silver and honestly, it was a beautiful ring...not as lovely as the wedding band would be, I hoped, but still. Any girl would be lucky. That was the thought I kept pushing through my head. Unfortunately - or maybe it was fortunately, since my own mother had always said individuality was a virtue - I was not any girl.

Then again, what did any girl honestly mean? I had been stupid enough to think that Victoria was the kind of girl who cared only about parties and flirting and dancing and gossiping. I had embraced that because I selfishly believed it made me different from other girls. I selfishly believed that I was smarter than them, believed that there was something more...but now I was just beginning to see. Every girl, no matter who she was, wanted the kind of fairy tale ending she'd been told from her mother. Those fairy tale endings, though, were so hard to come by. And in my society, marriage and love did not necessarily mean the same thing.

But maybe that was why the ladies of London were so much braver than any I'd ever heard of before. Because they dived into a marriage based on shallow first impressions alone and then when they were over their head, they did what they were supposed to do. They smiled, they hosted parties and they lied back and thought of England when it was required of them.

I abandoned my thoughts to join in the conversation about Victoria's wedding dress. As much as I know Lily would rather have talk about Victoria than about me, the conversation soon turned again to my impending wedding. I hadn't thought of it at all last night - Victoria had been too present in my mind. All thoughts of my own 'happiness' vanished when I realized that I had a promise to keep for Victoria. And then, of course, when I saw Jaedo...he came to me when I called out his name...as if he were watching out for me, listening for my thoughts.

The notion gave me chills, but strangely enough, I didn't feel frightened. Jaedo was becoming less an imposing character in my life and more someone I really believed I could trust. Maybe this trust would come back to haunt me some day, but for now, I was okay just being okay with him.

A footman entered the dining room and bowed a low bow. "Mr. Edmund Smythe is here to call upon you." His tone was monotonous and I wondered if I'd ever heard a footman speak with any sort of inflection in their voice. It was as if they were programmed to have voices one could fall asleep to. As soon as Mr. Smythe entered, however, my thoughts of the footmen dissolved.

I'd seen him before, but seeing him today made my skin want to crawl even more. He was much older than Lily or Mrs. Landry and was old enough to be Victoria's father. His snowy white wig probably covered a peppered, balding head. His style was old-fashioned and his clothes looked old, even though they were perfectly tailored. He was tall but had a wide stomach and his face was only passably attractive. While he had clear, blue eyes, they were also small and beady. His nose was crooked and small and his thin, wide lips seemed disproportionate to the rest of his face. And oh lord, when he smiled, it made shivers go up my spine - of the not-so-good variety. My fear for Victoria seemed to increase tenfold before he even spoke.

"Ah, Mrs. Wainwright, Faerie...I did not know I'd have the pleasure of your company as well," said Mr. Smythe. His eyes went to me quickly and he appraised me as if I was some piece of smoked meat hanging in the window of a butcher shop. The way he looked at me made me want to slap him, but I knew I could do nothing.

Lily smiled graciously and I wished I could be as good of a lady as she. She was always polite, even when she did not wish to be so. "Mr. Smythe, how good to see you again. We didn't know you'd be joining us either, but I am certainly glad that you're here." Mr. Smythe knew nothing of ladies, thought us all silly and stupid, so he did not catch the blatant sarcasm in her voice. Instead he grinned and bowed before Victoria.

"And there is my blushing bride," he said with a sneer on his face. I wondered if he could not at least pretend to be charming, and then realized that he probably didn't even know how to be amiable. Victoria looked at her mother with pleading eyes, who in return, nodded once. Victoria lifted her hand up to Mr. Smythe and turned away from him.

"How wonderful it is to see you again, my dear Edmund." She allowed him to kiss her on the hand, and I wondered if he'd ever kissed her on the lips. My stomach turned just thinking about it and I watched as Mr. Smythe put an aging, spotted and wrinkled hand on Victoria's head. He stroked her hair and kissed her head before sitting down. On anyone else this could have been a sweet, gentle gesture.

The footman before came and brought Mr. Smythe a bowl of soup and soon he was ensconced with our conversation of weddings, and I soon understood why Victoria had always been hesitant to talk about the wedding itself. Mr. Smythe was convinced that the wedding need to be nothing more than him, her and their respective families. No big trousseau, no feast afterwards, not even a trip to his country estate. Victoria wasn't one to want an extravagant wedding, she was modest the way every girl should be, but I knew even she would want something better than that. I knew it must be because Mr. Smythe did not wish to pay for yet another large wedding when he knew she was only going to die when he tired of her.

Victoria soon turned the conversation away from herself, something she was beginning to be an expert at doing. "Of course if my dear Edmund," she said these words with a clenched jaw, "does not wish for a large wedding then obviously I must sucumb to his wishes. However, Fae, you still need to think about your wedding. We haven't even spoken much of it and it's only going to be the talk of the season after tonight."

Mr. Smythe looked genuinely surprised. "Miss Brighton, you are to be married?" he asked. "Who is the gentleman?"

I smiled. "Jules Haverford, the Viscount of Farnsworth," I replied and Mr. Smythe looked at me for a long time.

"Pity," he said softly and I knew my face was flushing, not out of flattery, but out of sheer embarassment. "It is a pity that society will lose such a...beauty to the likes of Jules Haverford."

"My dear Mr. Smythe, however can you say such a thing!" Lily said with a smile and a laugh, trying to smooth out this ruffle of a moment. "Mr. Haverford is all that is friendly and obliging. He quite adores Faerie, and it seems as if he'd do just anything for her."

Mr. Smythe was quiet for a few moments as he looked at me with a heated expression. We all knew what he wanted to say, and yet we all feigned ignorance. You'd be another good addition to my collection. I could almost hear him say it. Child brides that he'd defile and then do away with when he got tired. We all watched him to say what he would reply. Finally, Mr. Smythe chuckled and opened his mouth. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw the flash of green wings, however, when I looked up, I saw nothing. And then, something strange seemed to happen to Mr. Smythe. He opened his mouth, but no words would come out. And then his eyes bugged out in a caricature of surprise.

And then...and then he hit the table like a stone. His jaw almost bounced against the lace-covered wood and he tipped back in his chair, which then clashed to the ground. For a moment we were completely silent, but it didn't seem as if Mr. Smythe was getting up anytime soon. It was as if time was slowing down and we were all looking at him and looking at each other and wondering just what was going on.

For a few moments it was like this and then everything started speeding up again. Footmen rushed into room to see what the fuss was about and Mrs. Landry called for a doctor and a bow street runner - the detectives of London who kept the city safe - and Lily was pulling Victoria and I back, up against the wall while the footmen tried to revive him. When the doctor came, he too, worked hard to wake Mr. Smythe up, but after what felt like an hour of trying, he looked up to Mrs. Landry.

"He's dead," he proclaimed simply.

I could not explain what I felt. Horror, that I just witnessed death mixed with wild relief that he was truly gone. And then I explicitly remembered what I had seen only a few moments before Mr. Smythe's death...a flash of green wings. Jaedo. He had told me he would do what he could, and I couldn't have fathomed he meant death.

Lily was tugging on my arm and I looked at her. "We should leave, Faerie. This is no place for us right now." I knew she was right, and yet I still looked to Victoria.

"Will you be there tonight? At Jules's house?" I asked.

Victoria looked at me, and it was clear she wasn't sure if this actually had happened or not. It was as if she didn't want to believe he really was dead and that she wasn't actually going to have to marry him. "I do not know," she said after awhile. "It doesn't seem right, does it?" she questioned. I nodded, but I knew that she felt more relief than I ever could. I doubted she even felt any horror. Somehow I knew the one emotion running through her body at this moment was happiness. So I just embraced her and let Lily take me out of the house.

We rode in the carriage in a sort of shocked silence, until Lily spoke suddenly. "I am going to Hell." Her voice shook. I looked at her and saw that her hands trembled in her lap. "I am going to Hell because I was so happy when that man died," she finished and I bowed my head.

"Then we are all going to Hell," I answered. But the difference between you and I, I thought callously, is that I know who did this. And you do not. Raising my head, I saw that Lily was watching, absentmindedly, the outside world as it passed by. The day was hazy and humid and we were all stuffed into these dresses and corsets that somehow were supposed to enhance our beauty. "Lily, I must go to the Morgensterns. But I need you to do something for me," I replied.

Lily turned to me. "Hm?" she asked.

"You bought me the book of the Seelie Court of Faeries a few weeks ago, and I was wondering if you could go back to that bookstore and pick up the book about the Unseelie Court."

"Of course, but may I ask why?" Lily inquired. I thought of Jaedo, telling me he was of the Unseelie Court, the Unholy Court of faeries. He had certainly helped me, but his answer was death. I knew I must find out all I could about the Unseelie court. Was Jaedo my friend or my foe? He had helped me, but his method of helping me was...not exactly the method I'd been hoping for. I had to know if I could trust him, and I knew he would not tell me. He had given me few answers before. This might be my only chance. I thought also of the looking-glass, but I did not understand how it worked. It would offer me no help.

As soon as we reached the house, Lily took off in a different carriage in the direction of the bookstore and I stayed in the carriage which took me onward to the Morgensterns. The house loomed ahead of me as I arrived and I swallowed, nervous, thinking of the last time I had spoken with Glenn and Wren. I had angered Wren somehow and Glenn thought me foolish. What would they care of Mr. Smythe's death and Jaedo's connection to it? Wren didn't even know who Jaedo was.

It was almost as if they were expecting me. As I ascended the stairs, Glenn opened the door with a wide grin and ushered me inside quickly. We exchanged quick, polite salutations, but a nervous thrum went through my heart. We had not parted on the best of terms before. What was his prerogative now? "Glenn," I started, caution thick in my voice, "Mr. Smythe, Victoria Landry's husband-to-be just died right in front of my eyes. And a few seconds before he died, I swore I saw the flashing green wings of Jaedo."

Glenn frowned. "Here, let's discuss this in the sitting room. Wren will be with us in a moment." He pulled me along into their light-filled sitting room and I looked at Glenn's face. There was something guilty hidden beneath his lovely smile. He sat me down in an overstuffed chair in front of the window that overlooked the street and sat across from me. He flashed me a grin and smoothed down his blonde hair. Ringing for a maid to bring us a plate of finger sandwhiches and tea, he finally crossed his legs and looked at me seriously. "So. Edmund Smythe is dead. You saw him die right in front of you?"

"Yes, he simply keeled over at our luncheon. They called the doctors and the bow street runners, but there was nothing. I suppose the runners are investigating it now, but they didn't tell us to stay, so Lily and I slipped out. But more importantly, I know I saw Jaedo right before, and the night prior I had told him how Victoria and Mr. Smythe would be wed in only a week's time. Jaedo said he'd do something about it but I didn't expect death."

With a shrug, Glenn picked up the china cup full of tea that the maid placed before him and took a sip of the dark liquid. "What did you expect?" he inquired. "Sometimes, Faerie, you are quite naive."

"Oh so you wished him dead?" I asked scathingly.

Glenn chuckled. "Of course. Didn't everyone? The man was a lecher and a murderor of some of society's best and brightest. Alas, he was never caught. Finally he is dead and no one need worry about him any longer."

I was quiet for a long while. "I just feel so guilty about being happy he is dead," I confided.

"You will feel that for a little while, I suppose, but soon you shall prevail over that emotion. Why cry over him? He did not cry over any of the graves of his child brides." Glenn popped a finger sandwich into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. His eyes then went to somewhere beyond me; he was looking at something on the street. I turned around and caught a glimpse of Jules hurrying down the steps of the Morgensterns town house. A very bad feeling settled in the pit of my stomach and I whirled to Glenn. "Why did you not tell me Jules was here?" I questioned.

It was the first time I believed I'd ever seen Glenn looking uncomfortable. "Well..." he said, not finding words.

Wren suddenly appeared in the doorway and smiled to me serenely, as if what had happened between us back at Alphonse's house party simply hadn't happened. "Faerie! Good afternoon. How are you today?" she asked, almost breathless. Standing up, I looked to both Glenn and Wren.

"I don't know why you felt the need to hide my future husband's visit to your house but I do know one thing. There is something going on here, something that I don't know about. Something that you feel the need to hide from me." Why did I suddenly feel so betrayed? It was as if I'd found out they were all in league with Charles.

Wren frowned. "Yes, and I know that you have been keeping things from me, so what does it matter? We all have our secrets, Miss Fae. You need not know all of mine if I am not privy to all of yours."

I was more angry than I knew I should have been. I knew I was overreacting, but so much had happened and I felt as if there was a tidal wave, descending upon me, ready to crush me with its might, ready to drown me below its depths. I walked from the room and pushed past Wren. "Fine, then if you're keeping secrets of me then you should know this. I don't wish to be part of your plan any longer. I don't care about Charles, Alphonse or the homunculi. It is stupid and foolish and I don't care. I'm going to marry Jules and we are going to leave here and I am never going to see any of you again and I will finally be free of you. Free of you, free of the secrets, the curses, the lies, the faeries...I will be free of everything that simply does not make sense. I will no longer believe in all of this because it does not exist. It does not exist."

Wren looked shocked, but then her features turned to anger. "Fine then, walk out of this door. You can attempt to run from this all, but the truth will catch up with you sooner or later. There is a reason you came to Deathcreeke to meet us and there is a reason you are a central player to all of this. But if you do not want to believe that, fine. Run."

"I will," I seethed back, turning to the door. I had my hand on the doorknob and was about to turn it and open it when Wren's voice, small and quiet yet commanding and severe, came once more.

"Then I suppose you won't want to know that your mother's grave has been dug up. And that her caskett is gone."