John closed and opened his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “You’re right. ‘Who’?”
“Well, ‘who’ what?”
“Who predicted this light, if anyone? I surely didn’t. Better yet, who can explain it? Who is the person I should write to first and who is most qualified to interpret the meaning of this occurrence? Who is the fastest courier we have?” John’s mind swam with the letters he knew he must begin writing immediately—to men and women he preferred to correspond with only in writing. He feared he might be forced to request the physical presence of one or more of them.
John greatly disliked sharing his laboratories. Actually, he greatly disliked sharing any portion of his private castle—several years before, the king had allotted him funds to construct a small manor just a mile from the walls of the compound, and John had named his new home Urania. He had installed every instrument of astronomical observation that he had so far collected. They were bolted tightly into his courtyard’s ground and protected by metal domes that closed out the salt and the water. John was fiercely protective of them, as he had, after all, spent his life acquiring these marvels. He was not often moved to share them with magicians he considered lesser than himself; that is, with anyone else. The very notion of a swarm of interested parties converging upon his lovely, peaceful, near-complete castle caused his breath to race, so that he began to feel like his heart was flapping open and closed like a door in the wind. He found himself hating this bright streak in the sky.
He had secured from King Michael four armed men to guard his manor—one for each gate—and outfitted them with swords blessed by the Hierophant and forged from the metal of fallen satellites. His instruments were priceless, he would not leave anything to chance. And yet King Michael had insisted the manor be built with extra bedrooms to house other magicians he invited to the Cape from time to time. John could hardly object—it was not his money used to build Urania. But during the days and weeks these other Orbital Doctors used his equipment he lingered behind them as they worked. He knitted his fingers together, watching to be sure they did not smudge their face-greases on glass casings or jostle any of his precisely aligned water tables or scrying bowls. And yet now John must write to the other Orbital Doctors—who? All of them! In their own subpar astronomical spaces where they calculated with half, no!, a fourth of his natural alacrity—and he must ask them if anywhere in any of their own records and charts was this thing, this glowing streak, this cosmological rumination he himself had missed.
It was all too much for him to bear. John’s already pounding heart sputtered. He could not catch his breath. He bent to his knees, staring up at the mysterious light in the late afternoon sky. Bright and beautiful. Mizar rushed to his side, patted his arm. “Sir? Are you all right?”
Then he fell backward. Mizar immediately clutched his wrist in a vain effort to find his pulse, for John had been somewhat prone to fainting in his youth. So Mizar was pressing up and down his arm as though testing fruit, and then a great wooly heat descended over the top of John’s head. He could remember nothing, and then he passed from the realm of the physical and also from the constraints of his worry and into a gauzelike swoon.
CHAPTER 5
THE PARDONESS
Marvel Parsons had hardly emerged from the shadow of Canaveral Tower when a feeling of profound dread swept over him, and he turned and looked up. Beside him, Juniper did the same. In the white incandescence of the late fall sky, Marvel saw the light. Juniper said, “O. Well, shit.” The young guard squinted and cupped his hands around his eyes for a moment, until he shook his head and murmured, “God, that hurts my eyes, the sky’s so bright.”
A very light wind swept over them. The rain had completely stopped. Other people in the courtyard, now hushed, had likewise turned their faces to the sky, their wares forgotten. They all stood like silent statues.
“O shit,” Juniper said again. “What is that?”
Marvel found that he was comforted by the younger man’s demeanor. “I have no idea. A comet is what it looks like.” He turned to Juniper. “We’ll go now to the Pardoness. You come with me.”
“What? But the light—”
“Yes, it’s probably a comet, as I said.”
“What will the Pardoness do?”
“She’ll do what she does,” Marvel replied with straining patience. “Pardon us for crimes we will soon commit.” When he saw the confusion on Juniper’s face, he said, “You are a spy, aren’t you? I’m taking you to an important place, perhaps the most important one we have here at the Cape. There you can spy all you please. Afterward I will need you to be of some assistance to me. Is that an acceptable deal?”
Juniper blinked.
“I will pay you. Whatever they’re paying you, I’ll pay you more. Double. Triple.”
He shrugged at last. “If you say so.” Then, his handsome face cracked open. “I’m not a spy, though.”
* * *
He would act, and later he would consider his actions. It had been so for him during all the important moments in his life. This quality, he supposed, made him a good leader—it was politically expedient, at any rate. It gave him an air of authority.
Marvel had never actually been to Green Butterfly’s chamber, though he had committed many sins. The zealousness of his youth and the trust he’d placed in his own judgment meant that he’d done little, over the course of his lifetime, for which
