Lies and Prophecy (40 page)

Julian and I didn't, not beyond this ceremonial meeting with them here on the blasted riverbank where contact had first been made, but Falcon didn't need to know that. Let him think we were busy. We would enjoy our first chance in months to breathe.

The four of us shook hands. I hoped the sidhe weren't planning on practicing that human custom with everyone; anybody but a wilder would find their touch unbearably jarring. I didn't much like it myself.

“We shall speak again soon,” Shard said.

Provided none of us were killed by the coming chaos. I didn't think we would be, though. My outlook these days was optimistic, and not just because hope was a defense. I put one arm around Julian, drawing him close.

With a slight bow, the sidhe turned and melted into the solstice night.

Marie Brennan is an anthropologist and folklorist who shamelessly pillages her academic fields for material. She most recently misapplied her professors' hard work to the Onyx Court historical fantasy series (
Midnight Never Come
,
In Ashes Lie
,
A Star Shall Fall
, and
With Fate Conspire
). She is also the author of the doppelganger duology of
Warrior
and
Witch
, the upcoming adventure
A Natural History of Dragons
, and more than forty short stories.

When she's not obsessing over historical details too minute for anybody but her to care about, she practices shorin-ryu karate and pretends to be other people in role-playing games (which sometimes find their way into her writing).

   

When a witch is born, a doppelganger is created. For the witch to master her powers, the twin must be killed. But what happens when the doppelganger survives?

Mirage, a bounty hunter, lives by her wits and lethal fighting skills. She
always
gets her mark. But her new mission will take her into the shadowy world of witches, where her strength may be no match against magic.

Miryo is a witch who has just failed her initiation test. She now knows that there is someone in the world who looks like her, who
is
her:
Mirage
. To control her powers and become a full witch, Miryo has only one choice: to hunt the hunter and destroy her.

Mirei's extraordinary magic makes her the most powerful witch alive. By some, she is hailed as a miracle, while others proclaim her to be an evil abomination … and vow to destroy those who champion her.

Now the different factions of witches engage in a bloody war, with magic, treachery, and murder. But both sides may be fighting for nothing. For the power that the rebel witches fear, the magic that Mirei alone possesses, is killing her.

   

England flourishes under the hand of its Virgin Queen: Elizabeth, Gloriana, last and most powerful of the Tudor monarchs.

But a great light casts a great shadow.

In hidden catacombs beneath London, a second Queen holds court: Invidiana, ruler of faerie England, and a dark mirror to the glory above. In the thirty years since Elizabeth ascended her throne, fae and mortal politics have become inextricably entwined, in secret alliances and ruthless betrayals whose existence is suspected only by a few.

Two courtiers, both struggling for royal favor, are about to uncover the secrets that lie behind these two thrones. When the faerie lady Lune is sent to monitor and manipulate Elizabeth's spymaster, Walsingham, her path crosses that of Michael Deven, a mortal gentleman and agent of Walsingham's. His discovery of the “hidden player” in English politics will test Lune's loyalty and Deven's courage alike. Will she betray her Queen for the sake of a world that is not hers? And can he survive in the alien and Machiavellian world of the fae? For only together will they be able to find the source of Invidiana's power—find it, and break it….

A breathtaking novel of intrigue and betrayal set in Elizabethan England,
Midnight Never Come
seamlessly weaves together history and the fantastic to dazzling effect.

The year is 1666. The King and Parliament vie for power, fighting one another with politics and armies alike. Below, the faerie court has enemies of its own. The old ways are breaking down, and no one knows what will rise in their place.

But now, a greater threat has come, one that could destroy everything. In the house of a sleeping baker, a spark leaps free of the oven—and ignites a blaze that will burn London to the ground. While the humans struggle to halt the conflagration that is devouring the city street by street, the fae pit themselves against a less tangible foe: the spirit of the fire itself, powerful enough to annihilate everything in its path.

Mortal and fae will have to lay aside the differences that divide them, and fight together for the survival of London itself…

   

Science is King, but Magic is Queen …

The Royal Society of London plays home to the greatest minds of England. In the century since its founding in 1660, it has revolutionized philosophy and scientific knowledge. Its fellows map out the laws of the natural world, disproving ancient superstition and ushering in an age of enlightenment.

To the fae of the Onyx Court, living in a secret city below London, these scientific developments are less than welcome. Magic is losing its place in the world—and science threatens to expose the court to hostile eyes.

In 1666, a Great Fire burned four-fifths of London to the ground. The calamity was caused by a great Dragon—an elemental beast of flame. Incapable of destroying something so powerful, the fae of London banished it to a comet moments before the comet's light disappeared from the sky. Now the calculations of Sir Edmond Halley have predicted its return.

So begins their race against time. Soon the Dragon's gaze will fall upon London and it will return to the city it ravaged once before. The fae will have to answer the question that defeated them a century before: How can they kill a being more powerful than all their magic combined? It will take both magic and science to save London—but reconciling the two carries its own danger…

Marie Brennan returns to the Onyx Court, a fairy city hidden below Queen Victoria's London. Now the Onyx Court faces its greatest challenge.

Seven years ago, Eliza's childhood sweetheart vanished from the streets of Whitechapel. No one believed her when she told them that he was stolen away by the faeries.

But she hasn't given up the search. It will lead her across London and into the hidden palace that gives refuge to faeries in the mortal world. That refuge is now crumbling, broken by the iron of the underground railway, and the resulting chaos spills over to the streets above.

Three centuries of the Onyx Court are about to come to an end. Without the palace's protection, the fae have little choice but to flee. Those who stay have one goal: to find safety in a city that does not welcome them. But what price will the mortals of London pay for that safety?