I tried, “Some fair folk have different types of magic, don’t they? Magic that’s unique to them or a small number of your kind, such as Rook being able to change his shape, for example.”
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “Just like how Gadfly knows things before they happen.”
I filed that information away for later. “Well, that’s also how it is with mortals and the Craft. My specialty is making pictures of people’s faces. I can do a little with food, but not much with clothes, and nothing at all with weapons.”
“Who needs weapons anyway! If I were a mortal I’d want Craft to make dresses. Please won’t you hurry up and put that on?”
I regarded the pink fabric grimly. “I suppose. Hold it for me while I get ready?” I handed it back and stripped off my dress. For the lack of a better place to put it, I laid it out on the ground, and then struggled into the new dress with Lark’s “help,” which involved an unnecessary amount of poking and prodding. All the while I thought of the iron ring hidden away in my pocket, and wished I’d thought to put it in my stocking instead.
“You look much better,” she said gravely when we were finished. “Except pink isn’t your color. Take it off again!” She dove back to the closet.
I was stepping out of the wads of fabric when a rustling sound came from the wall. I turned to find a raven poking its beak through the branches. It angled its head this way and that, snatching at the leaves and tearing them off to make room for itself, cocking a demanding purple eye in our direction. Relief swept through me, chased by the prickling awareness that I stood there in my undergarments. I snatched my arms against my chest just as Rook popped his head the rest of the way through. Stuck halfway in and out of the wall, he made an irritable burbling sound in his throat.
I couldn’t help it—I laughed. It was hard to remain self-conscious in front of a bird.
“All right, hold still,” I told him. I went over and slipped my hand in next to his feathers, and pulled the branches aside. He flapped down to the floor. With a self-important air, he strutted across the room and tugged on the hem of Lark’s dress.
“Stop!” she said. “I’m busy. I won’t break her, I promise.”
Rook and I exchanged a look. She’d just given her word, whether she meant to or not, but I had to wonder if it counted for much given how unlikely she was to understand how, exactly, one went about breaking a mortal.
She spun around. “This one.” Her face glowed with satisfaction.
Oh, god. It was a Firth & Maester’s. I took it reluctantly, as one might a queen’s diamond necklace, and held it close with my knees pressed together, overwhelmingly mindful of Rook standing just a few feet away. “Lark, I don’t know about this one. I have to go tromping around in the woods looking for berries after we’re done, and I’d hate to damage it.”
“Why would you care about that?”
“Well, because then it’s ruined. Wouldn’t Gadfly be upset if he had to replace it?”
“You’re silly. Watch!” She fetched another dress from inside the vines. Involuntarily, I recoiled. It looked like it had served as a wedding dress long ago, but its once-white fabric was soiled and graying, riddled with moth holes. The ribbons dangling from the waist were so rotten one of them dropped off when Lark pulled it against herself. But as soon as the dress touched her body, it unrolled new lengths of snowy satin. Lace restored itself like blossoms unfurling, and the ribbons spooled down to her toes, pristine. Just like that the dress looked freshly sewn, without the slightest trace of decay.
Seeing my expression, Lark shrieked with laughter, showing every one of her pointed teeth. Then she stopped laughing all at once, as though she’d shut the lid on a music box.
“That’s what he meant when he told me to get you new ones,” she explained. “But we can only make them look exactly how they did when they were made. So I can’t change its shape if I want to, or add anything on.” She sized me up. I could tell she was about to ask about my sewing skills again, so I swiftly donned the Firth & Maester’s dress before she had a chance.
It was made of gorgeous sage-green satin. The bodice was embroidered with tiny songbirds in silver thread, and a cream-colored satin ribbon marked its raised waistline, beneath which an additional layer of sheer muslin draped over the green underskirt. I felt diaphanous and shimmering, like a dragonfly’s wing. Ordinarily I’d never wear anything half this fine without a petticoat underneath, and the sleek fabric slid unfamiliarly over my bare legs, a touch as silky and subtle as water. It looked terribly at odds with my stout leather half-boots peeking out beneath the hem, but that was one aspect of my wardrobe I refused to compromise. I never knew when I might have to run.
“Perfect for berry picking,” I joked weakly.
“What about you?” Lark demanded of Rook, who was watching me with a cocked head. Warmth flooded my cheeks, and I resisted the urge to fold my arms again, even though there was nothing to hide. “Has Gadfly changed you out of those dreary autumnlands clothes?”
Wind shook the Bird Hole, and Rook materialized beside us looking rumpled and cross. “Yes, that was his first order of business, unsurprisingly. But these colors don’t suit me at all.”
“Don’t be a spoilsport! Black and brown and whatever else you had on suit everyone poorly. I think you look awfully fine.”
“I believe we must agree to disagree about fashion,” he replied with dignity. “Also, it wasn’t brown, it was copper.”
“Copper!” she repeated, and gave another shriek of laughter, though the source of her amusement eluded me.
To be perfectly frank, Rook could trail about in a bedsheet and still look magnificent. But he did look better in his own clothes—the fern-green jacket Gadfly had scrounged up for him didn’t match his darker complexion or his hair, and fit too tightly across the shoulders. His embattled cravat showed signs of restless clawing; I doubted it was long for this world. But, I thought wryly, at least we matched.
“Are the two of you finished? I’ve been ordered to bring Isobel back down for introductions once she’s dressed. And you can help introduce her, of course,” he added to Lark, who was summoning a pout.
“Oh, all right!” She seized his arm.
Rook lifted his other elbow meaningfully, and I smiled and shook my head. “We’ll never make it through those corridors if we’re promenading arm in arm. I’d impale myself on a coatrack.”
“Just do it, Isobel!” Lark cried. “We aren’t going that way.”
What other way could there possibly be? Certain I was about to experience another fairy strangeness I’d rather go without, I took Rook’s offered arm. I observed how delicate my hand and wrist looked resting on his sleeve, and conceded it was possible to see how fair folk got so vain, parading around in Firth & Maester’s and constantly discussing which colors looked best on them.
Rook looked down, his gaze stripped bare.
He really is in love with me, I thought. My heart leapt forward like a startled deer. Seeing a confession of love in his eyes was nothing like hearing it declared aloud. This was a look that would make time stop, if it could. Soft and sharp at once, an aching tenderness edged with sorrow, naked proof of a heart already broken. Here I stood in a dragonfly dress, holding his arm, and he knew our time was almost over.
A thousand wings unfurled inside me. I chased after them, trying to silence them, stuff them back down where they’d do no harm, but I might as well have been in the middle of a whirling vortex of butterflies, attempting to capture each one by hand. I became conscious of the heat of Rook’s skin through the fabric of his silk jacket, and that ever so slightly, my hand had begun trembling.
He couldn’t say anything in front of Lark, and he didn’t need to. I saw everything I needed to know reflected back at me in his eyes.
What was I feeling? How could I be certain?
Love between us was impossible. I forced myself to confront what would become of us if I allowed this feeling to take flight. There were only two options: drink from the Green Well, or condemn us both to death. Meeting his gaze, I let the resolve show on my face. I could permit neither. I was stronger than my emotions. If I lived a thousand times, not once would I destroy my own life and another’s for love. A storm gathered in my breast; the butterflies fell fluttering weakly to the ground.