With a sharp intake of breath, Rook looked away.
According to my head, I’d done the right thing. But my heart yawned dark and hollow with the emptiness his averted gaze left behind. I wondered if my head and heart would ever reconcile, or whether I’d just cursed myself to relive this moment for the rest of my years, half assured I’d made the only choice available to me, half always whispering if only, the whole of me filled with bitter regret.
The Bird Hole creaked. The floor shivered beneath my feet, and the walls’ wicker branches began twining about like thread in a loom, weaving, tumbling, bowing outward. I clenched Rook’s arm by reflex. Lark howled devilishly at the look on my face. All around us the room transformed, and a panicked thought gripped me: during that single intimate moment, had Rook and I broken the Good Law after all?
Twelve
THE WICKER floor cascaded downward, starting at the tips of my shoes. Slender birch supports rose from the ground to meet the newly forming stairway at intervals, creating elegant arches above and below, their branches fanning out as banisters.
In mere seconds I stood at the top of a broad, sweeping stair grander than that of any palace, stretching down five stories or more. At the bottom a crowd of fair folk awaited, arranged around a semicircle of open grass to which I assumed we were about to descend. Gadfly knelt in the middle of it, his hair glinting silver in the sun. As I watched he stood, reviewed the tip of his index finger, and then discreetly brought it to his lips, sucking away the blood. He had done all of this, it seemed, with little more than a single drop.
My pulse raced stumbling along. Though my worst fear hadn’t come to pass, I now possessed ample material with which to replace it. There were even more fair folk gathered here than there had been in the meadow before, and as grand as Rook looked beside me, I was the one they’d truly come to see. All of them were dressed to perfection in the delicate pinks, greens, blues, and yellows of a spring garden, resplendent in silver embroidery and mother-of-pearl buttons, with jewelry that glittered as brightly as their immortal eyes. I knew if I walked among them for hours, I wouldn’t find a single chipped nail or hair out of place. And I also knew that each and every one of them could kill me as easily, and as casually, as dropping a teacup.
Gadfly inclined his head to us.
One foot in front of the other. That’s all it took. Yet the descent seemed to stretch on for minutes rather than seconds, and the crowd waited in complete silence, the only sound the susurrus of my gown’s fabric slithering over the steps behind us. The closer we grew, the more unnatural the multitude of fair folk looked. The flawlessness that only nagged at me a little in the presence of one or two of their kind amplified to a sensation of dread when I was confronted by so many, as though I were beheld by an army of living dolls.
As soon as my first shoe touched the grass, a delicate chime of laughter, sighs, and whispered conversation rippled outward through the crowd. And so the introductions began.
When Gadfly turned around, scrabbling ensued among the fair folk in the front. A woman with arresting hazel eyes emerged victorious. She adjusted her hat back into place with a queenly smile as she swept forward, placing her hand in Gadfly’s. She wore a lilac dress with a high lace collar that strangled her slender neck, and the flaw in her glamour, unnaturally sharp cheekbones, was more subtle than most. Like many of the other fair folk present, she was fair-skinned—a common spring court characteristic, whereas the autumn and summer courts tended toward richer complexions like Rook’s, every shade of sunlight-gold and acorn-brown and deep umber.
“Isobel, I’d like you to meet Foxglove,” said Gadfly. I curtsied deeply. “Foxglove, this is Isobel, though you already know her by reputation.” She curtsied back.
I knew her by reputation too. She was the fair one who’d stolen Mrs. Firth’s vowels. I had always counted myself lucky that she’d never come calling on me.
“I am utterly thrilled by your visit,” she said, leaning close enough that her breath tickled my hair. It had a sweet flowery aroma over a base note of some rich and deadly spice. “I’ve followed your work ever since it began appearing in the courts. I would so love to have a portrait done while you’re here.”
My jaw already ached from smiling, and the ordeal had only just begun. “Thank you. It would be my pleasure.”
“You’re a darling,” she replied, with hunger in her eyes.
Fair folk came forward in an endless stream. Soon my knees creaked from curtsying and pleasantries numbed my brain. The whole time Rook and I stood side by side as if we were strangers, never meeting each other’s eyes. Many of the fair folk I greeted were current or former patrons, like Swallowtail, who loudly engaged me in a conversation about his past commission as others in line peered jealously over his shoulders. All of them were familiar with my Craft.
As the afternoon dragged on, I grew increasingly impatient. I needed time to gather supplies before dusk. More importantly, I needed to send word of my situation to Emma—in writing—now that I was at last in a position to do so. News delivered verbally by a fair folk messenger, if indeed Gadfly could spare one from a tea party, would only leave her stewing until the sun came up, trying to figure out if I was really dead or injured and they’d figured out some twisty way to make it sound otherwise.
So I was distracted, wondering how I could escape before it grew too late, when Gadfly pulled forth another fair one and introduced her as Aster.
“I think you will be particularly delighted to meet our Aster,” he said, with an extra veneer of enthusiasm. “She was a mortal once, like you, and drank from the Green Well. When was that, Aster?”
“It must have been some centuries ago now—though it seems like just yesterday,” she replied in a soft, wispy voice, like willow branches stirred by a breeze.
My attention snapped back into focus at once. Had I not known, I wouldn’t have been able to tell Aster apart from the rest. She was perhaps a little less tall, but not remarkably so. Flowers were woven into her wavy, waist-length black hair. Her skin looked starkly pale in contrast, which only accentuated her glamour’s flaw: she was inhumanly gaunt. Her collarbones and ribs protruded from her chest above her gown’s neckline, and her shoulders looked as fragile as a bird’s bones. She watched me closely with brown eyes nearly as dark as mine.
We exchanged curtsies. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Aster. I hope to drink from the Green Well one day myself.” The ability to lie had never seemed as useful or necessary. “How do you find being a fair one?”
She gave me a flickering smile that didn’t reach the rest of her face. “It’s lovely, you know. There are so few things to worry about—I hardly ever have cares these days. I remember getting sick, or the way I used to feel pain, and there’s so much . . . less of it now.” Her smile faded and came back.
“That sounds wonderful.” I was aware of everyone watching me, and made sure my expression didn’t change. “The forest is so beautiful compared to Whimsy.”
“Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes.”
“Were you a master of the Craft?” I inquired.
Her wan smile lit her face like the striking of a flint. “I was! One must be to drink from the well, of course. Let’s see—I was”—she faltered horribly—“you know, I seem to have forgotten the name for it. Ha ha! How strange!”
My skin crawled, a thousand many-legged insects skittering from my scalp all the way down to my toes. I desperately hoped the fair folk couldn’t see my hair standing on end. “Perhaps you could describe it to me,” I suggested, “and I’ll find the name for you.”
“Well, I made words. I made words for books, the ones that tell stories that aren’t true. Isn’t that odd? I used to do that myself!”
“You were a writer,” I said.
Her pupils swallowed up her eyes. For a heartbeat I had the terrifying notion she was about to leap at me and tear my throat out. Then I saw her hands fisted so tightly, gripping the fabric of her dress, that her knuckles bulged white and her fingers looked fit to break. “Yes, that’s it. I was a writer. Ha ha! A writer! Silly me—one does forget such things. We all forget things from time to time.”