Starlight & Strange Magic, Chapter 24: In Which We Enter A Strange Land
Rating: M Summary: Lucy Preston, a young American woman, arrives in England in 1887 to teach history at Somerville College, Oxford. London is the capital of the steam and aether and automatonic world, and new innovations are appearing every day. When she meets a mysterious, dangerous mercenary and underworld kingpin, Garcia Flynn, her life takes a turn for the decidedly too interesting. But Lucy has plenty of secrets of her own – not least that she’s from nowhere or nowhen nearby – and she is more than up for the challenge. Available: AO3 Previous: In Which The You Know What Hits The You Know Where
Lucy wakes slowly, rising from deep unconsciousness to filmy awareness in a way to make her think that she must have been asleep for a hundred years, and she is alone among the briars and the brambles of an overgrown, ruined castle. She lies there with her eyes closed, unable to remember how to open them, with pale light etching shadows on the inside of her eyelids. She vaguely recalls that she was stabbed, but she does not feel any pain. She’s not immediately sure where she is or how she got here, or how long it’s been. It could be a century, as she just thought, or it could have been a few moments. It could have been forever, or nothing at all.
After several more minutes, Lucy ventures to open her eyes, which takes a lot more effort than she is used to. The light falls full in her face, and she is tempted to clap them shut again straightaway. But as her sight returns, she can make some sense of her surroundings. She is lying on a huge bed, which is draped in white coverings like fine spidersilk and hung in a gauzy canopy, with tall posts of pale wood and curtains tied with gilded bands. It’s very comfortable, and she is almost engulfed in pillows covered with intricate silver embroidery. The bed is set in a large, airy room that looks medieval in its architecture, with gothic columns and fluted ogives, but the stone is twined with flowering vines that have slightly changed in color and appearance each time Lucy looks back at them. The floor opens out onto a sweeping balcony, and the windows are diamonded, letting in more of that bright, indeterminate light. She has a vague memory that it was night when she got here. She must have been out for a while.
Lucy glances around the room, which is quiet except for a faint rush and sigh like distant wind or waves. There is a silver goblet of water on the side table, a white rose, and a glass bell jar that flickers on and off with a sun-like glow. The air has a thin, fragile translucence to it like much-washed linen, and Lucy raises a hand as if to catch trailing filaments. Then she reaches down to touch her chest, finds that there is no stab wound or other injury of any sort – even her battered feet and legs have been completely restored – and she is wearing an insubstantial gown made of the same white silk as the bedclothes. It falls low on her shoulders, and swirls like clouds.
Thus far, Lucy has not seen anything to disprove the asleep-for-a-hundred-years-in-a-ruined-castle hypothesis, though this does not look like some windswept, derelict wreck in the middle of nowhere. The water has been left for her, at any rate, and the place is clean and well-kept and otherwise appealing. If she thought she might wake up in some craggy, desolate black tower under a jagged fork of lightning, that is assuredly not the case. That, or –
Wait. Why would she think that, what did she expect? She knew she was taken here by someone, someone whose color scheme and general aesthetic tended toward the dark and dramatic end of things, and this does not quite match with that. Matija, Matija Korvin. Is this is his castle, is that where she is? Is this Faerie?
Where – where is Flynn?
Lucy slides to the side of the bed and stands up a little too fast, causing a head rush. The wood of the floor is silken beneath her bare feet, and one of the vines grows a few more flowers before her eyes, which open their petals with a soft, fragrant perfume. Clothes have been laid out for her on a nearby chair, so she makes her way over to investigate. It is a deep midnight-blue dress worked with crystals like small stars, and a matching cloak fastened by a band of diamonds. It is definitely more expensive than anything she has ever worn, and looks custom-made.