Delighted laughter bubbled up in my chest. We were in the springlands!
“Can we stop for a moment?” I called out. Rook hadn’t paused and was now halfway across the clearing. “Only if it’s safe, that is. This is wonderful. I’d like to try to paint it once I’m home.”
He halted and gave me a furtive look.
“It’s nearly as lovely as the autumnlands,” I added loudly for the sake of his pride.
That seemed to mollify him. “There’s a place over here to sit down.” He ducked beneath some branches. When I caught up with him, he was sitting on the lip of a squat stone well halfway covered up by moss. Bluebells and feathery-looking ferns sprouted all around it. I sank down on the opposite side with my back turned to his, as that morning’s events made keeping a distance seem wise, and considered taking my shoes off.
Then I looked at the well and forgot all about wiggling my toes in the ferns. The well was small, old-looking, and unremarkable in every way. I looked at it for a long time.
Rook said quietly, “I’ve brought you to the Green Well.”
I shot up as though my buttocks had just landed on a bed of hot coals. A slushy sound filled my ears, and my vision darkened around the edges. Desperate to get away, I tottered over to a tree and leaned myself against it, breaking out in a clammy, crawling sweat. I’d never fainted before, but the feeling of being on the verge of it was unmistakable.
He spoke again with his head angled, not quite looking at me over his shoulder. My abrupt movement puzzled him; I don’t think he saw the extremity of my reaction. “Nothing will happen unless you drink from it. But I understand the opportunity to drink from the Green Well is many humans’ dearest wish.”
I slid down the tree trunk and sat uncomfortably on its gnarled, jutting roots, wildflowers tickling my legs. He was right. Of those mortals who vanished into the forest, the majority sought the Green Well, hoping to find it on their own despite the insurmountable risk. Masters of the Craft toiled for years in pursuit of this end. Only perhaps one human every hundred years was bestowed with the honor. It was lusted after more than any enchantment, any glittering quantity of gold. And of all the things on earth, it terrified me most.
“It occurred to me,” he went on, “that this might be an ideal alternative for you under the circumstances. You would no longer require my protection, or fear any of the forest’s dangers. You could come and go in the autumnlands—and any other fairy court,” he hastened to add, “as you please. And of course, you would live forever.”
Somehow, I found my voice. “I can’t.”
This time he did look at me. Absorbing my expression, he stood up halfway. “Isobel! Have you taken ill?”
I shook my head.
A pause. “Are you starving to death?” he asked nervously.
I briefly squeezed my eyes shut, swallowing a painful laugh. “No. It’s the Green Well. Rook, there’s something you must know about me. My Craft isn’t just something I do. My Craft is who I am. If I drank, I’d lose myself and everything I care about. I know it’s hard for you to understand, because you’ve never been mortal, but the emptiness I’ve glimpsed within your kind frightens me more than death. I wouldn’t consider the Green Well even as a last resort. I’d rather get torn apart by the Wild Hunt than become a fair one.”
He sank back down, absorbing my words. I’d expected to offend him, but he only looked a bit dazed, as though something had struck him over the back of the head. Perhaps the effort to comprehend what I’d said left him reeling. From his perspective, after all, human emotion wasn’t a blessing—it was a misery and a curse. Why wouldn’t I want to be rid of it?
After a long hesitation, he gave a faltering nod. “Very well. I will not ask it of you again. But now, there is something else we must discuss before we continue on to the spring court. It’s a matter of great importance.”
“Please go on,” I said. The frigid terror gripping me melted away bit by bit, leaving a trembling weakness behind. Seeing the Green Well and denying it aloud made it seem less threatening somehow. I had faced it, and emerged unscathed.
The ferns rustled. I looked up to find Rook pacing across the clearing. “Fair folk don’t bring humans into the forest lightly. In fact, you will be the first mortal to visit the spring court in over a thousand years. To avoid suspicion, we must invent some explanation for why we’re traveling together. But . . .”
“It can’t be a lie, or else you won’t be able to talk about it.”
He glanced at me, and nodded tightly.
“I’ve always heard that the best lies are the ones closest to the truth. What will they assume first, seeing us together?”
“That we’ve fallen in love,” he said, in an utterly neutral tone.
“And it wouldn’t be your first time.” He froze. “I saw what’s in your raven pin—by accident, when you were unconscious. I’m sorry, Rook. I’m not going to pry, but it is relevant to our predicament. Naturally they’d draw conclusions, however far-fetched . . .” His stillness sank in. Dread resounded within me like the striking of a gong. My skin tightened and prickled.
“Are you in love with me?” I blurted out.
A terrible silence followed. Rook didn’t turn around.
“Please say something.”
He rounded on me. “Is that so terrible? You say it as though it’s the most awful thing you can imagine. It isn’t as though I’ve done it on purpose. Somehow I’ve even grown fond of your—your irritating questions, and your short legs, and your accidental attempts to kill me.”
I recoiled. “That’s the worst declaration of love I’ve ever heard!”
“How fortunate,” he said bitterly, “how very fortunate you are, we both are, that you feel that way. We aren’t about to break the Good Law anytime soon.” I looked away from the raw anguish in his eyes. “The love must be mutual, after all.”
“Good,” I said to my hands.
“Yes, good!” He paced back and forth. “You’ve made it quite clear how you feel about fair folk. Now stop making me feel things,” he demanded, as though it were as easy as that. “I must think.”
My face felt hot and cold at once. His words rang in my head. This wasn’t anything like how I’d ever imagined a romance would go, if I were to have one in the first place. God, how close we’d come to disaster. If only our sentiments for each other had overlapped . . .
But would it have mattered? I was no longer certain that what I’d felt for Rook back in the parlor truly had been love. It had felt like it at the time. I’d never experienced anything like it before. But I’d hardly known him, even though in my feverish infatuation I’d felt as though we’d been confiding in each other for years. Could you really love someone that way, when all they were to you was a pleasant illusion? If I’d been aware he would kidnap me over a portrait, I dare say I would have changed my mind.
And yet—I did feel something for him. What was that something? I picked at my emotions like a snarled knot and came no closer to finding an answer. Was I enamored with what he represented—that wistful fall wind, and the promise of an end to the eternal summer? Did I only want my life to change, or did I want to change it with him?
Frankly, I had no idea how anyone knew if they were in love in the first place. Was there ever a single thread a person could pick out from the knot and say “Yes—I am in love—here’s the proof!” or was it always caught up in a wretched tangle of ifs and buts and maybes?
Oh, what a mess. I planted my face in my skirts and groaned. I only knew one thing for certain. If even I couldn’t figure myself out, the Good Law wasn’t about to do it for me.
Rook’s shadow fell over my tumbled hair. “Your behavior is extremely distracting,” he announced. “I need to come up with an idea soon, or we’ll be stuck here overnight.”
My reply came out muffled by fabric. “Whatever it is, it should have to do with Craft. That’s the one thing we can count on to properly distract them.”
Belatedly, it occurred to me that Rook wouldn’t know where to begin. He didn’t possess the barest inkling of what Craft entailed. I snuck a peek at him through my hair, and found him standing over me looking predictably frustrated, a muscle flickering in his cheek as he clenched his jaw.