When the World Shatters, Part One
September 12th (pre-Shattering)

A knight's young sister goes in rescue of her brother, and earns her own place as the Rowan Knight.

A dying soldier meets a dark and graceful specter who calls herself Hope.

In the wilds of northern England, two armies clash, and two diametrically opposed fae duel.

And the fall of Lyonesse comes about from the injured heart of a reclusive craftswoman . . . . .

When the World Shatters, Part Two
September 19th (pre-Shattering)

The Rowan Knight, following a sign, went in dreams to the Albion Pool, where the Spirit of Albion informed her gathered knights that the seven sacred trees would soon die. The Spirit urged them, though, to aid that death, so that the power might be released and returned to her. A further dream warned the Rowan Knight that her fellow knights, despite their oaths, would for some unknown reason not be there to do their duties.

Yorke scented death on the wind, the first tidings of the plague to come. He then heard the voice of his master, the North Wind, saying that a cold was coming which was not of its making, and that he must warn others of its approach. The pooka proceeded to travel from court to court, attempting to carry this news, but he met with little attention.

Along the banks of the Father Thames, Hope stopped and paid a visit to the ondine there. He told her that he might understand the Heart Riddle if he could live a mortal's life for a time, and thereby planted a seed in the sluagh's mind.

Wessamina received an invitation to a meeting of the Order of Purification, a society of alchemists both mortal, kinain, and fae. But arguments broke out there, between a mortal who insisted that the randomness and unpredictability of their work was crippling them, and a fae who countered that only such flexibility and chance gave them any hope of creating the Philosopher's Stone. This led to a division in the Order, and in its aftermath, Wess found herself in the company of a kinain named Thomas Merriman, who spoke to her of a vision he had: that the split in the Order had moved them further away from their goal, but had made its achievement possible. Thomas also confided in her a vague but sincere belief that one of his own sons -- or grandsons, or further on -- would be the one to make the Stone.

Bit by bit, these strands of fate drew the fae together: first the Rowan Knight and Yorke, then Hope, then Thomas, who saw in them elemental correspondences that could be of use. Going in search of fire, they found Wess, and agreed to help one another. With the Black Death now striking at England, Thomas would help them find shelter in mortal bodies, in exchange for assistance lent to his descendants in their search for the Stone. The fae would aid the Rowan Knight in her duty to the Spirit of Albion, and if they could, they might even lift the curse under which Wess lived.

When the World Shatters, Part Three
September 26th (pre-Shattering)

The group turned their steps toward London, home to both the Library of Albion and the only known path to the Albion Pool. Along the way, they sought out mortals with whom they might find shelter: Robert, Anna, Mary, and Elizabeth. Each was recruited in a different way, but all under Thomas' stricture that he would only accept those who came to the process fully aware of what it meant. He would permit no fae trickery to ensnare them.

They traveled through a countryside of death. The Black Plague was taking its toll, with subsequent effects for the fae. Reaching London, they realized they would be safer not journeying through it; Yorke's magic carried them through the night sky to the Library, where Thomas waited with the mortals and made arrangements with the Library's keeper, and then to the Pool of Albion.

The Spirit of Albion accepted their offer of aid, on the Rowan Knight's conviction that her fellows would not be there to do what they must. The fae drank from the Pool to seal their oath, then went back to the Library. There, in the main hall, under the eyes of the stained-glass window that depicted the Spirit herself, Thomas conducted what would prove to be one variant of the Changeling Way ritual, bringing together each pair of mortal and fae.

That done, the new changelings went forth, to spread their message as the mortals died, the world grew colder, and the sidhe fled to Arcadia -- the gates slamming shut in their wake.

A Verray, Parfit, Gentil Knyght: Intro
August 8th (early summer 1399)

Questing for his lost sword, Robin White journeys southward through Albion, encountering a familiar-looking nocker and Scathach along the way.

A Verray, Parfit, Gentil Knyght, Part One
August 15th (summer 1399)

Based on Robin's faint memories, Rowan and her newfound squire decided to leave home. They slipped away during a tournament, and found themselves with an unlooked-for guide: a will o' th' wisp that appeared every morning as they began their day's travel. The slightly unnerving nature of this help was compounded by Rowan's sporadic feeling that she was being watched.

The lengthy journey gave Rowan plenty of time to begin teaching Robin the ways of chivalry, though her success was less than she might have desired. Robin, for his own part, made oblique references to the sword he sought -- unaware that Rowan had it in her baggage, just as she was unaware the sword she had acquired some time before had formerly been his. Eventually they arrived in the County of the Cave, where a helpful boggan told them of Black Annis, the nightmarish creature that lived in the nearby woods, and the terrible Black Knight who kept a lady captive in a tower. Naturally, a knight and her squire could not turn away from such a situation.

The lady in the tower, Daschabethalina, had known of their approach since, discontented by the defeat of her most recent would-be rescuer, she scryed for what would be coming next. She found her attention unexpectedly drawn, not to the Scathach knight, but to her pooka squire. His arrival in the clearing below her tower only strengthened this attraction -- an attraction which did not go unnoticed by the Black Knight. Instead of fighting Rowan, the Black Knight challenged Robin, and Rowan, deciding the time had come for her squire to earn his knighthood, armed him with his long-lost sword Litany.

Robin proceeded to fight the Black Knight, aided by cantrips from both his knight-master Rowan and the lady in the tower. Despite this assistance, he made little headway against his enemy until Daschabethalina bestowed good fortune on him with a dropped handkerchief, and which point he laid the Black Knight low. The tower allowed him entrance, and comedy ensued . . . but outside, trouble was brewing. The door closed behind Robin, trapping him, and outside, Rowan found herself facing the hag Black Annis. The Scathach killed her without much trouble, but did not defeat her completely, as the malevolent and disembodied spirit fled. Freed at last from the tower, Daschabethalina went to gather herbs for healing, and discovered a surprise: a young man extricating himself from the trees animated by Black Annis. With his inside-out tunic removed, Will Merriman at last became visible as the watcher Rowan had felt on her all this time.

Unmasked, the body of the Black Knight proved to be that of the nocker Robin had encountered on his way south: Wessamina Hammercrank, the last member of a quartet of fae who, according to Will and Robin's faint memories, had bound themselves to undertake a long series of tasks. The group retired to Wessamina's nearby forge and home for explanations -- and for the wedding of Daschabethalina and Robin White.

A Verray, Parfit, Gentil Knyght, Part Two
August 22th (late summer 1399)

Having learned from Will that the first of the trees to die would be the hazel, the group began to travel south once more, seeking the people and events represented in his visions as a dying hazel tree, rooted in a grave, in the shadow of a tower. Will o' th' wisps guided them once more on their way, courtesy of an enchanted whistle in Will's possession, which he had used to aid Rowan and Robin before.

The journey was not without its problems, as the fae, still unaccustomed to living as mortals, took offense at rude innkeepers and wreaked chicken-transformation vengeance on brigands along the road. After some weeks, they found themselves approaching the city of London, and stopped for the night in a friendly inn, the Cauldron of Plenty, that proved to be a freehold tended by one Billin Goodemeade.

This hospitable boggan gave them rooms, food, and spots by the balefire. That evening, a troll named Philip Tallaxe came to ask a favor of Billin and, seeing a Scathach knight in residence, approached Rowan as well. A fae of the area had committed a great crime, and was to be tried the following day by what should have been a council of seven nobles. With nobles in short supply since the Shattering, Billin, as a freehold owner, was to be one of the judges, and Philip asked Rowan, as an impartial stranger and a sidhe, to be the seventh. Rowan agreed, and arrangements were made for the fae to come to the Tower of London the following day.

In the freehold of the White Tower, the judges assembled, along with virtually every other fae in the region. The council consisted of the nobles Volva Kajsa Sunnive Aesna, Sir Lauchlan Senast ap Liam, and Starr Rowan ap Scathach; the freehold owners Billin Goodemeade and Amadis Shirreen; Philip Tallaxe, the leader of the Honorable Order of Arcadians; and the ondine Father Thames. The sluagh Suspiria was accused of having reaved a balefire of its Glamour, destroying that freehold in the process, in an attempt to re-open a gateway to Arcadia. The judges sentenced her to a ban laid by Kajsa Sunnive, that she should derive no benefit from freeholds until such time as she had repaid what she had destroyed, and come to understand its value.

Following the trial, a nocker named Daniel Saccas took the opportunity to make an announcement, recruiting assistance for a project. His idea was to create a linked "network" of balefires within London, each supporting the other so that they would be protected against harm from Banality. This would require an epic piece of dross, and it seemed that there might be some connection between Daniel's project and the duties of the quartet -- all the moreso since they were, at that moment, in a tower, not far from the Borough of Graves.

The fae therefore went to Westminster, where Will used his whistle. It guided them to the house of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, on the grounds of Westminster Abbey. The first attempt to contact him did not go well, since he left just as Rowan placed an enchanted apple on his windowsill, and Daschabethalina, hoping to trick him into picking it up, threw it at his head. Rowan was left in plain sight to cover for the sluagh's action, and Robin's attempt to assist apparently left Chaucer with the impression he was about to be mugged. He left very quickly, and disheartened, the fae went back to the Cauldron, leaving Wess concealed at the house to keep watch.

A Verray, Parfit, Gentil Knyght, Part Three
August 29th (fall 1399-fall 1400)

While Rowan traveled around London with Will, gathering information on Chaucer's current doings, Wessamina took up the duty of observation. Daschabethalina, on the other hand, got herself into a bit of excitement with the mortal children of Islington, which ended when Robin came looking for her. Eventually, they arrived at the conclusion that what they needed to do, quite simply -- but not easily -- was to Muse Chaucer into finishing his current project, a set of tales told by a group of pilgrims on the road to Canterbury.

They laid the groundwork for this task over the course of several days, leaving roses in various locations around his house, which eventually lured him out to the rose-bush from which they came. Billin Goodemeade assisted them in the next step, casting a cantrip which led the poet down a path of rose petals into the forest, where Wessamina awaited him, hidden beneath a cloak. The two of them conversed, until Chaucer made a comment about apples, whereupon one rolled up to his feet. It was of course enchanted, and with Chaucer now drawn into the Dreaming, the other fae emerged, presenting themselves as less threatening analogues to the classical gods who had once argued with a mortal over an apple. Their initial attempts to deal with him met with an absolute lack of success, though, as they confused the poet still further. Finally, however, they realized they had gone astray, and successfully persuaded him to begin speaking of his work. From this shaky beginning, they inspired him to return to his poems with fresh energy.

Over the course of the following year, they kept up this relationship, frequently Musing Chaucer as he wrote his final work. Daniel Saccas hammered out plans for the so-called "Web of London," while Rowan scouted locations for an independent freehold in Southwark. Robin and Daschabethalina had a second wedding, this one grand enough to suit the bride, and she presented him with an Omen treasure, a silver earring of a sluagh woman. Robin also, in conjunction with the raven pooka Edward Black, proposed a solution to the necessity of supplying the Web with infusions of Glamour; the raven messenger service of London, and its dross fee, was thereby instituted. Through the months of 1400, however, plague revisited the city, bringing terrifying echoes of the Shattering not long before. The illness captured Chaucer, and while fae Arts could do nothing against it, Will's alchemy managed to keep the poet alive long enough to finish his task.

In the fall of 1400, Chaucer finished The Canterbury Tales, then departed from the world. The fae took the only completed manuscript of the poem to the White Tower, where its sheaves were used as torches to carry the balefire's Glamour to the new freeholds, spaced within the walls of the city. The destruction of the dross provided a tremendous surge of power that not only lit the new balefires, but linked them together, and grounded them in the city itself, through Chaucer's loving description of its inhabitants. The Web of London came into existence, and for one brief moment that fall evening, it seemed a city of the Dreaming itself.

A Conspiracy of Cartographers: Intro
July 11th (March 1480)

A battle on the high seas brings three of the four changelings together, and leads them to London in search of their last companion.

A Conspiracy of Cartographers, Part One
July 18th (April 1480)

The arrival of Simon Merriman set events in motion. In a secretive meeting at the Round, he explained to them that the tree they were dealing with in this life was the alder, less in its warlike aspects than in the bridging of one world to another. A mortal expedition was being sent forth to find the legendary island of Hy-Brazil, and must be stopped. Rowan had sent a message to Sir Ruadh Noíchéile of the Fearn, asking to commission his ship, but the sidhe could not put into a mortal port; Banality would destroy him. The fae therefore formed a plan to reach his next port via Morbon, the City of Doors.

They journeyed there from the Library of Albion, guided by a young Scathach named Aurelien. In Morbon, Rowan solicited the aid of Quiana Eveleen Sylvrane, a high-ranking member of her House. While Sylvrane searched for a door to the island of Aoncos, which Rowan's augury indicated would be Sir Ruadh's next port, the fae explored the City of Doors, acquiring many souvenirs and oddities. Hammercrank picked up a powder monkey and a compass that points to places she's been, while Mollybeth traded for a tiny chimerical fluffball of a bat she called Bitsy. They also obtained gifts for Sir Ruadh, including Arcadian rosewine and a wooden coin that could heal his ship of damage.

Soon Sylvrane informed them the door has been found, and the fae passed through to Aoncos. They found themselves on a small island that stood atop an enormous, eight-sided pillar of silver, with a net hanging down to the sea from one side. There was no sign of Sir Ruadh or his ship. Divinations indicated he would be there soon, however, so the fae settled down to wait. Sparks flew between Hammercrank and Rowan when the touchy subject of the sidhe's departure to Arcadia came up; to reassure Rowan, Simon told her that they would return, though his Sight could not tell him when.

When the Fearn drew near, Rowan sent a note to Sir Ruadh, using Johnny as her messenger. Landing on the ship, he found he knew at least one person there: his sister Jenny Wren. He escaped her when Sir Ruadh sent him back to Aoncos, but only temporarily. Soon the ship arrived and a landing party climbed up to the island's surface, where the captain seemed less than amenable to Rowan's offer of a commission; his ship, he explained, had only one destination, and that was Arcadia. Simon advised him, however, that Hy-Brazil might hold the path he was seeking. Sir Ruadh therefore agreed to take them on board, accepting their gifts -- including an offer of one hundred years of servitude from an overwhelmed Johnny Rook.

A Conspiracy of Cartographers, Part Two
July 25th (Summer? 1480)

Once on board the ship, the fae had two problems to tackle: how to stop the mortal expedition of John Jay and Thomas Lyde when the Fearn could not draw near it without danger, and how to find Hy-Brazil. They had found no answers to these problems when an unnatural storm blew up, apparently sent with a purpose. During this storm, Johnny Rook's eyes were drawn to a woman beckoning him from beneath the waves. Overcome with a need to join her, he fell overboard.

His absence was not noted until the storm died down. With Chronos, a slightly Bedlam-ridden Rowan looked backward in time and saw what had happened, thus confirming Eyes' fear; he'd fallen victim to a mermaid. An equally Bedlam-ridden Mollybeth poured herself into a bucket and started crying while Simon, rather the worse for the wear following the storm, disappeared among his alchemical supplies. It seemed that Sir Ruadh was not on speaking terms with the merfolk, but Eyes convinced him to keep the ship in the correct area for a time, and when Simon produced a potion to help the fae breathe underwater, the redcap Tiburón went with them.

Following Hammercrank's will-o'-the-wisp, they made their way through the ocean waters to a merfolk city that had clearly suffered a recent attack. Johnny Rook had been taken there by a mermaid named Seilis of Melusine, who intended to use him as an ambassador (having first secured his goodwill with Sirensong). When the visitors explained his ill-luck, she was all too ready to get rid of him, ending her cantrip and leaving Johnny quite confused as to where he was, how he'd gotten there, and why Mollybeth wasn't speaking to him. Seilis explained that their warriors had been ambushed by their enemies, the murdhuacha or merrow, and that her sister Leria, the ruler of their city, had been captured and perhaps killed. She promised, however, that if Sir Ruadh assisted her, then his crimes against her people would be washed away. Tiburón, Johnny, and Mollybeth were sent back as ambassadors with two mer, while Hammercrank and Rowan stayed to help plan the upcoming battle.

When he heard the message from below, Sir Ruadh agreed to help the mer, and took his ship to the waters over their city to confer. The merrow had made their lair in a floating island much like an inverted mountain (referred to by the mer as the "Not-Dry Land"), whose underwater bulk was honeycombed with tunnels. A powerful augury performed by Mollybeth gave them excellent tactical preparation, and so the counterattack began, with Sir Ruadh in the forefront of battle, entering the sea for the first time in ages. Johnny laid about himself with the icy edge of his sword, while Mollybeth conjured bubbles of air to plug the entrances to the tunnels. Hammercrank brought fire beneath the sea, using Pyretics to boil the waters around the merrow. Rowan entered the tunnels with two of the remaining Lorelei mer, and in a large cavern within the Not-Dry Land, they found Leria impaled on the spikes of the wall, and a terrible, tentacled monster. Together they fought and slew that monster, and took the injured and poisoned Leria to safety.

In the aftermath of the battle, Seilis made a great concession to Sir Ruadh, changing her dolphin tail for legs and climbing on board the Fearn. There she forgave him for his sins of the past. To Johnny she offered a boon, as repayment for the strife she'd caused with Mollybeth; he asked to learn their Art of controlling the weather. She also granted a favor to the four visitors on the ship, who were not truly members of Sir Ruadh's crew, and therefore did not share in his former guilt. Rowan asked, and received, assistance from the mer in stopping the Bristol expedition and finding Hy-Brazil. Leaving a handful of mer with the ship, Seilis returned beneath the waves.

A Conspiracy of Cartographers, Part Three
August 1st (Summer? 1480)

As the fae slipped further into the confusion of Bedlam (all save Johnny Rook), the task of stopping the mortal ship began. Based on Mollybeth's divinations, Sir Ruadh repeatedly navigated the Fearn around to a spot safely far upwind of Thomas Lyde's vessel, where the merfolk would call up storms and release them. Mollybeth also laid hauntings on regions of the waters the ship would pass through, and Hammercrank lit Johnny with spectral fire and sent him to fly around the mortals. And, after a time, they succeeded: Lyde turned back toward mortal lands, and the Fearn continued its search for Hy-Brazil.

Before they could proceed far with that, though, a new problem arose. Simon, seeing the fae succumb one by one to Bedlam, attempted to create an alchemical potion which would cure their condition . . . by means more or less akin to Banality. Sir Ruadh discovered this and threatened his execution. The kinain was only permitted to live when Rowan volunteered to keep an eye on him at all times, and to destroy all of Simon's supplies. This left Simon wretched, and led to strife among the companions, as Rowan and Hammercrank argued over the destruction of the workshop; the nocker beat Johnny nearly to death before Rowan slowed her in time, allowing them to finish their work uninterrupted.

But only by working together could they find Hy-Brazil, and so finally, under less than cordial conditions, they turned their attention to that task. Hammercrank had suggested a specialized compass which would point to the island. They replaced the blade of Rowan's alder-hilted dagger with iron (the metal of alder), and floated it in a mixture of fluids from each of the four: blood from Rowan, tears from Mollybeth, saliva from Johnny, and (in the absence of anything better) stomach acid from Hammercrank. As Simon placed the knife in the compass, each cast a profound magic upon it: a Chronos effect to find Hy-Brazil through time, a Soothsay one to divine its location, a Wayfare to bring them there, and a Pyretics to find the way. The knife spun widdershins three times, and when it completed its third circuit, the world turned with it; the Fearn had moved to the same space and time in which Hy-Brazil existed. They sailed through the day and through the night, and when dawn came, they saw the island on the horizon.

Having reached his goal at last, Sir Ruadh felt more kindly toward the companions, and permitted Rowan to release Simon from her watch. The kinain brought them all below while the captain and crew stood at the rails, watching the island approach, and spoke to them at last of what they need do: they must promise Sir Ruadh that they would take word of the island back to the other fae, but then close the gate behind him when he was gone. This pained them all, but they knew the necessity of it. Rowan successfully convinced Sir Ruadh of their false purpose, and he gave them the ship's longboat, fully provisioned, to make their journey home. Jenny Wren went with them, citing an oath she was bound to fulfill back in Albion. As the longboat landed on the island's shores, they saw the Fearn get underway once more, sailing along the ribbon of water that parted one half of Hy-Brazil from the other, and vanishing over the horizon to Arcadia.

The solution for how to close the gate was hit upon quite by accident: while swimming in the Glamour-filled waters of that stream, Rowan discovered that it was difficult to the point of impossibility to swim against the current, away from Arcadia and toward the sea. The fae formed a plan to row the longboat from the far side of the island to the seaward side, reversing Sir Ruadh's journey. While Hammercrank crafted a mast and a sail for the boat, and everyone prepared cantrips of winds and speed and good fortune to assist them on their way, Simon prepared something of his own: an alchemical potion that would allow them to act, not as individuals, but as a unified whole against the power of the island. Bereft of his supplies, with only his equipment left, he achieved this by providing himself as a catalyst to join the four of them together. Only Hammercrank, with her knowledge of alchemy, knew that such catalysts were usually destroyed by the process.

They began their endeavour at last. Seated in the boat, with Simon in the center, the four fae took their oars, cast their cantrips, and rowed against the current. The island and the path to Arcadia fought them, but the boat began to move. As it went, it seemed to drag the two halves of the island with it; the mountains came together, leaving only the narrowest strip of water, until they passed beyond the shore and into the open water once more, whereupon the land closed entirely, and the path was gone. The gate to Arcadia was closed, and Simon fell dead in their midst.

But as he had reminded them before they began to row, their task was not completely done: they still had to conceal the island, so that none would set foot upon it again. They returned to the shore, where they buried Simon's body and left Johnny Rook's greatsword of ice standing in the sand where the sea met the land. As they floated away, Mollybeth laid a haunting on the place, so that none would approach it, and Rowan dropped the forget-me-nots of her flower crown into the water, hiding the island in time. The veil to conceal the island came from Hammercrank and Johnny, as he called a fog and she summoned the power of fire to burn the sword of ice. Mist arose, and Hy-Brazil vanished from sight.

A Conspiracy of Cartographers: Aftermath

Alone in the western seas, with an unconscious Jenny Wren among them (having fainted when the gate was closed), the fae turned their attention at last to Hammercrank's magical compass, that would point to where they'd been, and began to row home.

Midnight Never Come: Intro
June 7th (Midsummer 1589)

Years have passed since the four changelings found themselves in each other's company once more, and as yet, there is no sign of a Merriman appearing to give them direction.

Midnight Never Come, Part One
June 13th (late summer 1589)

At the request of Jaime Ellair, keeper of the Library of Albion, Erasmus made one final trip to Mortlake, there to pillage the collection of the mortal "wizard" John Dee, newly returned from the Continent. After picking up the book he'd been sent for, Erasmus browsed for a souvenir of his own, and found his attention drawn to a book on a lectern. By force of will, he broke himself free of the paralyzing enchantment, but a man entered the room and broke his cantrip of concealment. Erasmus discovered himself to be trapped inside a pentacle laid down by none other than Docter Dee, who proceeded to question him and, vexed by Erasmus' blasphemous answers, summoned a vision of angels to strike the proper awe into his soul. Released at last, with the book as a keepsake, Erasmus returned to the Library, where he discovered that Ellair had apparently sent him to Mortlake specifically to provoke that encounter with Dee.

At the Onyx Court, a redcap was dragged before Invidiana, accused of having murdered the Earl of Lichfield, a key pawn in one of the fae Queen's political schemes. Using her Geas treasure, Invidiana bound him into a corner of the Onyx Hall, on pain of death if he left that spot. Later that evening, Wessamina paid him a visit, which only underscored the lack of hope for the prisoner. She recognized him as Wroth, a fae known from past lives, but could do nothing for him. As the days passed after his imprisonment, he seemed to be working up the resolution to commit suicide by breaking his Ban, while Wessamina struggled to swallow down the fury this awakened in her.

Invidiana summoned both Rowan and Sabbeth to private meetings concerning Doctor Dee. Rowan was tasked to investigate Dee, with an eye toward recruiting him to the Onyx Court now that Elizabeth had shown less favor for him than in years past. Sabbeth was instructed to begin planning ways to kill Dee, that might overcome his mundane and magical defenses. This led to many research requests at the Library of Albion, as both Rowan and Sabbeth (via Erasmus) asked Ellair for information regarding angels and demons, the ways to distinguish them, and how one might overcome angelic powers. Intrigued by Ellair's report about the others' interest, Rowan asked Wessamina if she'd been given any special projects; the sudden confluence of purpose seemed to suggest their time might be at hand. But Wessamina denied it and, ever mindful of the dangers of the Onyx Court, also refused to speak about Wroth. Invidiana's unwillingness to let Wessamina make her planned trip to the Oxfordshire Merrimans also put a halt to attempts in that direction.

But while in the Onyx Hall one night, Rowan encountered Tiresias in a shadowy corridor. He spoke as if he had little time remaining; he knew his own dream-struck state, knew Invidiana would soon have him Ravaged again, and did not believe he could survive it much longer. After indicating that he knew Rowan was searching for someone, he asked her what happened if one died in a dream, then made her promise to remember him. The promise made, he whispered an apology to Suspiria, gathered his will, and spoke urgently to Rowan. "It's the apple, and Invidiana. She is the one you must --" He got no further before a crushing force of Glamour struck down, killing him on the spot.

Midnight Never Come, Part Two
June 20th (late summer 1589)

After Tiresias fell dead at her feet, Rowan fled the Onyx Hall. Screams echoed through the corridors as she went: Lady Carline had strayed too close to Wroth's enclosure, and lost her left arm to his teeth. Sabbeth took a place at the satyr's bedside, searching for an advantage to draw from the situation, while Wess questioned one of the onyx golems about the incident. Rowan called Erasmus to the Round to talk, and attempted to intercept him on the way, but with little luck. Instead she spoke briefly with Wess atop the nocker's laboratory, the conversation being cut short when Wess realized the danger it represented. Erasmus waited for Rowan in the Round, eventually being thrown out by the Scathach there.

Back in the Onyx Hall, following Rowan's tip-off, Wess found Tiresias' body, which she called the Royal Guard to take away. She also encountered Eurydice; the kinain seemed to be searching for someone. Sabbeth likewise saw Eurydice, and soon found herself racing against the kinain and the specters of the Hall to find Tiresias' ghost. She briefly managed to lead the specters astray, long enough to learn some of what Tiresias had to tell, but soon the specters returned, with Eurydice. While the kinain held Sabbeth pinned, the specters ripped the ghost from where it had sheltered in her body, but Sabbeth had her revenge; she stabbed the woman with a poison ring and dumped her body in the River Fleet.

The following morning, while Sabbeth and Wess met for a brief conference in a pub, Rowan followed through on her plan to investigate John Dee, though she no longer intended to recruit him for Invidiana. The astrologer drew up a horoscope for her, uncovering a disturbing amount of information in the process; he divined Rowan's double nature, and questioned her about the fate she lay under, using a holly wand to compel her into speaking. Once that meeting ended, Rowan planned to go to the County of the Horse, to find and protect the Merrimans there, but fate pulled her back to the City. Trusting the Scathach to protect them for the time being, Rowan returned to Dee, and sent a raven for the others to join her. From Dee, they learned that their duty in this lifetime was pitting them against demonic forces, and moreover that they could gain assistance from a pair of sister angels: the Goodemeade boggans of Angels.

Arriving at the Cauldron of Plenty as dusk fell, the fae made arrangements for rooms for the night, and requested a private audience with Gertrude and Rosamund. The sisters admitted to knowing about the situation, but first required an assurance of safety: they demanded of Rowan and Wess a firm decision as to which of their oaths they intended to uphold. After a brief argument over Wess' desire to send a raven to her golem Onyx first, both fae said they would uphold their duty to Albion. With those words, their fealty to Invidiana was broken, and both were struck blind.

The Goodemeade sisters told, in brief, the story of how the sluagh Suspiria gave up her ability to love in exchange for eternal youth and beauty. As Tiresias had told Sabbeth, she was cursed to derive no benefit from freeholds; she could not take Glamour from them, nor did they protect her from aging. She had built the Onyx Hall in a failed attempt to lift the curse, but as she grew older, she made her infernal deal, becoming the Machiavellian queen Invidiana. Tiresias -- Francis Merriman -- had been Suspiria's lover, and suffered for decades as Invidiana's pet.

This tale done, the Goodemeades promised shelter at the Cauldron for the night, and further assistance to follow.

Midnight Never Come, Part Three
June 27th (early fall 1589)

The following morning, the Goodemeades arranged for the fugitive fae to leave the County of the Tower, to escape Invidiana's hunters. They chose to go to the County of the Horse, mortal Oxfordshire, where the remnants of the Merriman family were known to live. There they rested and recuperated, Rowan and Wessamina learning to cope with their blindness and Wessamina making new weapons for them both, before going in search of the Merrimans.

Richard, the head of the household, was gone to Bristol on business when the fae arrived. They conversed instead with Mary, his wife, to little success; she thanked them for bringing the news of a relative's death, but seemed to have no awareness of anything odd. And when her sons were brought to meet the guests, and Rowan enchanted the eleven-year-old John, he shrieked at the sight of Sabbeth and fled the room. In the kitchens, however, Erasmus met with more luck among the servants. A young and not entirely proper lady, Eleanor Merriman, joined them there, and listened with much interest to Erasmus' gossip and stories. Upon leaving the estate, Erasmus made mention of this, and so the fae returned at dusk to meet young Eleanor when she slipped outside to wander. They enchanted her in the woods and explained the family history to her, laying on her the duty of ensuring this information was passed on. Eleanor promised to convey it to her cousin Thomas (a more promising candidate than John).

With that duty done, the fae turned their thoughts once more to Invidiana. Rowan had performed an augury regarding their path, and as they prepared to leave the County of the Horse, their horoscopes arrived from John Dee. Erasmus realized, as Dee had before them, that the charts contained knowledge the fae should avoid in order to perform their duties. The fae then returned to the City of the Tower.

Dee met with them at Mortlake, and agreed to help them gain angelic assistance. In the private chapel in his house, a minister performed the Mass for them, and each fae confessed his or her sins -- a contemplation which took some longer than others. With their souls cleansed, they returned to Dee's ritual room, where the magus petitioned the angel Anael on their behalf. When the angel appeared, it agreed to aid them, but at a price: the Almighty required a service of them first. They were to go into the Onyx Hall and free Wroth, the redcap Invidiana had imprisoned. Anael laid a kiss on Wessamina's lips, awakening her memories of Wroth through their lifetimes, and bade her bear that kiss to him in the Onyx Hall. It would break the enchantment keeping him imprisoned, and if the fae helped him escape from the freehold, they would be worthy of God's help in breaking Invidiana's infernal contract.

And so the fae descended into the Borough of Shadows, with cantrips and angelic magics alike shielding them from view, while the Scathach, at Rowan's command, mounted an attack on the freehold of River's Edge in Stages, creating a diversion on their behalf. They made it through the Onyx Hall, but upon arriving in the throne room, they found a trap waiting for them: Invidiana and a tremendous force of fae, kinain, enchanted mortals, and chimera. The queen spoke to Wessamina, not understanding why she would come into such danger to rescue Wroth, but conversation did not last long; soon the battle began.

As Rowan and Sabbeth cut into Invidiana's soldiers, Erasmus began a cantrip, and Wessamina ran for Wroth, blowing off Halgresta's horns and kneecaps as she went. Erasmus called lightning down on many of the enemy, killing Kentigern, but Invidiana threw open the gates to the ghost world, calling hordes of phantoms across to attack the fae. Sabbeth slit her own throat in a cantrip to close those gates once more, pulling every ghost in the Onyx Hall back through and sealing the gates against Invidiana. Erasmus picked up her blade and began killing as Rowan faced off against the kinain Achilles. Invidiana tried, one after the other, to control each of them with a Captive Heart, but each time the magic failed. And Wessamina reached Wroth: she delivered the kiss of Anael, annihilating the power that held him trapped, and together they faced Halgresta. The battle was in their favor, but when Wroth latched onto the troll's arm, she slammed him against the wall, crushing his skull and killing him.

By now the doors to the throne room were broken open, and Onyx, with the surviving golems of his command, was trying and failing to hold back the forces of Count Hengsin that had pursued them from the White Tower to the catacombs. Seeing Wroth dead, Wessamina screamed out the killing curse, striking Halgresta dead. From where she sat on her throne, Invidiana reached her power into the balefire of the Onyx Hall and took by force what she could not have otherwise: the glamour of the freehold. Ravaging the balefire, she killed Erasmus with a Holly Strike. Rowan charged her, and was likewise struck down; falling to her knees before Invidiana's throne, she whispered, "By the angel Anael, you still love Francis," before dying at Invidiana's feet. With only Onyx left alive, Wessamina picked up Wroth's body and charged for the door, knowing she would not make it, knowing the test had never been to get him out alive, but rather to do God's will, even unto death. With the last glamour of the balefire, Invidiana shattered the last golem, and killed Wessamina.

Midnight Never Come: Aftermath

From whatever realm fae souls dwell in between incarnations, they saw the transformation: the Onyx Hall went dark, a freehold no more. But by angelic power, conveyed through the selfless actions of the four fae -- the dedication to saving Wroth, and the willingness to die for a greater cause -- Invidiana's heart was restored. And with that, her pact with Hell was broken; her beauty faded away, and she was left standing before her dulled throne, old and ugly and alone.

John Dee bankrupted himself at court, trying to win back Elizabeth's favor, eventually securing himself a post to the north, in Manchester. But he was never happy there, and some years later he returned to London, dying at last in poverty.

And on a small estate in Oxfordshire, Eleanor Merriman told strange stories to her cousin Thomas, keeping the precious remnants of knowledge alive for the future.

The Fall of Kings: Intro
May 2nd (August 1651)

An invitation goes out to a handpicked selection of fae and Dreamers, inviting them to a clandestine and highly illegal performance of The Most Lamentable Tragedy of King Lear.

The Fall of Kings, Part One
May 9th (September-October 1651)

Following the encounter at the playhouse, the fae went on a search for the two missing individuals: Wessamina Hammercrank and the Merriman. Enquiries with the Bes Din revealed that there was no nocker by that name or description anywhere in Albion, and the only Merriman discovered in the London vicinity was clearly not of the correct family. These matters, coupled with the oddity of Elias and the lack of relationship between her/him/it and Euron, led Grace to believe that the time had not yet come -- and, moreover, that one or both of the other two might be imposters.

She followed Elias and investigated the playhouse, looking through the papers that revealed who had donated money or assistance to its operation. The wraiths, of course, informed Elias of this fact, and as retaliation, a poltergeist was dispatched to harrass Grace as she tailed Euron and then went about her daily life. Elias let Grace suffer this for a while, then, after a failed attempt in which Grace was "too busy" to meet, the two of them had a discussion about the matter. Learning that her problems came from a ghost, Grace went to Lady Vivianne Melita for assistance, but the sluagh lady was reluctant to interfere with a ghost sent by one of her kin. Vivianne did, however, convince Elias to end the haunting after a month and a day.

Scarlet arrived in the city with her companion Alatriste, and took a room in the Crossroads Inn. The following day, the raven message went out from the former king Dallin. Alatriste was enthusiastic about the idea of a quest. Grace heard of the nocker's arrival, and went to the inn to find her, but as Scarlet was out doing paperwork with the Bes Din, she instead encountered Alatriste. One very flirtatious lunch later, he had secured an arrangement to see her the next day. When Scarlet returned, he told her of the Scathach looking for "Wessamina Hammercrank." The two of them went out on the town and got into a brawl at the Boar's Head (which a certain crow pooka slipped out of very quickly when he saw a gypsy present), which helped bring them to the attention of Elias. The following morning, the sluagh paid them a visit, again speaking with Alatriste, who claimed his companion had left -- but he promised to pass along the message.

Also that night, Grace was surprised in her bedchamber at the Round by a less-than-proper gentleman who turned out to be Stephen Merriman. The two of them passed a pleasant night drinking and chatting (with Grace in her bedclothes, no less), while Stephen explained his family's Royalist history and how he had known, years in advance, of Charles' impending downfall. The next day, when Scarlet decided to accompany Alastriste to his meeting with Grace, the time seemed right to gather all of the parties involved. Grace summoned Stephen as well, and he confirmed their suspicions that their task concerned the king. The pivotal moment seemed to have been Charles II's recent defeat at Worcester, and so the fae made plans to go there from London, in hopes of picking up clues to their task. In the meantime, Stephen promised to investigate the Puritan betrothed of Grace Rowan, to learn whether he was merely an ordinary Puritan, or one of their enemies in their quest.

The Fall of Kings, Part Two
May 16th (late October 1651)

Three days later, the fae gathered once more at the freehold of Rose House. There, under the roses of secrecy, they made their plans to leave the city. Stephen gave Grace a warning regarding her betrothed: he was not one of the Puritans who specifically opposed her and her fellow fae, but he was associated with such men, and a dedicated Puritan besides. In Stephen's evaluation, the marriage would be a death sentence for Grace. His suggested solution? Elopement.

After a somewhat futile attempt to reconcile Grace and Elias following the former's snooping into the latter's secrets, the group set out for Worcester. The weather being good, the journey took approximately a week, and since that time couldn't be used for saving the world, everyone instead used it to meddle with each other. Alatriste arranged for Euron and Elias to share a bed; Euron called Elias on his childish grudge (and then fled for his life); Euron also inadvertently confirmed Elias' sex. Scarlet, in the meantime, went to work on the other problematic relationship, doing her unsubtle best to shove Grace towards Stephen. But on the whole, the trip was uneventful, barring one skirmish with bandits in which the bandits got decidedly the worst of it, and Euron got a finger to snack on.

Stephen's estimation of the situation was that the spirit of sovereignty, having some manner of concrete reality to it, had become trapped somewhere or with someone during or following the Battle of Worcester, and that their best course of action would be to discover where Charles had gone and what he had done. Scarlet hit on the solution of speaking to the earth; it, of all things, might recognize the passage of its king, and the moment when the man ceased to be king. Waiting until nightfall for privacy, she cast her cantrip, and established a strong bond of communication. The earth told her that Charles had fled the battle, and was no longer on English soil at all; moreover, though the king had traveled with the man, they were no longer together. In other words, Charles had indeed lost his sovereignty. Now it lay not far to the north -- fleeing, the earth said, over and over again, always from the same spot.

Journeying north over the border into Staffordshire, they found the earth leading them to an estate Stephen recognized as Chillington, the property of a Catholic named Charles Giffard. He introduced himself there as one of the Merriman family, and managed to secure a night of shelter in Boscobel House for himself and his companions. Near to the house stood an impressive old oak tree, which was, the earth said, where the man and the king had parted ways. As Rowan and Scarlet came to the realization that the tree had an awareness of its own, a figure stepped forth from the trunk, a kubera who spoke with them all. It told them of Charles and a soldier taking shelter in its branches, and confirmed that this was where sovereignty had been lost for good. The kubera, however, did not have that spirit in its keeping. Someone else did, and the kubera invited them to come back that evening, to see the matter with their own eyes.

After dark, the fae returned, and waited through the cold hours until midnight. As that hour came, they heard hoofbeats, hunting horns, the baying of hounds. The Wild Hunt rode across the sky, led by Herne the Hunter, and the spirit of kingship fled before him.

The Fall of Kings, Part Three
May 23rd (Samhain 1651)

As the Wild Hunt vanished over the horizon, the fae and their mortal companion realized that their task would be, by whatever means, to release the spirit of sovereignty from the keeping of the Hunt. Just how to do this was the question at hand.

By means of an Omen, Grace confirmed what they had feared: that they were meant, not to return kingship to the people, but to slay the stag themselves. And by her knowledge of the Wild Hunt, she guessed that the upcoming night -- Samhain night -- would be the time to do so. After sharing information on each of their abilities, the fae formulated what they hoped would be a workable plan, and retired for what remained of the night.

The following day, their stay at Boscobel House was up, so they retired to the nearby Spring Coppice to wait for nightfall. Elias performed an elaborate Phantom Shadows cantrip, creating skeletal flying horses for them all to ride in the Hunt that night -- all of them, including Stephen, who after some hesitation decided he could not pass up such an experience. Then Elias went into town to purchase food and drink for their own Samhain celebration, while the others remained in the wood. Grace and Scarlet sparred while Euron attempted to explain Samhain to Stephen; eventually Scarlet intervened, warning the mortal of what the night would be like. He seemed wary, but determined to stay.

As night fell, Elias returned with food, drink, and two recent wraiths to join their party. The festivities got underway, with Grace overcoming her earlier shyness and laying firm claim to an uncomplaining Stephen. Soon there came the sound of screams from the nearby town, and Euron, Elias, Scarlet, and Alatriste went to investigate, finding three local fae wreaking havoc on the poor mortals. Of course, the four newcomers joined in with a will. While Alatriste seduced every girl he could get his hands on, Scarlet encountered a young, feral redcap who seemed to recognize her. When he fled from her guns, she followed him, and let slip that she would be riding with the Hunt that night. He called her crazy, but tailed her as she and the others returned to the Spring Coppice, and the nearby oak tree.

Midnight came, and with it, the Wild Hunt. Within seconds, the fae knew they were no match for the spectral riders. Elias and Euron rode among them unnoticed, disguised by a Facade, but like the others, they lagged behind. A burst of raw Glamour from Alatriste, however, drove them forward with a powerful Quicksilver. Burning like two stars in the sky, Scarlet and Grace began to sow confusion among the riders, hoping to slow the Hunt enough for Elias and Euron to reach the front. In time they were able to keep the pace, but Alatriste and Stephen still lagged behind, and Elias and Euron were not gaining ground. At last Elias flung them both forward with Gimmix, but Euron fell from his horse and only barely managed to land behind another rider. Further back in the Hunt, Scarlet and Grace were under increasing attack, until Alatriste concealed them from sight. And at the front of the pack, Herne, the leader of the Wild Hunt, had gained sight of the stag, and put an arrow to his bow.

Euron carried a bow from the hunting lodge of Boscobel House, strung with Grace's hair, and he bore a single arrow given to them by the kubera of the oak tree. Unfortunately, another rider sat in front of him, blocking his shot. Elias Gimmixed away Herne's first arrow, buying Euron time as he tried and failed to stand in the saddle; Scarlet shot the next arrow in half, while Elias disposed of Euron's riding companion. Finally clear to shoot, Euron drew his bow, and Grace blessed his one shot with good fortune. It struck true, and the stag fell from the sky.

The Hunt rode on, and the fae dropped back from its ranks, their task complete. Euron and Elias pursued the stag downwards, finding it in a tangle of forest far below, whereupon Elias fed Euron tidbits of its eyes. Scarlet, Grace, and Alatriste, however, soon noticed one missing from amont their number: Stephen. And from far in the distance, they heard the sound of a hunting horn. The Wild Hunt now had a new prey. And though Grace pursued them until dawn, she did not see him again.

The Fall of Kings: Aftermath

Euron returned with Elias to the City of the Tower, where he helped her (now certain it was a her) operate the playhouse until Puritan control made that impossible. Then she, in turn, helped him; they found the Wild Hunt once more, and Euron perished as he wished to, in a suicidal charge against their ranks. Following his death, Elias rode among the Hunt for a time.

Alatriste, having burned some of the Glamour from his being to speed his companions on Samhain night, found himself a grump the following dawn. He returned to his people in Spain, and Scarlet accompanied him. Once he forgot himself during the following year, she went once more to Italy, where her parents discovered and reclaimed her. Dragged back to England and married off, Scarlet, too, soon forgot herself.

In the dawn light after Samhain, Grace found herself alone and still Unseelie, having forever lost Stephen to the Wild Hunt. She left Albion entirely, going to the New World, where she made her home among the Indians, living a deliberately feral life of hunting and survival, far from reminders of the past.

A Star in the Sky: Intro
April 4th (April 1759)

Gertie Goodemeade has made it to the age of forty without forgetting her fae self, and in celebration, her sons throw a birthday gathering -- one that brings together many fae who would not normally speak with one another.

A Star in the Sky, Part One
April 11th (early May 1759)

Following Harrow Bonecruncher's refusal to cede authority to Clang-Tom Wodgerman at Beltaine, the City moved into a state of tension, with minor conflicts breaking out all over. Rowan answered a summons from Sir Jaiden, meeting him in the Borough of Shadows, where she found him substantially aged, as if twenty years had passed in the month or so since she'd seen him last. Jaiden brushed aside her concerns and gave her instructions regarding the City: Bonecruncher was meant to succeed. Cyclical rule would not be restored. He also warned Rowan that he might not see her again, but that if he did not return, she would receive instructions on what to do. He also told her that, if it should become desperately necessary to contact him, the nockers at the Albion Temporal Experimentation Society would be able to do so.

Wyll received a strange letter from a mortal army friend of his, asking him to take an enclosed note to the friend's father, who lived just west of London. Remembering nothing of past lives, Wyll paid no attention to the fact that his friend's name was Jacob Merriman. Upon reading the letter, which identified Wyll as one of the four their family served, Jacob's father Philip ordered Wyll to take him to the others. The meeting at the Round got off to a poor start, however, when the enchanted Philip publicly referred to Wess as "Mistress Hammercrank," threatening her mortal disguise of masculinity. She stormed out immediately, but Philip, following her outside, managed to arrange a talk at Wess' place of business.

Once there, he cut through Wess's reluctance to help the group by reminding her forcefully that she had an obligation to do so -- an obligation backed by the force of the Dreaming itself. This did not endear Philip to Wess, but it allowed the conversation to move on to the real issue: the threat they all faced. Philip read out Jacob's account of his vision (Philip himself no longer possessing the Sight), which indicated that their task centered around the symbolism of the holly, which was death and rebirth, and the comet which shone in the sky above them. Elsbeth performed an augury which confirmed some manner of threat from the comet, and which sent them all to the Temporal Society for more answers.

At the Temporal Society headquarters, the fae managed to track down a very agitated Nick o' th' Tick, who managed to convey, through disjointed ranting and swearing, that they had known about the threat of the comet since 1705. The solimond who caused the Great Fire had been imprisoned following the disaster, and the fae had eventually hit upon the solution of placing him on the comet that appeared in 1682, thereby sending him out of the world forever. Edmond Halley's calculations in 1705, however, had made it so that the current comet was the same comet -- and the solimond was coming back. The fae involved in dealing with that threat had been trying for the last fifty-four years to come up with a workable plan to oppose him.

The group retired to ponder this problem. In the meantime, Wess decided to interfere with some things. She'd investigated the fae she was supposed to be working with, and had uncovered that, unbeknownst to either of them, Wyll and Elsbeth were betrothed. With judicious use of Chicanery, she manipulated Elsbeth's father into hurrying the wedding along, thereby provoking a great deal of melodrama from both fae, who had been receiving forged love letters from each other and thought they were going to have to marry other people. After a incident in which Rowan and Wess kidnapped Elsbeth and Wyll, respectively, and attempted (with minimal success) to give them a night together before the wedding, the wedding took place -- much to the joy of both, and the gossip of the pooka of the City.

A Star in the Sky, Part Two
April 20th (mid-May 1759)

While Elsbeth and Wyll were on their honeymoon and searching for a way to cut it short, Wess researched the solimond problem. By the time Wyll returned to the City, Wess was ready to explain it to the others, with judicious edits (as she did not want to reveal the existence of the room of harvested time from the calendar change, which had been created to provide more time to solve the problem). As the three of them discussed it, a raven arrived from Nick o' th' Tick, screaming for them to all get their arses to the Monument.

They arrived at the Monument to the Great Fire, a stone tower just across the Thames from the Round, to find quite a crowd gathered there. Wess managed to get through into the room below the Monument, where she discovered a scientific laboratory and the charred corpse of a man, apparently a member of the Royal Society. Wyll, in the meantime, rode down Lower Thames Street after a group of running fae, one of whom proved to be Nick. They were chasing what appeared to be a man (but men don't shoot gouts of flame out of their hands), but failed to catch him before he managed to get into the Tower.

The man was, they learned, the Husk of the solimond, who had broken through the Fuddle protecting Albion when the man in the lab underneath the Monument had used the zenith telescope contained in the tower's core. Now he had taken over as his Anchor the balefire of the White Tower, the only remaining component of the Web of London, destroyed by the solimond during the Great Fire. Nick said the change would put him to sleep for three days, and everyone hurried back to the Temporal Society to try and formulate a plan.

During their meeting, Jaiden appeared, now seriously aged. He proceeded to channel the spirit of a mysterious visitor, who suggested forcing the solimond into an Anchor they could destroy: a human body. Wess volunteered herself (turning Seelie in the process), but the risk that whoever was used would die forever was too great. Since the person had to be willing, Philip seemed the obvious choice. Nor was it a hard sell; the minute he understood the situation, he agreed without hesitation. The fae hurried into action, making arrangements with Bonecruncher, Clang-Tom, Belladonna, the Goodemeades, and other prominent figures in the City, preparing for the ritual and the battle to follow.

A Star in the Sky, Part Three
April 25th (mid-May 1759)

For a day and a night, six fires burned around the City, each in the location of one of the destroyed balefires. The ashes and cinders were subsequently carried to a magical floe of ice, inlaid with copper sigils, that lay on the Thames across from the Tower of London, under a Veiled Eyes cantrip that protected it from mortal traffic on the river. A brazier stood in the center of the floe, containing chips of holly wood, which were lit with the embers of the six fires. At the time of night when the Great Fire had begun, the fae of the city stood in their homes with torches, channeling all the Glamour they could spare into the flame that burned on the Thames. At opposite ends of the City, each in his own freehold, the Master of the City and the Master of the Tower did their parts as well.

The four fae had prepared well for their fight. Wess emerged from the room in the Temporal Society much older, but bearing weapons and armor to assist them. Elsbeth wove good fortune for them all and solicited the help of Father Thames, the ondine of the river, though to no response. Wyll prepared himself to cast a Quicksilver and a fog to hide them during the fight, and Rowan received from Philip the letters which he wanted passed on to his son Brandon, should Jacob not return. At the appointed hour, they went out onto the river, and with a holly torch in his hand, Philip went into the Tower.

What emerged looked, not like a solimond, but rather like Philip -- with fires burning in his eyes. Possessing the knowledge and rationality of Philip, with the passions and rage of the solimond, he attacked the fae with fire. He was assisted by minions of flame and a power which allowed him to try and sway Wess to his side (provoking the Dragon's Ire in Rowan). Despite his power, though, they were well-prepared, and hurt him badly enough that he tried to flee into the City. A wave of water from the Thames flung him back, and as he lay gasping on the ice, Wess shot him dead. The dream-form of the solimond rose from the body of Philip Merriman, and with the last of their four spears of holly, Wyll destroyed the last of the power that threatened them.

In the aftermath of the fight, the fae dispersed to their homes, and Wess made arrangements to cover for Philip's death. Sitting on the bank of the Thames at dawn, she had a vision of Jacob Merriman awakening on board a ship and cursing her for murdering his father, unconsciously laying a Geas that would prevent her from touching guns for three lifetimes to come. When she heard of this, and of Jacob's return, Rowan went to visit him, where she explained the events that Jacob had seen only in fragmentary dreams. Chastened by his misunderstanding, and guilty over his failure to be in England when he was needed, Jacob nevertheless promised that his family's service would continue.

A Star in the Sky: Aftermath

Much older and cursed not to touch her guns, Wess arranged to inherit her own estate as "Wesley's" aunt and began to investigate other forms of destructive power. From their hostile beginnings, she and Rowan became good friends, and Rowan's son Danny grew up with an Auntie Wess.

Elsbeth and Wyll remained happily if somewhat crazily married, with Elsbeth's youthful eccentricities helping Wyll stave off for several years the Forgetting that eventually claimed him, as it must all fae.

This Living Hand: Intro
March 7th (September 1828)

When footpads strike Beth unconscious, leaving her blind lover Vincent helpless in the streets of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, they find unexpected help in Scout Blakely, and even more unexpected help -- and recognition -- in the upperclass lady Wessamina Hammercrank.

This Living Hand, Part One
March 14th (early October 1828)

Scout had taken Beth and Vincent into <cough> his keeping at the Round, while Wessamina attempted to figure out how she could associate with these lower-class strangers without damaging her social reputation. More pressing than such concerns, though, was the question of what had happened to Beth, and how it could be fixed. Wessamina learned from Molly Manychildren that Vincent had purchased Beth from the Goblin Market; this information sent Scout down into the sewers of the Borough of Markets, in search of Beth's apparently missing spine.

Scout located the individuals apparently responsible, and made plans to return the following night, in search of further information. When he approached the sewer grate, however, there were others waiting for him: thugs most likely sent by the slavers. Scout fout back and killed several of them, assisted by a mortal stranger who became badly injured during the fight. Before passing out, he made a cryptic comment indicating that he had known Scout would be there, and in trouble -- and that he had expected "him" to be a woman.

Scout brought the injured man to be cared for by Wessamina and Dr. Grumbungle and, suspecting that he was a Merriman, called Vincent and Beth to be there. When he awoke, it became apparent that he was indeed Christopher Merriman, and that he possessed a weak gift of the Second Sight, which had guided him to Scout. He expressed surprise at Wessamina's appearance (little different from her mortal one) and Scout's gender, but they were clearly those his family was dedicated to help. He explained what little he could that they did not already know, and then was healed by Beth, in a manner which distressed him greatly.

As Christopher operated a respectable bookshop, it became a convenient place for the fae to meet without arranging suspicion. When Wessamina and Scout arrived, needing a place to talk privately, Christopher told Wessamina that she needed to take the others with her to Highgate, to the weekend party which her husband had, only that morning, suggested they go. A vision had told him that most of the ashes were buried, but that some remained, and could be found in Highgate. What his vision had not told him, unfortunately, was how in heaven Wessamina was supposed to take her ragtag group along.

This Living Hand, Part Two
March 21st (mid-October 1828)

Wessamina knew the ring Vincent bore, which the Goblin Market slavers had given him when he purchased Beth, was something strange; further research revealed that it had not been crafted in any fashion, but seemed to have simply . . . appeared. She also discovered that Beth, contrary to all reason, did not seem to know her own true name. Leaving questions with various Bes Din contacts, she took everyone to Highgate: Beth as her maidservant, Vincent as a promising young violinist, and Scout as her coachman. Christopher arranged to get there on his own, and took a room in the local hotel.

On the first evening there, Scout went to check in with Christopher, whereupon the two of them shared a meal and a nice, manly round of sparring. Back at the country manor of Lord and Lady Chatterton, Wessamina and Vincent met the famed poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who for some years had been living in Highgate under the care of Dr. Gillman. After supper, Vincent performed spectacularly for the assembled guests, to unexpected result -- Coleridge appeared even more deeply moved than the music warranted. Lady Chatterton then begged Coleridge to recite some of his poetry. First he read from his old and famed poem "Christabel;" when prodded for something more recent, he read "Youth and Age." It was blatantly obvious to the fae present that the second poem lacked the shining inspiration of the first, and moreover that Coleridge himself had suffered a great loss, which left him broken and hollow. Wessamina sent Scout, via Beth, to tell Christopher that she had found the ashes.

Together the fae went to visit Coleridge at his doctor's house the next day, where Christopher had arranged to be. They gave Coleridge a gift of bread and cheese, into which Wessamina had placed Glamour; when he ate the tokens, he became enchanted. It took some time, for Coleridge to confess to seeing strange things, accustomed as he was to opium hallucinations. With the insight of the drug, however, he revealed what none of the fae had realized: that the ring Vincent wore on a chain around his neck was, in truth, Beth's soul. Prodded to return it to her, he tried, but the ring refused to touch her skin, or slip even partway over the tip of her finger.

With Coleridge under the influence of the enchantment, the fae at last coaxed him into telling the story of how he had lost his poetry. Coleridge told them of a willow tree on the Somerset estate his colleague and friend William Wordsworth had briefly owned, about which there was a legend that any man who kissed it would become inspired. Wordsworth warned him against it, but Coleridge did it late one night, and by doing so bound himself to what seemed to be a fairy woman. Over the years that followed, she fed his inspiration, but in a fashion which ultimately burned him out completely -- Rhapsody. Other Romantic poets had followed suit, which led to the untimely deaths of Keats, Byron, Shelley, and Blake. Coleridge himself seemed barely able to go on living without his poetry. Hoping to restore him -- or at the very least to release what the willow had stolen from him and others -- the fae made plans to journey to Somerset.

This Living Hand, Part Three
March 28th (late October 1828)

Understanding at last the nature of what had been done to Beth, and what needed to be done to fix it, Wessamina devoted herself day and night to constructing a solution. Eventually she notified Vincent that he really ought to get married to Beth. That night. At midnight. Within a ritual Wessamina had constructed. Everyone gathered at the Albion Temporal Experimentation Society, where Wessamina had built an enormous clock-face upon which they all stood. When the clock struck midnight, the two hands -- one bearing Vincent, the other Beth -- came together, and for one minute, while the hands remained in contact. the ritual gave Beth the memory of who she had been in previous lives, when she had a will of her own. Free to choose as she desired, Beth gave herself to Vincent; they swore the Oath of Truehearts, and Vincent placed the ring on her finger.

A raucous party ensued, in which the newlyweds enjoyed the hospitality of the ATES (on the feather mattress Scout had bought for them), Wessamina's unconscious body was taken to the Round, and Scout and Christopher got exceedingly drunk. When Scout awoke the next morning (slumped on a couch with her head on Christopher's shoulder), she went with him to the Round, where they found Wessamina sleeping amidst several dozen tiny clocks that promptly went off. The clocks, the night away from home, and the booze poured over her dress set Wessamina off: she cursed violently enough to destroy all of the clocks, then stormed out in a huff.

With Beth restored to herself (and now using the name Annabeth), the group renewed contact with Coleridge and made plans to go to Somerset, leaving a hardened Phantom Shadow behind to cover for Wessamina. They found the tree on the Alfoxden estate, but could make no contact with it, and the sight of the willow -- or perhaps her refusal to communicate with him -- drove Coleridge to overdose on laudanum in an attempted suicide. Christopher and Scout took him back to Nether Stowey, and the rest soon followed, wondering how they could deal with the tree when she had refused Vincent's kiss with a cold whisper of, "Don't waste my time."

The answer was obvious, and Christopher did it. The next morning, they found him in his bed, the marks of the willow tree clearly on him. He awoke and admitted to having gone back in the night, endangering himself so they might do what they had to. The fae returned with him to the willow tree, where he called forth a beautiful sidhe lady who admitted freely to Rhapsodizing the poets -- helping their light shine all the more strongly, if more briefly. Finally Scout refused to let her take Christopher, claiming his heart for her own, and revealed herself as a woman. The ensuing battle was fought with words only: Scout attempting to sway Christopher to her side, and the Leanhaun (as they suspected her to be) trying to keep him with her. Assisted metaphysically by her friends, Scout won out, and Christopher returned to her. When their kiss ended the contest, the Leanhaun cried out in grief: the ashy shades of the poets' creative souls rose from her and faded away, and the sidhe herself died of grief.

This Living Hand: Aftermath

Wessamina returned home immediately, where she wrote out a long letter the others found waiting for them at the Round. It detailed how she, observing the scene in Somerset, understood that she and her husband never shared such love, and never would. Therefore, she had chosen to forget herself. She asked as her final request that her friends make sure her children did not grow up as she had.

Annabeth spent the following year mustering a crusade against the Goblin Market, which culminated in a raid the morning after Samhain. During it, Annabeth brought the fates of the slavers onto their heads, then hunted down the snake pooka who had taken Vincent's eyes and took his own in repayment. By the time she reached her husband, they had become Vincent's own eyes, and his sight was restored.

Scout spent the year with Christopher. When the Battle of the Goblin Market occurred, she took part, carrying out the justice she could not achieve on her own. She finally faced the slavers' ogre guard in battle and defeated him, but as the huge fae fell, the sluagh slaver behind him shot Scout with a poisoned dart. Dying of the venom, Scout nonetheless managed to kill the sluagh. Christopher found her body in the sewers of Camden, lying amidst the bodies of her slain enemies.

The Lost Generation: Intro
February 7th (May 1916)

The young orphan Copper flees Gus's street gang, taking refuge in the factory -- where machines and stranger things come to life to defend her, and "demons" arrive to watch the show.

The Lost Generation, Part One
February 13th (June 1916)

Mina's guns arrived from the Bes Din, leading to a conundrum for Rowan as the childling insisted she wear the guns in public. With a coat to cover them, Mina and Rowan went to Angels to visit "Uncle" Geoffrey, finding him high on opium. Mina was entranced by the strange chimera surrounding him, while Bethany wavered between exhaustion and grateful appreciation of the childing's presence. Geoffrey provided Mina with contact information for individuals of the Tower she might work for, as well as for a Patterby Schoggerhagen, a nocker who might undertake her education. On the way to visit Artisan Schoggerhagen, Rowan swore an oath of fosterage to Mina.

Geoffrey and Bethany went to the opera, but their appreciation of La Traviata was interrupted by a raven arriving for Geoffrey. This led to an argument between the two, as Geoffrey could not explain why he had to leave. Ultimately, Bethany stormed away, and Geoffrey went into the catacombs of the Borough of Shadows, where Master Black assigned him to investigate "Ripper," a redcap who might pose a threat to the Tower.

Back at the Round, Rowan caught a teenaged boy picking pockets, and dragged him back into the kitchen, where she and Mina alternately questioned him, fed him, and offered him a job. Upon learning that his name was Archie Merriman, Rowan introduced herself by her fae name, and met with disbelief: he recognized the name, but claimed she didn't look right. One childling-provided kick later, he was enchanted and apologizing profusely for his behavior.

After some confused and fragmentary explanations, the fae surmised that Geoffrey and Bethany were the other two involved in the matter, and so Mina sent a raven to Bethany. The sluagh had been wandering the City in the rain, and was collapsed near London Bridge; Mina and Archie went to rescue her. Ravens to Geoffrey found him stumbling out of the Boar's Head. The correspondence rapidly turned very unpleasant, and the three returned to the Round, whereupon Bethany and Mina were put to bed by the balefire.

Geoffrey arrived just as Rowan and Archie prepared to leave, and promptly met Archie's fist. Male posturing ensued, which woke up Bethany and Mina. After an ugly scene between Bethany and Geoffrey, she was convinced to stay at the Round for the night, while Geoffrey was sent away to sober up and return the next day.

The Lost Generation, Part Two
February 21st (June-July 1916)

The group reconvenged the next day, with Geoffrey hopefully more sober, to talk with Archie. Bit by bit, some of the information came together: alchemy, but not of the normal kind. The four elements, symbolized by the four fae. But as for what they were supposed to be doing this time, no one knew.

Time passed. Near the end of June, Geoffrey attempted to investigate Ripper, which led him to an encounter with the redcap outside the Round. Unable to tell the truth even on pain of death, Geoffrey attempted to sell Ripper on a clever lie, that he'd been sent to hire the redcap to dispose of a satyr lordling's leavings. It seemed to be going well until Geoffrey said the child in question was in the Round, at which point Ripper commenced trying to eat him. Mina frightened him off with her guns before Geoffrey could be killed, but failed to catch him in a chase across the rooftops of Stages.

At the beginning of July, news came of the disastrous Battle of the Somme. Archie's sister Anne suffered a nervous breakdown on learning of her husband's death, and with the money Mina had scrounged up, the Merriman family paid for her to be admitted to the sanatorium. Around the same time, though, Bethany was visited by the wraith of Jack Bailey, who told her of strange occurances at the sanatorium, and some kind of being he had fled from. Afraid for Anne's safety, Archie and Rowan went to check up on her, while Geoffrey and Bethany separately went to investigate Bailey's story. They encountered the wraith of Constance Reed, who seemed both shy and suspicious -- and in the meantime, Mina was left alone at the Round, which she took as a fine opportunity to hunt down the redcap who had attacked Geoffrey.

The Lost Generation, Part Three
February 28th (July 1916)

Rowan came back to the Round to find Mina in a drunken sleep. Bit by bit, she managed to get the story out of the childling: she'd gone out and found the redcap, who turned out to be her old friend Wroth. He'd taken her to a pub and given her something to drink (on the grounds that it would "put hair on her chest"), and told her the story of his dealings with Geoffrey. This left Mina under the distinct impression that Geoffrey was trying to have Mina killed.

He, in the meantime, had gone with Bethany to find Vivian Reed, Constance's mother. Under the guise of doctors from the sanatorium, they questioned her about her daughter, and learned that Constance had been sent there after a young man named Russell Hampstead had "taken her innocence," and that Constance -- deluding herself into thinking she was in love with him -- had drowned herself upon not being able to see him again.

They took this information back to the Round, but upon arriving, had to clear up the confusion about Ripper/Wroth and Geoffrey's actions. In the end, it became clear that Geoffrey had not, in fact, been trying to kill Mina, but he had put her in danger and attempted to bring trouble within Rowan's pub, neither of which anyone looked kindly on. This led to another fight between Geoffrey and Archie.

He was dispatched to try and deal with the Ripper mess, while everyone else went again to the sanatorium. Bethany found Constance again, and the wraith led her (followed later by the others) to the pond at the base of the garden, where she had drowned herself. There she kept her "treasures" -- wraithlike objects that turned out to be the shredded remains of other people's innocence, destroyed by the war and amputated, for their own good, by the doctors at the sanatorium. It turned out that two problems could be solved at once: if the group could get Constance to move on, she could take those remnants with her, and let them be at rest.

But Constance clung to the hope of seeing Russell Hampstead again, and as an officer in the Territorial Army, he was likely not available. Geoffrey, sent on a new hunt, discovered that it was worse than that: he'd been killed a few months previously. But Geoffrey was able to get a uniform (from the High Kick) and disguise himself as Hampstead, in the hopes of giving Constance the resolution she needed.

On the rock above the pond, Bethany allowed Constance to possess her body, and Geoffrey played the part of Russell Hampstead. The charade worked -- a little too well. Declaring that now they could be together again, Constance/Bethany pulled Russell/Geoffrey into the pool with her. Bethany was able to regain control enough to save Geoffrey, but when he pulled her from the water, it was too late; whether because of drowning or exhaustion with her life, Bethany died.

The Lost Generation -- Aftermath

Geoffrey vanished into the woods with Bethany's body and gave himself over to Bedlam and the wild in his crow form. The area around the sanatorium soon gave rise to legends about a demonic black bird -- or was it a man? -- that haunted the area, terrorizing anyone who came near.

Mina, having lost yet two more people in her life, became a cynical wilder at a young age. Before long, she left Rowan's care and went out into the world, in the company of her old friend Wroth. Like many reckless, Unseelie teenagers, she died at a young age.

Rowan stayed where she was, fighting the good fight, with Archie at her side. He loved her until the day she died in his arms, slain -- as she was meant to be -- in defense of others.

Echoes, Part One
January 10th (September 2006)

Word raced across London Friday morning that the ravens of the White Tower were missing. Wessamina Hammercrank was visited by Mr. Daniel Thorpe and two colleagues of the Inspections Board of the Department of Civic Safety, who conducted a very thorough inspection of the premises, following which it was discovered that they were imposters who had disabled security devices and planted explosives in order to destroy BSU Pyrotechnics. Wess dealt with these, and miraculously did not kill any of her friends or employees afterward. Rowan Sommers heard news of both this and the ravens at her aunt's pub, and also spoke with her cop friend Carl about a new string of possible drug-related crimes that leave their victims near-mindless shells, repeating their own names over and over again. She visited Wess that night to offer her services as an investigator.

On Saturday, Rowan continued following leads on the victims of the drug crimes, discovering that two appeared to have been Dreamers, and one was the Lady Lysanna of the Seelie Court. Bethany Batfriend inadvertently enchanted a young man who had come to Copper's Bookshop looking for works on alchemy, and was not quite sweet and charming enough of a creepy thin thing to keep him from bolting. Wess worked off some steam by walking the City and threatening to shoot people.

On Sunday, Hallistair Yorke visited the Long Duel Memorial, where Charcoal Eddie found him and begged him for help. Eddie, it seems, was responsible for the disappearance of the ravens. (He seemed to think it was a fantastic prank. The rest of the world disagreed.) Yorke eventually agreed to give him shelter, then whacked him over the head, tied him up, and handed him off to the sluagh for questioning. Eddie, however, escaped in the night by means of a hung Flicker-Flash cantrip.

On Monday, Yorke returned home to find Edward Thompson, the mortal shell of Charcoal Eddie, sitting in his apartment, the latest victim of the drug crimes. After (unwisely) accusing the sluagh of having done that to him, he gathered a group of pooka to sneak Eddie out and leave him on the steps of a chapel for mortal care. Having done so, they then held a wake for Eddie, in which Yorke offered himself up to be punished for his role in Eddie's demise. That evening, the young man returned to the bookshop, introducing himself as Nicholas Merriman, grandson of Archibald Merriman, a kinain who had apparently been helping a group of fae in some important endeavour. Speculating that Bethy might have been the woman his grandfather had spoken of, Nicholas offered his services in helping her finish -- just as soon as they can figure out what she was doing, and what other fae she was doing it with. Wess arrived soon after, and before long, the two fae had decided to take the enchanted Nicholas out for a night on the fae town . . . .

Echoes, Part Two
January 17th (September 2006)

Brooding in his flat over the fate of Charcoal Eddie, Yorke was startled out of his mire of guilt by Pemfold's panicked announcement that the Gutter Shits were coming, most likely to kill him. Yorke successfully flew out of the path of their bullets, but Pemfold was caught in the leg by one as he climbed to the roof, and Yorke himself tumbled to ground not long after, a victim of his beating the night before. He took refuge in a bakery and sent a raven to Bethany, who soon came to his aid, as he had no money or other possessions with him. She took him back to the dubious safety of Aunt Begonia's house.

Wess awoke Rowan's suspicious side by telling her about Nicholas. They ended up staging an encounter by the Long Duel Memorial, where Nicholas was instructed to bring a photo of himself and his grandfather. There Wess re-enchanted him and, satisfied that Nicholas was not an enemy, Rowan introduced herself. The trio then made their way to Aunt Begonia's house, where Yorke was sleeping through the nightmarish effects of the sluagh's healing tea.

Bethany had received the news earlier in the day that Archibald Merriman's alchemical library had been purchased by Chester Adams of the Purification Institute -- a name which immediately put everyone on their guard. In need of answers about their past, the group decided to go to the Albion Temporal Experimentation Society headquarters. Aunt Begonia consented to let Bethany leave, but only on the condition that Yorke protect her, as an initial repayment for his behavior concerning Charcoal Eddie.

At the ATES building, the group coaxed Willie Clockmender into helping them, and he unearthed a foul-mouthed magic 8 ball that answered some of their questions. They were interrupted by the arrival of five police officers . . . or rather, five individuals masquerading as police officers, with ominous syringes on their belts. A gunfight ensued, wherein many right hands got exploded off; all five were killed. The only major wound our heroes suffered was inflicted by a dastardly pool of blood and its accomplice, the staircase bannister.

Rowan, running outside, saw a nondescript van pulling very rapidly away; the dead were wearing earpieces, so it seemed the carnage had been overheard. Wess called in Wroth and his friends to deal with the bodies, while Bethany coaxed Nicholas to his feet and out the door. Since some of the vials had been preserved intact, Wess volunteered to deliver these to the Bes Din for analysis, while Bethany took Yorke and Nicholas home.

Echoes, Part Three
January 31st (September 2006)

Once the bar closed down that night, Rowan went to Yorke's flat to search for belongings, and came across the wounded Pemfold, who had managed to rescue his master's rapier before the Gutter Shits ransacked the place. She took him back to the bar and removed the bullet from his leg, then kept him there for the night.

In the morning, Nicholas left Aunt Begonia's house, much troubled by the awful events of the night before. Rowan arrived soon after, Pemfold in tow, and was very upset to hear that he'd been allowed to go off on his own. Yorke made arrangements with the Goodemeade Boggans for Pemfold to enter someone else's service for a time, then had adventures in the basement, doing laundry. Following this, since Aunt Begonia would not let Bethy or Yorke leave the house, Rowan went on her own to Nicholas' flat in Newham, where she found no sign of him having been there since the previous day. She went to his office at the university, with similar lack of luck, and then stopped by BSU Pyrotechnics, but Wess was still in the custody of the Baron of Clocks, being questioned about the shootout at the ATES building.

Worried for Nicholas, Bethy asked Aunt Begonia for helping in finding him. While she and Yorke were doing "research" on the Purification Institute, Alfred called, with news that he'd tracked down extant copies of The Seven Trees. The only one in England, other than that in Chester Adams' possession, appeared to be in Avebury. Shortly afterward, Aunt Begonia brought the news that Nicholas' car was in the Thames, and Nicholas himself was in a nearby hospital. Rowan, having just finished reporting to the Baroness of Ashes about the Purification Institute, went and picked him up, taking him back to Aunt Begonia's. According to Nicholas, he'd gone off the road after being chased by someone -- thus confirming that it wasn't just the fae they were after.

After a discussion of whether or not the group could obtain a flat under Bethany's name (presumably the only one not already known by the Institute), they decided to go to Avebury for the book. The house arrest Aunt Begonia had imposed on Bethy and Yorke seemed to preclude them from this trip, but Rowan convinced Bethy to try and persuade her aunt -- which she did, successfully. Aunt Begonia arranged for a sluagh escort to take them through the catacombs to the train station, while Yorke got the boggans to come and pick Pemfold up. When the time came for the group to depart, Aunt Begonia thanked Rowan for reminding her niece that she had a spine.

The trip to Avebury (in the County of the Circle) was a success, if one that rather disturbed Nicholas when he saw Bethy come out from under the bed. The bookseller charged a thousand pounds for the rare volume, but the cost was deemed worthwhile. The group returned to the City on Friday, having sorted out some -- but surely not all -- of the puzzles in the book.

On their return, Aunt Begonia took and read the book, following which she claimed to know the location of the door to which the poem referred. As always, though, she had a price for her information. Bethany offered her voice, for a year and a day, starting on her eighteenth birthday, but was refused. Rowan offered an oath to use the information to oppose the Purification Institute, and was likewise refused. Aunt Begonia asked for Nicholas, but was not granted this, and so in the end settled for a boon from each of the four fae. Having received their agreement, she arranged for Wess to be released from Clocks, and gave them their instructions.

On the bank of the Thames in the heart of the city, the group summoned a chimerical boatman and, as instructed, sang for him "a song of England" -- which is to say, "God Save the Queen." The boatman conveyed them to a chimerical island in the center of the river -- an island none of them had seen before -- implying that he had done this service for others in his centuries on the river, and that like the others, he expected them to fail. In the center of the island, though, they found a door, and for them, it opened.

The door would not permit Nicholas through, however, and so the fae had to proceed alone. Journeying down a path of many leaves through a primeval English forest, they found themselves at last at a pool surrounded by seven dying trees. When Bethany disturbed the surface of the water, the figure of a woman rose up: the spirit of Albion. Seeming to recognize the four fae, she offered them to drink of the water, which they did.

And as they drank, they began to remember . . . .

Purification, Part One
October 3rd (September 2006)

Awakening from the tide of memories, the fae understood what duty they had come to complete. They took the water from the Pool and poured it upon the dead skeletons of the trees, and as they did so, each crumbled into dust -- but then a surge of power brought forth a tiny sapling of each of the seven sacred trees.

The fae then left the Pool, returning to the suddenly-alien modern world, where they discovered that three days had passed in their absence. They went to Aunt Begonia's house, it being their best guess of where to find the now-absent Nicholas, but upon learning that they had successfully opened the gate and passed through, Begonia knew them to be the same fae who had overthrown Invidiana . . . and she, though twisted and unrecognizable now, had been Invidiana.

She incapacitated all four and took them down into the Borough of Shadows, into the ruins of the Onyx Hall, where she attempted to sacrifice Yorke in a bid to regain her youth and beauty. The fae fought back, though, lighting her on fire, and a cantrip from Rowan confused Begonia's sense of time so deeply that she began to hallucinate the past, and to believe herself confronted by the ghost of Francis. Seeing this, the fae chose to spare her life, and called Great-Auntie Rosalie -- the six-year-old childling they remembered as Rosamund Goodemeade, the Baroness of Angels -- to heal the injured matron and take her into custody.

Now safe from Begonia, the fae went in search of Nicholas, finding him in a motel (there out of fear of the old sluagh). Seeing him, they realized for the first time how strong his resemblance was to his ancestor Thomas, allowing for Nicholas' far weaker fae heritage. Together with him, they returned to Begonia's house and won their way past the shadows on her bedroom door to retrieve the weapons and possessions she had taken from them. The fae then split up for the night, Rowan and Nicholas taking shelter with Cedric, Yorke and Bethy to a disreputable motel called "The Pound," and Wess to the Boar's Head . . . where she might find Wroth.

Purification, Part Two
October 13 (September 2006)

When Rowan asked Cedric for assistance in testing for a higher rank within her House, she learned that Jamen -- formerly Sir Jaiden Tirnach and Jaime Ellair, among other names -- was in the area. Wess, meanwhile, found her motley-mates Kidd and Tom at the Boar's Head, but no Wroth; his absence, the stress of her recent experiences, and the beer she drank led to her breaking down entirely, much to the distress of the other two. They eventually took her to the flat of Tom's current girlfriend, where Wess fell asleep with the tomcat while Kidd entertained the girlfriend.

Yorke awoke the following morning to find Bethy gone, at the offices of Lady Swana Winnowheart, and spent much of his day cooling his heels in the lobby of that lady while Bethy spoke to her about the possibility of healing Begonia. Wroth gave no answer to Wess' ravens, and did not pick up his phone; a will o'the wisp, once the group was together, went too far to be followed. Wess then went with Rowan to set a candle in her window at BSU, in memory of what she had once done before the Shattering, but this led to them being spotted by agents from the Purification Institute, who pursued them and Nicholas, until they were saved by Kidd.

Divination eventually showed Wroth to be in the Barony of Lilies in the County of the Garden, near to London but outside its boundaries. He seemed to be making bombs there. The fae went after him, and once they made it past his goblin enforcers, he and Wess achieved a reconciliation, apologizing and forgiving one another for their mistakes so very long before. That done, they knew they would not be safe in any of their usual places, and they arranged for a series of safehouses with the Scathach.

Purification, Part Three
October 17th (September 2006)

Yorke dreamt that night of his greatsword Litany, left behind at Hy-Brazil centuries before. Upon waking, his earring whispered a single word to him: "Wheels." Yorke realized that his arch-nemesis, Sir Richard Wheels, the Clockwork Troll (or "That Relentless Bastard"), had his treasured blade.

After many necessary conversations took place at the safehouse in Huntingdon, Yorke and Wess went to the Borough of Clocks, meaning to find Wheels and attempt to arrange a transfer of the blade to its rightful owner. Arriving there, they found a fire had burnt the Temporal Society to the ground, with no evidence of Willie. Nick-Tick, though, was also there, and indicated that there might be some time left in the old room in the basement -- and that if so, Willie would come out the next day (which he did).

The sword's owner and its maker then arranged a meeting with Wheels at the Millennium Dome, where he informed Yorke that if the sword truly belonged to the pooka, then he could win it in a duel. The time and place were therefore set. Wess and Yorke also realized, in passing, that the ravens had been stockpiling dross since the death of the Tower balefire, though the ravens seemed reluctant to say anything about it.

Since Wheels embodied inexorable Time itself, Yorke realized he could not defeat him without cheating. But since the formal terms of the duel forbade such tricks, he had to be more clever about it. A competitive effort of pooka and nockers therefore achieved the impossible: they confused Wheels' sense of time enough that he imagined himself to be running just a little bit late for everything, and even caused him to arrive at the duel early. With Wheels so discomfited, Yorke fought him for the sword, and while he did not win, he so enraged the troll that his opponent almost overstepped the bounds of the duelling protocol . . . and, in a move no fae had ever seen, reverted to his Unseelie legacy. In the end, Wheels abandoned Litany to Yorke, beneath the Long Duel Memorial where they had fought. The sword of the memorial itself burned with both fire and ice in recognition.

Purification, Part Four
October 24th (September 2006)

These matters having been dealt with, Rowan met with her Scathach superiors for testing. Armed with her memories from the past, she proved her knowledge of scholarly subjects and cantrips, evaded a search party in both urban and forested territory, and even fought against Jamen himself to show her skill with a sword.

In the meantime, Wess visited Dr. Grumbungle and learned about the serum they had confiscated from the Purification forces. It was not, as they had believed, injectable Banality; instead it seemed to be a dividing agent which drove all Glamour from the body. Since changelings carried a measure of Banality themselves, that portion was left behind, meaning that in essence the fae soul was torn apart by the process. Grumbungle surmised that the Banality of the Institute operatives destroyed the ejected Glamour, and that the truth serum and other chemicals aided them in programming the remaining mortal to acknowledge one identity only -- hence the repetition, "I am Edward Thompson."

Rowan's three companions, and a number of their friends, spent the evening clubbing at Dragonfly, but it ended badly when Tom pulled the fire alarm, provoking an evacuation. It seemed that Institute operatives had been present, and that they were even less safe than they thought.

At the same time, Rowan underwent her final and most crucial test: the Trial of Shadows. Interacting with a visualization of the Tapestry of Fate, she achieved more than necessary; instead of simply finding and following the shadow of her own thread (for no one can perceive their own thread directly), she did once more what she had done centuries before, when she was the pre-eminent Scathach of Albion, and became the shadow, making herself a phantom in the Tapestry once more. She also saw the thread of Thomas' dream, and how it had been stretched centuries beyond what he envisioned, thinning out to the point where now, with Nicholas, it had frayed too thin.

She emerged from her Trial to find confusion awaiting her: she had achieved the feat of a khwaja dirigens, but lacked the skills and knowledge of one. Whether or not her House acknowledged her as being of that rank would have to wait on a higher decision.

Purification, Part Five
October 31st (September 2006)