Read Online Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon by Lisa Goldstein - Free Book Online

around them, and they danced to music that was like nothing he had ever heard.
    â€œArthur,” he said, whispering. “Look.” But the other man had gone.
    The creatures left off dancing. In a single line they moved through the fields, a strange light shining from their faces. Tom followed as they passed through Moorgate and into the city itself.
    He would never be certain how long they led him onwards, or what way they took him through the city. They wound through the dark streets like a thread of gold in a tapestry, going past churches and prisons and taverns, past the shops of cobblers and ironmongers and brewers. Into the stately groves and gardens of the nobles’ estates they walked, and not a dog barked to let its owner know they were there. He saw the London citizens asleep in their houses, and beggars and vagabonds lying on the cobblestone streets, shivering in the cold; he saw St. Paul’s, closed and desolate in the darkness. At last they came to the river’s edge and the wharves with their boats moored tight until morning.
    He had always loved London, loved its noise and smells and close-packed lanes, the excitement and vitality he could feel in his stomach whenever he walked the streets. But now he saw it in the light cast by the faerie folk, and it seemed the promised city, the city of heaven. Each turning brought him new sights sharp enough to pierce his heart.
    All the while he walked with the faeries, though, he felt that they searched for something, something they had once had and given up, something lost. As dawn lightened the east, streaking the gray water of the Thames with silver, he saw them slow and finally stop. The wings of the little ones drooped, and the horned animal, its head once held up so proudly against the sky, began to tire. What was it they sought? He wished he could help them.
    In the light of the new day they seemed finally to become aware of him. One of the women in white turned and pointed, and then a dozen of them surrounded him, laughing and calling. He backed away toward the shelter of a building but they followed him. Someone ran her fingers through his hair. He felt drowsy, wearier than he had ever been in his life. It had been a long night. He lay against the wall and closed his eyes. Their laughter was the last thing he heard before he slept.
    A fine soft rain was falling the next morning as George went into the churchyard, and the drizzle had kept the usual throng of people at home. As he passed Alice’s station on the way to his own he saw that she had not come in to work that day. Instead the young man who worked for her stood at her stall, laying cloths over the books to keep them from getting wet. She must be at the printshop, then. He felt a strange emptiness at not seeing her; he hadn’t realized until then how pleasing he found it to watch her work. When she was his he would find ways of keeping her by his side.
    Anthony Drury waited for him at his stall, nodding as if he guessed his thoughts. “What decision have you come to?” he asked.
    At his words George felt alert, renewed, all disappointment forgotten. “I’ll agree to your terms,” he said. “I’ll take your potion.”
    â€œI don’t have it here.”
    â€œWhere is it, then?”
    â€œAt my lodgings. Come.”
    The man’s tone angered George. Why hadn’t Anthony simply brought the elixir with him? He thought that the other man meant to draw him deeper into this strange business, and he was reluctant to follow him. His only concern was with Alice: he had no interest in Anthony’s obsession with Arthur or his counterfeit coins (if Alice spoke true) or his obscure knowledge.
    But he would not get the promised potion unless he went along with him. “Very well,” he said.
    He closed his stall and followed the other man. They walked together through the empty churchyard, and then Anthony led him out onto Cheapside. Past the