I selected pieces of fruit and pastry the same way as the fair folk, but when it came to eating the goose, which glistened with honey and spices, I took up my knife and fork. As I carved the meat I felt I was being watched. By the time I looked up several fair folk were wielding silverware, carefully watching my example, and a few others examining their utensils curiously. It was obvious most of them had never dined with silverware before. Why, then, did they arrange their place settings this way?
Because that’s the way humans do it, I thought, with the smallest prickle of unease.
The conversation went from my Craft to other human works. The fair folk discussed clothing and swords. I fielded a number of baffling questions, and had to explain again that being a master at one Craft didn’t automatically reward me with expertise in the others. As the feast wore on, my hope of overhearing even a scrap of useful information about the other courts, the summerlands, and corrupted fairy beasts crumbled beneath the barrage of small talk.
As the sky darkened to night, fireflies came out in such numbers they glittered in the trees like stars. A few fair folk summoned ethereal lights in different hues that hovered above the table. When I grew cold, Rook was quick to offer me his borrowed jacket—and seemed very glad to be rid of it. Whether the colors suited him or not, the cut of Gadfly’s tight-fitting waistcoat certainly flattered his form, and it was an effort not to stare at him in shirtsleeves. The cravat was long gone, leaving his collar open at the throat.
Over time, a strange pattern revealed itself. A smiling fair one passed a dessert or fancy up the table in my direction, only for Rook to intercept it before it reached me. The fifth or sixth time this happened he even had to reach all the way across the table, stretching over a wheel-sized mound of grapes, to snatch it out of Lark’s hand. He sent me a troubled glance as he regained his seat, bracing his hand on the armrest. By this time he’d had quite a lot of wine, and I thought it was beginning to show, an observation which made me equally conscious of my own condition. The presence of so many fair folk was, admittedly, easier to endure after a few glasses.
I leaned toward him, trying to ignore the way the lights swung when I moved, and murmured, “Are they enchanted? Poisonous?”
“Not as such,” he replied in a tone of discomfort.
“Then why?”
Our eyes met. “It would be better if you did not know,” he said, with such a miserable look I didn’t press further.
But Rook couldn’t spot all of them, and eventually I discovered the reason for myself. Lark came hurrying back with a handful of tartlets, ate one herself, and handed me another. When I touched it, it changed. The pastry withered and fuzzed gray with mold. Whatever filling had been inside dribbled out as an unidentifiable black sludge, reeking of decay. Even worse, the deflated morsel squirmed in my hand; it was full of maggots. I threw the pastry shell to the table, missing my plate, and shot upright amid a noisy clatter of crystal and silverware, shoving my chair back with the backs of my legs.
Just like that the evening’s magic shattered. All the fair folk stared at me from up and down the table, and though I knew it had to be my imagination, their eyes looked catlike, glamourless in the shivering lights. Gadfly’s were so pale they glowed like a candle flame shining through quartz. My breath quickened. Then Lark, gazing up at me in stupefaction, gave a raucous laugh and snatched the spoiled pastry off the tablecloth. As soon as she took it, it wasn’t spoiled anymore—it looked a bit squashed, but otherwise exactly the same as it had before. She stuffed it into her mouth.
An amused titter went around the table, and the tense feeling in the air evaporated. Slowly, I sank back down. I looked at my plate to make sure I hadn’t imagined the entire thing, that it wasn’t some cruel trick they had played on me. I couldn’t say whether I was more relieved or disgusted to see the maggots still writhing away on the china.
A muscle moved in Rook’s cheek. He exchanged my plate for his own, bending close enough that his hair brushed my still-raised arm. Afterward, he retrieved a handkerchief from the front pocket of the jacket he’d lent me and gave it to me in silence. I wiped off my fingers, but it wasn’t the mold or maggots making my stomach revolt. I had touched mold many times before, and would many times again. I’d handled my fair share of spoiled food. And of course, I’d watched March eat all sorts of things.
No, it was the knowledge that all around me sat empty people in rotting clothes, nibbling on flyblown trifles while they spoke of nothing of consequence with fixed smiles on their false faces. What would this feast look like with all the glamour gone? I imagined fresh grapes gleaming next to a dish of pudding turned brown as mud, swarming with larvae. Clotted fluid pouring from a bottle, imbibed without protest. The wine soured in my gut, as if it too had spoiled and festered.
My simmering nausea threatened to boil over. I swallowed several times as saliva flooded my mouth.
“I didn’t realize fair folk could project their glamours,” I said to Rook, desperate for an explanation, a distraction. “Lark couldn’t change the dress until she held it.”
“It is an uncommon ability. The illusion isn’t as complete as a glamour—if a mortal touches it, it falls apart. Foxglove is the one doing it now, if I’m not mistaken.”
Foxglove looked up the table at us, hearing her name spoken even in Rook’s low voice. She smiled.
“Does the illusion affect the”—I hesitated—“the taste, at all? For you?”
“Ah,” Rook said. “No. But generally, we care more about the way it appears.” At least he had the good sense to look embarrassed. “This is the main point of contention between the winter court and the rest of fairykind, if you had wondered,” he went on impulsively. “They believe that surrounding oneself with human things, all of this, even wearing a glamour, is a perversion of our true nature.”
“And how dispiriting their lives must be,” said Gadfly behind us. “I do so enjoy being perverse. In fact I rather think it is my true nature.”
I would have jumped if not for the wine slowing my reflexes. I was certain that a split second ago, Gadfly had still been at the opposite end of the table. I looked over my shoulder, unease sloshing in my head as I turned. Rook and I hadn’t been behaving too familiarly toward each other, had we?
“Thank you for your hospitality, Gadfly,” I said, fumbling for the first polite remark that came to mind. “The feast is lovely.”
His spidery fingers alit on the back of my chair. “And yet it isn’t quite, is it? Isobel, I’m sorry you encountered one of our less . . . immaculate dishes. I thought Rook up to the task of watching over you.”
Beside me, Rook frowned. An inexplicable urge to defend him seized me. “He has done as well as anyone possibly could,” I replied. It came out more forcefully than I intended, and I added quickly, “Truly, I’m fortunate to have been waited on by a prince in the first place.”
“Yes, of course,” Gadfly said, glancing between the two of us.
Shit. I plastered on my politest, most vacuous smile, refusing to give him anything else to go on. Let him think me charmed by the attention of a handsome fairy prince, and nothing more. Not that there was anything more. Rook’s feelings were the ones that needed hiding, not mine.
“I do admit, sir,” I continued, “that the incident’s left me feeling unwell. If I’m to rise early and begin my Craft at a reasonable hour tomorrow morning, I think I ought to retire before midnight.”
“Very sensible.” Gadfly’s fingers drummed out a thoughtful rhythm, too close to my cheek for comfort. “Lark, would you please show Isobel to a room? Our best, of course.”
Rook seemed about to protest, or perhaps offer to help me instead, so I bumped his knee under the table as a warning. I had no doubt he’d find his way up eventually, but it needed to be more discreet than escorting me upstairs in full view of the court.
Lark wobbled upright and insinuated herself around my arm. “I have sooooo many nightgowns,” she said, towing me toward the tree stairs.
“I want to come!” exclaimed one of her friends, who had been introduced to me as Nettle.