Sixteen
THE NEXT day the court buzzed with talk of the masquerade, which would begin at dusk. By the time the shadows lengthened I had not only completed a portrait for nearly all the fair folk in the spring court, but had also heard an exhaustive account of what each one was wearing, who had stolen fashion ideas from whom, and several deeply alarming suggestions of sartorial revenge.
The more portraits I finished without incident, the more I relaxed. By the time I’d reached the last fair one in line, I was cautiously prepared to believe my plan had succeeded. More of my subjects had had peculiar reactions to their portraits, freezing to stare at their faces or spending the rest of the afternoon in a state of distraction, but mercifully, neither they nor any of the onlookers seemed to catch on—for once their utter ignorance of human emotion worked in my favor. I was intrigued to note that just like yesterday, a clear pattern had unfolded. It was always the older fair folk who were the most affected by my Craft.
Of the ensorcellment, I felt nothing. The absence of my awareness of it was its most disturbing feature. I poked and prodded at the back of my mind as I might a loose tooth, knowing the tooth was loose, yet never detecting a wiggle. At times, I even wondered if Rook had applied it successfully. But he seemed certain, and there had been a change in the glade after I told him my name, a sort of sigh, as though all the trees and ferns and flowers had let out a breath at once.
And it was an ensorcellment, after all. If I was able to sense it, it wasn’t doing its job.
I stifled a groan when I stood, hoping my legs would recover in time for the dancing. My final subject was a tall, grave-looking fair one named Hellebore, who took his portrait with an amused bow. He examined it as he wandered off. Before long he pressed the back of his sleeve against his mouth, stifling an errant chuckle. He laughed again. Then he stumbled. And then he slumped against a tree, giggling helplessly, struggling for breath. His mirth wasn’t controlled, inhuman—it verged on hysterical.
I’d drawn him laughing.
Skin crawling, I knelt to tidy up my workspace, needlessly ordering the teacups and remaining strips of bark. Hellebore had walked far enough away that with luck, no one would notice and make a connection.
And then I caught sight of Foxglove. She’d paused in her game of ninepins across the lawn, observing him with narrow suspicion. When his laughter overcame him and he toppled to the ground clutching his stomach, she turned sharply to stare at me, nostrils flared and shoulders rigid.
“Isobel,” Gadfly said from his throne.
I braced myself and raised my head. He wasn’t smiling; his expression was serious, in a mild, pleasant sort of way. This was it. My very last portrait, and everything was over.
But he only went on, “I believe Lark has something to say to you.”
A teacup slipped from my unsteady grasp, knocking against its neighbors with a quiet clink.
Lark minced over from where she’d been standing next to Gadfly, half hidden by the throne’s flowering branches. Her face was impassive as she sank into a deep curtsy in front of me. Then, to my surprise, she burst into tears.
“I’m—I’m s-sorry I turned you into a hare, Isobel,” she stuttered out between gasps. Huge, woeful droplets dripped down her cheeks and off her chin. She sniffled noisily. Disquieted, I wondered if she was imitating me, the only example of weeping she’d ever witnessed. It wasn’t a flattering impression. “I only—I only wanted someone to play with.”
Was Hellebore still laughing? Was Foxglove still watching me? Had anyone else noticed? I couldn’t risk looking. With an effort, I forced my attention to remain solely focused on Lark. Despite what she’d done, I really did feel sorry for her. “I forgive you, Lark.”
“Can we still be friends?” she wrung out piteously.
“Yes, of course we can.” I added for appearances’ sake, “But please don’t play any more tricks on me.”
“Oh, good!” Her messy tears vanished instantly, leaving no trace of wetness or splotchiness on her porcelain doll face. Because, of course, she hadn’t specifically said she was sorry because she had almost hurt me, or because she had frightened me. More likely she was only sorry for turning me into a hare because she’d been caught and punished for it.
“Come along, then,” she said. “The ball’s starting soon, and you need a costume. I already have one picked out. You’ll adore it. It’s—”
Someone slapped away the hand she’d reached out to me. At first I thought it was Rook. But instead Foxglove stood beside us, wearing her frigid, strangled smile. Lark’s expression went blank. She swiftly pulled her hand to her chest, but not before I spied a long, thin cut, like the swipe of an animal’s razor-sharp claw, fading from the backs of her knuckles.
“I think you’ve spent quite enough time with our dear Isobel. Don’t you agree, darling?” Foxglove’s smile thawed unconvincingly as she turned it on me. “Lark’s so young. She means well, but she isn’t the best company for a mortal girl. I, on the other hand, have dealt with humans many times. And I have an extensive wardrobe, filled with hundreds of dresses accumulated over a long, long lifetime.” Her eyes flicked back to Lark, relishing the fruits of her well-aimed blow. “Do come with me instead.”
My stomach churned at the thought of being alone with Foxglove. I’d have better chances locked in a room with a starving tiger. But what would she say if I denied her in front of the whole court?
“No.” Nettle stepped forward. “Why don’t you come with me? I’ve only just started visiting Whimsy, but everyone’s already talking about my enchantments.”
So fleetingly and savagely I almost missed it, Foxglove’s face contorted into a hideous frown.
More fair folk joined in. Soon I stood in the middle of a loud, grasping throng, over a score of immortal women vying for the privilege of lending me a mask and gown, like greedy children arguing over a toy they would sooner tear apart than share. I searched for Rook, but when I caught a glimpse of him between two fair folk’s bodies, he had already taken his leave and was halfway across the clearing. Gadfly walked beside him with a fatherly hand on his back, the other brandishing a cravat in the air.
We had arranged the ensorcellment for situations just like this one. I was immune to all fairy magic but Rook’s, and if anyone attempted to harm me physically, he would sense it. But faced with the claustrophobic press of so many people clawing at me at once, I couldn’t quell my rising panic with logic.
Why was this only happening now? Lark had laid claim to me without any competition whatsoever on my first day in court. I glanced toward her, only to find her missing. Unlike Rook, she was nowhere to be seen.
My breath caught in my throat. I did know the answer: Lark had shown weakness. Like predators, the fair folk had seen her stumble, and they had pounced. Now it was simply a matter of who would take her place.
High overhead, between the fair folk bending over me, a branch bounced as something landed in the canopy. I glimpsed a scrap of shiny black before the heads closed in again. Had that been a raven’s feathers, or just a flash of the blood-dark garnets studding Foxglove’s hair? I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear. And I wasn’t getting enough air—their feral animal perfume was suffocating. Light-headed, I tensed my muscles to charge through the mob, to escape the cramped onslaught of smell and noise and unwanted touch no matter the consequences.
“Stop.” A soft, wispy voice spoke. Barely anyone noticed. Its owner stood at the edge of the crowd, hands knotted into fists at her side.
“Aster,” I gasped. I strained toward her, but couldn’t get anywhere with so many fingers grasping at me, so many bodies crowding in close.
She noticed, and gave me a small nod. “Stop,” she repeated, turning back. “Leave Isobel alone now, everyone. I will be the one to prepare her for the ball. I will be the one to prepare her for the ball!” Her voice rang out like a gunshot. All heads turned, and everyone went silent. For a second, only a second, a hot ember of true anger flared in her eyes. I think I was the only one capable of recognizing it. But even though the fair folk couldn’t put a name to what they saw, it affected them still. They shrank back, uncertain.
Yanking my hands from the two fair folk who gripped them, I managed a clumsy curtsy. “Why do you think you should be the one, Aster?” I asked. My voice rasped, dry and desperate. I hoped they couldn’t sense my fear. “Please tell me.”
She raised her chin. “I drank from the Green Well. None of you can say the same. Tonight, the privilege belongs to me.” And she held out a fragile hand.
My scrabbling fingers met hers. For some reason, it startled me that there was nothing human about her steely grip. She pulled me free of the throng, toward the stair. The other fair folk sighed wistfully. “Oh, dear. Perhaps next time . . .” “It would have been such a pleasure . . .” “I’m ever so fond of your work . . .” I suppressed a shudder as each one purred their regrets at me while I stumbled past, their breath caressing my cheeks like feather plumes.
Aster silently led me up the stair. And while we went, I counted. One raven, watching us silently from the banister. A second peered out of the dogwood throne’s flowers. A third flickered across the clearing, as liquid as a shadow, and a fourth and fifth hopped bright-eyed along a branch. None of them showed signs of dispersing. If there was a sixth—
But Aster’s hand tugged on my wrist, and I couldn’t stand there exposed on the stair’s landing. Together we passed into the labyrinth. Whether it was my imagination or otherwise, the unfamiliar bend she chose looked stranger, wilder, its clutter less friendly. I didn’t recognize the rocking horse positioned at the corner, its paint peeling and faded with age. I stepped on something, and would have turned my ankle if not for Aster’s hand steadying me. It was a carved bird figurine, partly enveloped by the floor. We passed a giant church bell grown over with bark, sticking out of the wall at an angle. Farther on, a doll’s hand protruded from the leafy ceiling. The collections of Craft must have lain here so long untouched that the labyrinth had begun enveloping them, where they would remain for eternity, forgotten.
Finally Aster drew me around another corner and stopped. She peered back the way we had come, with the hushed alertness of someone listening. “We were not followed,” she murmured to herself.
“I must thank you,” I said, “for coming to my—”
She turned, eyes wild. “Do not thank me!” Each syllable of her fraught whisper struck me like a slap across the face. I froze, stunned.
With a trembling hand, she tucked her hair behind her ear. A smile plucked at the corners of her mouth. She darted another look behind us. “Come along,” she said, as though nothing had happened, and pulled me into the room waiting beyond. “I must prepare you for the masquerade.”
Thoughts awhirl, foreboding yawning darkly in the pit of my stomach, it took me a moment to process what I had stepped into. I stood in a chamber completely lined with books. Stacked books stretched up the walls like bricks and paved the floor like cobblestones. Gilt titles winked at me from scuffed spines. A musty smell of leather and yellowed paper filled the room.
“You’ve collected all of these?” I breathed. “Have you read them all?”
Aster hesitated. Her free hand fluttered uselessly, then alit on a book. She slid her fingertips down it, but didn’t pull it from the wall. “They are Craft.” She spoke softly. “The words—they don’t always make sense, but I need them anyway, you see. It’s as though there’s something I’m looking for. I always think, once I have just one more, it will be enough . . .” Her words dwindled.
“But it never is,” I said.
She didn’t seem to hear. “Follow me. We cannot take too long.”
Her hand fell from mine. Glancing repeatedly over my shoulder, I trailed her into the next room. The sun must have tipped behind the trees, because gloom had fallen over the labyrinth, leaving its contents vague with shadow. My heart skipped a beat when I mistook the figures lined up beyond the doorway for fair folk standing in rigid expectation, waiting for us. But they were only mannequins arranged in two long rows along either wall, wooden faces devoid of expression. Aster had brought me to her wardrobe. She made a gesture, and an amber fairy light appeared above us, drifting upward toward the ceiling. A standing mirror on the opposite side of the room reflected its illumination, shifting over my uncertain countenance as I looked around.
“We are similar in size,” she said. “Most of these should fit you, I think. Do you have a preference for green?”
“No. I don’t have much of a preference at all, really. That must be an odd thing for an artist to say, but I’m not in the habit of painting myself.” I paused, recalling her portrait session. “Why don’t you choose for me?”
Her shoulders tightened. She thumbed the nearest gown’s gauzy train, absently evaluating its texture, then released it without interest. “You look lovely in green, but it’s a spring color. When you drink from the well, I don’t think you’ll belong in our court.”
I slipped along the other row, tracing silk and lace, never taking my gaze from Aster. “Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s just a silly feeling.”
I kept my tone light. “Can I ask—why did you rescue me down there? I might be mistaken, but these past few minutes, I’ve received the impression that it was for a reason. That perhaps you wanted to tell me something.”
She halted, hand paralyzed in midair between two dresses. I was right. A deep, resounding note of dread tolled within me. Something was about to go terribly wrong.
“He knows,” she said.
“About my Craft?”
A quick, dark-eyed glance. “He knows you have broken the Good Law.”
No, I thought. Then, yes.
Because suddenly it was quite clear to me that I was in love with Rook, and it had happened as most quiet, perfect, utterly natural things do: without my even noticing. We had stood together in a glade, and I had trusted him enough to tell him my true name. I turned the strange, marvelous thought around in my head. I loved Rook. I loved him. It was the best thing I had ever felt. And it was the worst thing I had ever done.
I’d doomed us both to death.
Nothing around me changed, though it seemed there ought to be some tangible proof that everything was about to be over. I didn’t collapse to my knees or cry out. I just stood there breathing as usual, trying to comprehend the scope of what was happening, my thoughts measured and calm.
Who was “he”? Gadfly? I supposed it had to be. He’d probably seen this coming from a mile away. Despite our history, perhaps he’d even enjoyed watching my mortal folly unfold. The thought gave new meaning to the way Lark and Foxglove and Nettle and the others had fought over me—fought over who would dress me up in the last gown I’d ever wear.
Quickly as a striking snake, Aster whirled around and seized my arms. Her bony fingers dug into my flesh like claws. Her eyes glittered. “So that is why you must leave the masquerade. Make your entrance, but the moment Gadfly turns his back, you must flee to the Green Well and drink before he catches you. You must. I will help you.”
I might have only imagined it. But when Aster grabbed me I thought I felt a twinge of alarm that wasn’t my own, a ghostly, faraway sensation shivering across me like ripples spreading outward across the surface of a pond. Rook? I asked, but received nothing back.
“Isobel,” Aster was saying.
“No.” I shook my head. “No, I cannot. The story Rook and I told the court—it was a lie. I will never drink.”
“You must.”
“If you could turn back time, if you could do it all over again, would you make the same choice?”
The light left her eyes. Her grip loosened, and she turned away.
“I could show you a way out of the court that no one watches,” she said. “But no matter where you go, they will find you.”
Emma. The twins. They would have gotten my letter this morning, never knowing I was to die the same night. I shook my head, over and over again.
“I can’t ask you to endanger yourself on my behalf for nothing.” A cold fog crept around me. There was one thing left I could do—one thing left to try. “I will attend the masquerade. I need a moment alone with Rook.”
Aster said nothing. She thought I was already dead, and perhaps she was right. She moved ahead down the aisle, halting in front of one of the last gowns. “This one,” she said, and lifted it from its mannequin.
I’d never seen a dress like it. Deep red roses were embroidered in lace over its inner layer of nude, faux-sheer fabric. The roses clustered over the bodice and scattered downward across the flowing skirt, coming apart as though swept away by a breeze. On the other side the dress had been left unadorned, creating the illusion of a low-cut back. Once, it might have taken my breath away. Now there was no beauty in the world, no pleasure, that could shake me from the bleak understanding of what awaited me.
Mechanically, I shed my clothes onto the floor. I stepped into the gown, almost tripping, my body made clumsy and slow by dread. While I crouched to gather the fabric up around my ankles, I paused long enough to brush my hand against my stocking, reminding myself of the ring’s presence. A laughable defense. But it was something.
I straightened.
“Oh,” Aster breathed. She took me by the shoulders and guided me to the mirror.
When I moved, the lace bodice remained stiff and fitted, but the skirt rippled around me in almost impossible swirls, shapes that reminded me of a famous painting of a maiden drowning in a lake at dusk, sinking into shadow as her dress billowed weightlessly after her. Stepping up to the figure reflected in the glass, I almost didn’t recognize myself. I’d been wearing Firth & Maester’s since I’d arrived, but never once had I seen what I looked like in a mirror. The gown’s rich scarlet accentuated my fair complexion and emphasized my dark eyes to a startling degree. I appeared less frightened than I expected. My eyes just stared, and stared, and stared, like pits swallowing up the light, out of a face as blank as the mannequin that had worn the gown before me.
“Jewelry,” Aster said to herself. “And a mask. I know of a mask that will match, if I can find it . . .”
She drifted away. A latch jingled, followed by the sound of a chest creaking open. While I waited, my hands rose of their own accord to unfasten my hair and rake through the tangled snarl. Indifferently, I watched myself braid it back up into a messy bun, which I held in place until Aster handed me a pin to secure it. I had the vague idea that if I looked composed—if the fair folk did not sense my fear immediately—I might buy us more time. All I needed was a moment with Rook.
Aster’s pale fingers descended, placing a delicate circlet atop my braids. It was a slender piece fashioned from gold filigree, studded with tiny leaves. I swept my eyes over my reflection, seeing it anew. Autumn colors. A coronet to match Rook’s. She was being kind, I supposed, in the only way she knew how. Giving me dignity in my last moments, unlike Foxglove or any of the others, who I now suspected would have tormented me like cats with an injured mouse, smug with foreknowledge, before they conveyed me to the ball. Perhaps until I pressed her Aster had hoped to spare me from knowing entirely, to allow me a swift and merciful end.
As she stood next to me in the mirror, there was a hint of sadness to her distant expression, shivery and faraway, a glimmer of moonlight at the bottom of a deep, deep well. At her waist, she held the stick of a half-mask. A rose mask to match the gown, an expressionless, flourishing bouquet with holes at the blossoms’ hearts for eyes.
“You look like a queen among mortals,” she said. “You will be the most beautiful person at the ball.”
I tried summoning a wan smile but didn’t succeed. It was very likely I would never smile again. “The most beautiful human? I can hardly hold a candle to Foxglove.”
“No. You surpass us all.” Beside me she looked colorless and frail. “You are like a living rose among wax flowers. We may last forever, but you bloom brighter and smell sweeter, and draw blood with your thorns.”
Carefully, I took the mask from her hands. “I can see how you were a writer once.”
Aster looked away.
I lifted the mask to my face, concealing my expression. Gazing at myself, I could only think one thing. I knew Aster was thinking the same. I did look like a queen, but my dress was a funeral shroud. She had made me beautiful to go to my death.