Lament

Tonight, the London sky was a shade of inky purple, dotted with white stars that smiled down at me. My insides churned involuntarily as they had since last night when I'd returned home, still dressed as a man. I'd changed - as quickly as I could - and gone straight to bed, but I couldn't sleep. Too much had been on my mind. I'd thought of the Illuminata and what Jaedo had whispered to me: how someone within its ranks had a connection to Charles. I'd thought about the way Alphonse had looked at me as I'd come out of Lily's house; he'd smiled at me even when I felt like a fool. And I'd thought about how something felt wrong to me about Jules. How whenever I looked at him, his eyes always seemed to be somewhere else.

Now I was going to an intimate party at Jules's house to have supper with his mother and Lily. Across the carriage, Lily was beaming. At least once a day she said something of how smart a match Jules and I were, how well we'd suit each other, how perfectly our tempers matched, et cetera. Her joy at my impending marriage made my guilt deeper. For it was since the night prior that I'd been considering breaking off our engagement. Yet how to go about doing such a thing? Jules would be the laughingstock of his entire set, his mother's heart would be broken and Lily would be distraught.

Still, the notion that I was really going to get married to Jules, a man I wasn't even sure I trusted anymore, had hit me in full force the previous night and now I felt stupid for entering in such a rash manner to this engagement. There was only one answer and that was to break off our engagement. Closing my eyes and resting my temple against the carriage glass, I thought of the whispers and the cruel looks I'd get from all the other young ladies who I'd been presented with.

I looked out the window to see warm, orange lights burning brightly in London's best homes. I thought of the trickery and illusion these warm lights offered; behind every sparkle and glimmer there might lay a man beating his wife, a woman letting a younger man into her bed while her devoted husband was on a business trip...there might lay neglected children who had only their nurses for comfort. And maybe, just maybe, there might be a man who had loved a woman who was Fae. And maybe he'd even killed her without meaning to so she would not say her secret to their only daughter. Maybe in these houses lay a marbled young man, frozen in time, never knowing the sweet crush of first love. Maybe there was a young woman who must be stuffed away for the rest of the Season because her fiance had mysteriously died. I closed my eyes. The secrets, these shadows, they made my heart weary. Whatever my decision regarding Jules, there was one thing I knew.

When all of this was over (but would it ever really be over?) I would leave London. Leave England altogether maybe. Alphonse's story of enchanting, far-off places and fabulous adventures had instilled something aching within me. I remembered what Alphonse had told me, so long ago, that one blissful morning where he'd proposed. He'd told me we'd leave and go somewhere so far away, darkness and secrets and curses could never touch us. I still wanted that. If Alphonse was beside me, it would make my dreams perfect. If he was not, if he chose his hatred over his love, then so be it. I could not change him, I could simply do what I'd been longing to do for a time now. Leave.

But I would not run away, as Wren had suggested I was doing before she'd told me my mother's grave had been dug up and her body, stolen. I would not hide. I must be a lady, the kind of lady I'd been striving to be all these months. Not a heartless, cold, proud woman. Not a loveless, pathetic, shallow girl. I would be confident. Strong. Brave. And to be brave I must face my fears, face them and turn them into something I could never be afraid of again. I must crush my fears so they were no longer anything significant to me.

And here was where my problems came full circle. I was afraid of marrying Jules, for a number of reasons, not only for the fact that I didn't really know him, couldn't really trust him. I was afraid of marrying Jules because it might make me like those women I did not want to be like. Women whose lives were so lonely that they forced themselves into throwing parties and connecting themselves with the right people to drown out their heartbreak. Women who slept alone in a cold, dark room. Women who cried on their pillow. I would not be like that. This was the future I was terrified of, so I must stop it. I must break off my enagement to Jules. Not tonight, no, of course not tonight, but soon. I would confront him alone. Return the ring, tell him that I knew he did not love me and that I did not love him, and leave.

"You seem deep in thought, my dear." Lily's voice awoke me out of my dreamy thoughts. I turned to her. She smiled and all at once I remembered hearing her sob over Charles's picture. I felt pity for her, she had lost so much and all she had in the end was me. Me, who could not even call her 'Mother'. "Tonight, Lady Farnsworth and I wanted to discuss with you and Jules the date of the wedding and the party afterwards. She wanted to see what you'd already got for your trousseau. I explained that you had not picked out your wedding dress yet. I must say I am a little surprised you haven't expressed any interest in having yourself fitted. We were hoping for a wedding in June, and it's already nearing April."

I squirmed. "Yes, yes, I know," I said, trying as best I could to sound...not so disinterested. I swallowed. Should I tell Lily now? No, I couldn't. She was smiling at me and even her eyes smiled tonight. I thought of how Lily slept alone. I thought of how lonely and sad she must be, for a reason altogether different than some women. Those women had known what they were getting themselves into. Lily hadn't. "You know..." I started and then paused, reconsidering.

"Yes?" Lily asked.

I threw my eyes to the side. "You never did tell me how you and...Charles met." We were almost to Jules's house.

Lily's eyebrow went up, but she did not look upset. "We met in Huntsville. Charles's father had died and left Deathcreeke to him. Actually, we'd known each other for some time, my father was a business associate of Charles, and besides, everyone knew everybody else in Huntsville. We were childhood playmates and grew up together. While we weren't that close, most assumed we'd be wed when Charles came back from Cambridge. When Charles did come back, though, he'd changed, and when we were introduced, it was like we were meeting for the very first time. I assumed he'd fallen in love in London and had been heartbroken. We grew close because of that, I suppose I helped to heal his wounded heart." Lily paused then and I knew what she was thinking. In London he had been heartbroken...heartbroken over my mother, the woman he so dangerously loved. Lily smiled and swallowed and started again. "I thought he was indifferent to me besides the fact that we were friends, but he proposed in late September. We were married the next summer. Then of course, he told me that the Deathcreeke Curse - of which I knew but thought was an old wives tale that told women not to be unfaithful to their husbands or one day they might end up being burned as a witch - Charles explained that the curse was real. That if we had a son, he would die on his eighteenth birthday. I never knew that there was no actual curse, I simply thought..." Lily trailed off and looked out the window as we came to a stop. She shrugeed, and when she looked at me, she was sad. "We all make our choices, Faerie. And those choices indicate what path we will follow. I suppose I have made mine."

She climbed out of the carriage first. "And I mine," I heard myself say under my breath. As I was being led out of the house, a thought struck me. By the time Charles had returned to Huntsville, and to Lily, he'd already had a child by my mother. If that was so, why was Alphonse the Philosopher's Stone? There was no question that he was, I'd seen how he'd brought Lily back from death.

And then I realized that the mother of their child had been my own mother. The woman who wasn't quite human, the woman who was not human at all, actually. The child had been a fae child, like myself. For a moment, as I was being helped out of the carriage, the image of the tiny baby being buried, of my mother's stricken face, of Charles running to Huntsville to escape the haunted look in my mother's eyes. That child could not have been the Philosopher's Stone. The blood curse would have gone to Alphonse, burdened with a sickness for eighteen years, and for eighteen years convinced he would die for something that he had no control over, a past he could not change.

At least I'd finally realized that fact. Now, though, I must remain in the world of London and its illusions. I could not escape to my dreams tonight. I would also go to Wren. I would ask her opinion on the subject of me breaking my engagement with Jules. Honestly, I would go through with breaking it off even if she wished desperatley for us to be married. I just wanted to tell someone what I was going to do, someone I could trust not to say anything. She wouldn't. Would she? I stifled a groan.

As soon as a powdered footman opened the door and announced us, Lady Farnsworth ushered Lily away into another room and Jules and I were left to our own devices in the same room he'd proposed to me in. I smiled at him in what I knew was a tentative way and made towards the fire. Would this be what it would be like with him every night? Awkward smiles and dancing around conversation? No, I would end this. Soon. Not now. But soon. I turned to Jules. "Last night...that was interesting," I told him, wishing I had some brandy or wine or anything to sip to keep my hands busy. Jules raised an eyebrow as if he didn't know what I meant and then laughed. How could he have forgotten, even for that one small moment?

"Yes, quite amusing. But like I said, I hope to not see you in breeches again. The sight was not quite something I'm looking forward to seeing again any time soon. I much prefer you in a dress." The comment made me angry, even though his tone was light. He hadn't meant to offend me, that much was true, and what he said was not even all that offensive. I couldn't shake the large, lopsided grin Alphonse had given me last night, though, I couldn't forget his comments, I couldn't forget the look in his eyes when he'd first seen me. I wanted to slap Jules, but let my hand tremble at my side. After a moment, I felt my anger die in my stomach. WhenI looked up, I saw Jules staring off behind me, he hadn't noticed. If we were to be married, this would be how it was. He would be looking away while I felt too much for my body. "What did your Green Winged man say to you? I saw Wren briefly this morning while riding through Hyde Park. I asked her for news but she wouldn't say. I assumed it meant there was none."

I did not shrug or sigh, even though I wished to. "Jaedo simply told me that someone in the Illuminata has strong ties to whomever is hiding Charles, but he wouldn't say who." I didn't say what I was thinking. That maybe it was him. That maybe Jules was hiding Charles.

This was what I was most afraid of. Sometimes when I looked at Jules, his eyes were so dark and far-away, he reminded me of Charles himself. And the more that I thought about it, the more it made sense. Glenn had told me that whispers of homunculi were going through London before Charles was there. Jules had a reason for wanting to make a homunculi. His father. I'd never asked him much of his father, and I knew only that he was interested in alchemy. Jules told me that his father thought that the creation of homunculi was blasphemy, and that Jules had grown up thinking the exact thing, but what if that was all a clever ruse? If that was the case, however, Jules would be disappointed. He would only ever be able to make a doll of his father. Unless...unless he used Alphonse and Wren to get his father's soul out of death, to put it in a homunculi. It would explain the way Wren looked at Jules - as if she were afraid of him. Stop. No further. Turning away from my husband to be, I shook my head ever so slightly. My imagination was running out of control. I could not accuse Jules of something so ridiculous. Even if it were true, he'd just deny it.

"You're thinking of something, trying to figure it out. I can tell." Jules's voice brought me to Earth. In his eyes was playfullness. I tried to calm myself by giving him an easy smile.

"It all seems as if this is one large riddle and I'm on the verge of solving it, but I'm missing a vital piece of information." I shook my head. "Let's not talk this way. All I manage to do is get myself deeper in awful ideas."

"Faerie, nothing about you is awful, I assure you."

I laughed, for there had been something very studied about the way he'd paid me that compliment. I wanted to tell him I knew he did not love me. "Thank you," I said only, looking up to him. We were standing by the drawn curtains of his windows, the door was closed. I wondered where Lily and Mrs. Haverford, Lady Farnsworth, were. Jules and I were quite alone, surely this was not proper. And indeed, it seemed as if Jules had just realized the intimacy of our current situation. He cleared his throat, shuffled and smiled to me. He leaned against the wall and I took a step back so I was against the curtains. Jules let his hand come to mine and entwined our fingers. He then looked at our hands, and when he looked up at me, his eyes were full of confusion, as if he'd never seen something like it before.

"Faerie," he said, his voice catching in his throat. I knew what he would do next, and he did not fail me. It was my duty to let him kiss me, and so I let him.

When his lips met mine, I remembered how this had happened once before. I had not paid attention to how it felt, I'd only thought of Alphonse. This time, I realized that his kiss did not speak of anything dark and dangerous. He was polite and more than a little awkward. Not the kiss of two passionate lovers. Not the kiss of a vile seducer. Just a kiss. He pulled away and the look between us explained everything we didn't want to say. That this wasn't right, that it never would be, that we didn't trust one another.

I couldn't keep this up. I must end it. Now.

I opened my mouth to tell him, my hand went to the engagement ring he'd given me at our engagement party and I think he knew what I was about to do, but it was then that we were interrupted by Lily and Mrs. Haverford coming in. Lily smiled in a knowing way to me and I flushed. Two ladies who were supposed to have the utmost propiety had left me and my fiance alone together in a closed room. Worse than that, they had willingly done it. Oh well, it wasn't as if I was about to reprimand them. They were only trying to encourage our love.

Lady Farnsworth smiled. "Sorry to have kept you waiting, my dears, but I was just going over some correspondance between myself and a mutual friend of ours in Kent. Let us go to the dining room now, for I'm sure supper is ready." She and Lily disappeared once more, heads bowed together in a conspiratorial manner. Jules and I gave each other wary glances before departing in the direction of the dining room. All that was left unsaid was now hanging in between us, open for anyone to see. My insides turned, confused. Could I trust this man, who had given me so many reasons to doubt him? His eyes said no, but his awkward, pure kiss said yes. There was so much to Jules I probably would never know, even if I did continue to keep this facade as fiancee up. Some things he'd hide from me forever even if he wasn't the one hiding Charles.

For the rest of the night, Jules and I let Lady Farnsworth and Lily talk. They talked of my wedding trousseau, of the church that our wedding would be held in, the exact date, the flowers, the ball following it, everything. They asked us if we'd rather go on a tour of France afterwards or Greece. At many points in the meal, Jules would look at me, as if he was trying to say, "Tell them we're not getting married. Tell them there won't be a wedding." Or maybe I just imagined that because it was what I wanted to say to Jules. The dinner seemed interminable, but at last it was over. At last Jules's footmen were bundling Lily and I into our carriage, at last we were heading back to the house. The night was not so late. Wren would still be awake. I thought of asking Lily to borrow the carriage, but she would be curious as to who I needed to visit at this time of the night. I did not want to tell her why I was going to Wren's. Not just yet. I would have to walk. The venture was not as daunting as it seemed. The Morgenstern's lived close to us and if I put on a dark cloak with the hood up and stayed in the shadows, no one need know who I was.

I crept out the front door as soon as I heard Lily entering her bedchamber and kept out of the lights of passing windows as soon as I could. I met no one on the street and even if I had seen someone, I didn't think they would have seen me. In only a few minutes I was at the door of the Morgenstern's town house.

The usual footman opened the door for me and if he was surprised that I was here at such an hour, he did not show it. I was thankful and waited in the front hall. Presently, Glenn met me as he was coming downstairs. He smiled as he saw me, not unkind. "My dear Miss Fae. I haven't seen much of you lately. I trust your little outing last night went well? Hah, what am I asking for, I already know!" he exclaimed, coming to kiss my hand. His round, handsome face grinned. "I'm sure you made a charming young man. I wouldn't have minded to see you in a pair of breeches myself."

I lifted an eyebrow, knowing he was only teasing. "I wished to speak with Wren. Is she here at the moment?"

"She is here, unfortunately she is a bit involved with something else." Glenn paused. "However, if it's guidance you need, I may be able to help."

At first I didn't want to tell him, because he wasn't a female and this was a wholly female issue, but my mind changed as I realized something. I didn't trust Wren to be sympathetic to what I was feeling: some days she was my friend and other days she was, well, not. Saying the wrong thing might mean her glaring at her for the good part of the week, something I didn't want. Glenn may not be sympathetic to me, but he always told the truth. Even when in doing so he did not spare my feelings. I swallowed. "The day that Edmund Smythe died...the day my mother's body was stolen out of her caskett...Jules was here. He tried to leave the house without my noticing, but I saw. Wren told me he'd been here to tell her that my mother's body was gone. When she came to us, though, she was out of breath. I wanted to ask you if you knew what had transpired between them. I have a very bad feeling that Jules has something to do with Charles. I thought he might have come here to persuade Wren into helping him get his father's soul out of Death and putting it into a homunculi. If that was so, it may explain a great deal of things."

Glenn looked surprised. "I had never considered that possibility before, Fae," he said and then screwed up his face in intense concentration. A young, pretty maid came in and set down a plate of coffee and small fruit tarts. Glenn took two tarts. I poured myself a cup of coffee. This already had been a long night. Glenn chewed one tart, licked his fingers and then turned his face to me. "I can tell you honestly, Faerie, that I have no idea what they were talking about. As children, Wren and Jules had an...interesting relationship. They fought whenever possible, they bickered about everything. Still, Wren enjoyed to argue with him. She thought he enjoyed it too. When he came back from school, though, he was entirely different. He did not tolerate her teasing. He shut us out entirely. It was with great difficulty that Wren asked for his help with regards to Charles. Jules humiliated her a little, I think." Then Glenn laughed. "Of course, a girl like Wren could do with a little humiliation now and again."

"It's just...I would never want to get on Wren's bad side. But she seems afraid of Jules sometimes."

Glenn shrugged. "He said some fairly nasty things to her the day they first met after he came back. He made it clear that he didn't want to have anything to do with her. When I suggested we go to him for help, she raged and raged. In the end, she saw I was right: Jules had grown up hearing the stories about alchemy and beyond a shadow of a doubt, we thought we could trust him. I think what she's afraid of is getting him mad again. He never says anything at all about what happened the day he came back, but it's there, it's always there. Wren's desperate for his help, though. She knows if she upsets him again, he will go off on another tyrade and probably refuse to help us."

"You said you thought you could trust him. Do you still?"

Popping the second of the fruit tarts into his mouth, Glenn did not speak for awhile and when he did, it was only to say, "I do not know."

"I'm going to break off our engagement," I told him, my voice going quiet. This did seem to surprise Glenn. "He knows it. I think he wants me to. He would never do it, he would never humiliate me like that, but it will be all right if I break it off."

"I'm sorry." I looked up. Glenn did not look very sorry. I was not surprised. "No, honestly, I am." Glenn gave me a small smile and poured a cup of coffee. "That you two are suitable is a joke, of course, we all knew that. You are not for him. Still, your engagement was one of hope. By coming together, you both hoped to get rid of your demons. The breaking of that engagement proves that you haven't been able to."

"I have but one demon," I said to Glenn, my voice still quiet. "And I wish for him to torture me for the rest of my life." I knew what the outcome of this story would be. I would not have Alphonse in the end either way. And if I could not have him in person, I wanted to remember him forever. I wanted him to follow me wherever I went, if only in my dreams and fantasies.

"Maybe," Glenn answered, his tone vague. I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but I thought I might already know. The secrets of London were also my demons. My mother, my father, my faerie grandparents, my knowledge of the death of Mr. Smythe, alchemy, the Philosopher's Stone...these were all my demons as well. I closed my eyes. These past months, I had grown into someone so drastically different than I once was. I had never been so afraid of change that it blinded me, but now I felt it creep up on me as just another fear. I will destroy them. I will face them and destroy them, one by one, so they cannot hurt me. I will chase my demons and slay them as if I were a glorious knight.

It was then that I heard footsteps on the stairs. Wren, I thought, but the feet were heavy. Confusion swept over my face as I saw Alphonse come into the room. What was he doing here? I meant to ask, but it was then that I heard more footsteps. Too many to be just one person. No. No, it cannot be. Alphonse had made it clear to me that he was hesitant to perform the favor that Wren had asked, and still...

Wren came into the room, her face a ray of shining sun. And on her arms, was the man I thought I'd never thought I'd see living again: Prince Morgenstern.