Dressed in their ceremonial cloaks of office, the Council members gathered on the great plaza of the city, Arganum-ur. The smell of seaweed mixed with the loamy presence of the forest. Bil’s attention was caught by someone across the plaza and he wandered off.

All around them people lounged and played. Jugglers juggled, dancers danced. Poets declaimed, hecklers hecked and musicians musicked. The activity slowly ceased as the fey folk became aware of the Council in their midst, except for one juggler whose fountain of balls reached high into one of the forest sunbeams. “Whoo hoo hoo!” he shouted, “THIRTEEN!” then dropped the lot as he realized his was the only voice to be heard. One rolled into the koi pond.

“The rest of us are ready ~ to do our job, Bil,” Athis’ voice cut across the plaza.

Bilgamees returned to the group at a trot. “Yes, of course we are,” he said. “Just showing the kids some tricks. ~ My senior’s duty.”

“Yet still a Junior ~ and so likely to remain,” Athis reminded him, “many years to come.”

Christopher Marlowe watched the ship’s gig being rowed toward shore. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he muttered. Cat, who sat beside him, perked up. “I say! They have HER with them!”

“I know they do. Wild harridan, haunting me to the ends of the Earth. And beyond.”

“How dare you speak about her like that!”

“Belinda?”

“Daphne!”

“Daphne?”

“My dear lost love!” said Cat. Marlowe peered through the mist. “The ship’s cat?”

The little boat moved in fits and starts. One of the sailors in particular seemed to be hanging onto his oar for stability rather than propulsion. A stern officer sat in the stern. From the bow another man bowed, doffing his hat as they came within hail. “Permission to come ashore?”

“SPANIARDS!” shouted Sir Hyphen-Dash, but Marlowe replied in resignation, “Granted.”

The ship’s boat struck ground, its prow still a pole from shore. The sailor who had been hanging from his oar dragged himself over the gunwale and plunged into the shallow water and came back to the surface with a gasp. The man in the bow passed him a rope as he staggered ashore.

Marlowe took the rope as the sailor flopped on the beach, crying, “Land! Dry land! Tierra firma!”

Some of the other men grabbed the line and heaved, pulling the boat within leaping distance of the beach. The woman who had been sitting amidships stepped gracefully over the sailor’s heads and jumped, calling out to Marlowe without paying him much attention, “You there! Catch me!”

Despite years of living amongst the upper classes, and even brushing with royalty, his reflexes were still those of a gentleman. He raised his arms in time to break her fall and steady her as she landed on his feet.

She turned to thank him and realized who he was. Her face went white. Her eyes went wide. She gave a little scream, said, “You’re dead!” and fainted hard away. Marlowe eased her to the sand while the rest of the sailors jumped across her.

Standing apart from the others, Grace watched the confusion while her cousin Felicity commented on how thin and poorly dressed the ship’s crew were. “They don’t look like the right sort of people at all!”

“They’re here,” Grace replied. “With a ship that will sail. They’ll take us home!” but Hope opined, “We’ll never survive the voyage!”

“Better dead on the seas that lost here in Faerie,” Felicity snapped at her. Grace shook her head, dismissing their bickering. England! It might be grey and dull and dangerous, but find a place that wasn’t!

Behind her Yee-Ha, the Fey boy who seemed to follow her everywhere, asked, “Ship to carry you ~ returning to your homeland ~ is this portended?” She nodded absently in reply, eyes on the ship.

“Beyond the blue sea ~ to accompany you there ~ I would learn your ways.”

“You really think they’re worth knowing?” she asked, listening to her sister and cousin argue.

Captain Stone pulled a long scroll from his tunic and unrolled it, proclaiming in a loud voice, “To Her Majesty’s Subjects in Her Most Secret Colony of New Albion! Greetings!

“I trust that by the Grace of God my messenger finds you thriving and prosperous, your numbers increasing in your new land! As the first inhabitants of this place you carry a heavy burden, peopling a hitherto empty countryside with Christian people!”

Grace hesitantly interrupted, “I beg your pardon, Captain, but it’s not entirely empty.”

Stone paused just long enough to quell her with a hard look, but before he could continue a voice cut through the air from the shadows where the forest met the shore, and a group of colourful, delicate individuals stepped out onto the beach. “Not empty at all!”

Captain Stone stood gaping in astonishment as Athis and the rest of the Fey council picked their way down the beach to stand before him, while Sir Hyphen-Dash expostulated, “Them! Yes, in league with, well, in league! I’m sure of it!

Marlowe had set the bemused Belinda back on her feet as she recovered from her faint, still saying dreamily, “Acres and acres! So huge!” Then her eyes focused on him, and she put up a hand to touch his face. “It really is you, Christopher, isn’t it?”

He nodded glumly. “It really is. I was… required to leave. Her Majesty required it.”

“And you could never say ‘No’, to her or any other woman, could you?” she reminded him. Then, “But Reginald? Did he really die? Maybe he’s still alive! Although he certainly looked dead at his funeral.”

“Reginald?”

“Sir Reginald Throtestalking, my late husband,” she said, then looked around. “It must have been awful for you here, without me…”

“There have been compens…” he started to reply, then something moving in the water caught his eye and he tried to turn Belinda away from the shore before the apparition surfaced.