Thirteen
I DEARLY wished I could have refused the honor. But it would be impolite, and all glittering eyes were upon me. I curtsied, and as I sat, Rook took wing from my shoulder and transformed next to me in time to push my chair back in. Gadfly deferred to him with a smile, while I wondered if that had been at all a wise thing for Rook to do.
The fair folk came forward and took their seats. Lark sat on my left, and Rook on my right. Gadfly went all the way down the table and sat last at the foot, directly across from me, half obscured by the delicacies mounded up over the long distance. With a rustle of silk and muslin, everyone else descended to their places.
The feast that followed was bizarrely fascinating. Rather than using spoons, forks, or ladles, the fair folk simply took what they wanted using their fingers. So beautiful were their forms, and so delicate their movements, that the practice didn’t strike me as repulsive. No servingmen circled the tables—if a fair one wanted something too far away to reach, he either stood up and got it himself or had it passed to him, hand to hand, with the risk it might get eaten capriciously by someone else along the way. Wine bottles went around and we all poured ourselves a glass. My tastes weren’t refined, but I took one sip and knew the vintage was worth its weight in silver. Wine was one of the few things we didn’t make in Whimsy; it was imported from the World Beyond at great danger and expense.
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.
Lark whipped around and hissed at her. Nettle sat back down. Lark smiled prettily, tightening her grip on my arm.
When we reached the tree’s base and began our ascent, the feast’s lights glittered like a whole city behind us. Weaving up the vines behind an equally unsteady Lark, I feared for my life nearly as much as I had during the Barrow Lord incident. Somehow we reached the top unscathed. Enough starlight filtered through the labyrinth’s leaves to see by, and the corridors sparkled like a diamond mine with fireflies.
“Would you mind if I fetched my things from the Bird Hole?” I asked. The ring had lurked at the back of my thoughts all evening, and after the feast’s strained conclusion I couldn’t bear going without it any longer.
“I don’t know why you care about your boring dress, but that’s where I keep all my nightgowns, so we have to go there anyway. You’d better not wear it to bed!”
“I won’t,” I assured her. But I’d certainly keep my iron close.
By my estimation I tried on nearly a dozen silk nightgowns, all of them flimsier than a slip and nearly see-through, though I found I didn’t really mind—the final, conclusive sign that I’d had too much to drink. Lark settled on a green one, deciding this was to be my signature color. It gathered beneath the bosom and had a questionable number of ribbons for sleeping in, unless perhaps one used a hammock and needed to be tied down during high winds. But it was stunning. I wished I had a mirror to see myself in. No, I wished I could see what Rook’s face would look like if he saw me wearing it, how different it would be from the way he’d gazed at me in the dragonfly dress. I stepped back from the thought immediately, my face burning, but no matter how hard I tried to ignore it, the fizzy glow of the idea wouldn’t fade.
Finally Lark permitted me to gather up my things and led me through the twinkling labyrinth toward another room. I stopped dead in my tracks at the doorway.
The room contained a four-poster bed, and dozens of Gadflies stared at me from within. Some polished, some dusty, some hanging slightly askew, the portrait frames hung on almost every square inch of the room, depicting Gadfly in different fashions across the centuries. They were secured in place by leafy vines, so that they appeared partially grown into the walls. A few were my own work—perhaps eight in all. I hadn’t seen most of them in years, and felt a shock when I spotted them, as if recognizing the faces of old friends in a crowd. In the blinking firefly light, their eyes seemed to move.
“Surely I can’t sleep in Gadfly’s room,” I said.
There was no resisting. Lark tugged me inside. “Of course you can! Gadfly only sleeps once a month, during the new moon. The only other reason he comes in is to look at his portraits. Since this is your Craft, he’d be very pleased to have you stay here.”
That made sense in the bizarre way of fair folk, and no doubt Gadfly thought it a great privilege to spend a restive night being stared at by all his faces. A flurry of laughter rose up from the feast below, and Lark gave a disconsolate pause.
“If you’d like to go back down, I won’t blame you,” I said. “I won’t be good company once I’ve gone to bed.”
She grasped my hand. “Oh, are you certain? Absolutely certain? I just can’t bear the thought of you being lonely up here all by yourself.”
I smiled. “I won’t be lonely. I can hear everyone down below, and I’m so tired I’ll fall asleep instantly.”
“You’re wonderful.” Lark clasped my hand to her chest. “I knew we’d be the best of friends. I’ll see you tomorrow, Isobel!” And she released me and pelted from the room.
I shivered, stuffing my hand into my armpit to warm it. Then I put my clothes down on the covers, sat, unlaced my boots, and slipped beneath the blankets—a fine goose-down coverlet with soft sheets beneath. For some time, I watched the doorway. When Lark didn’t reappear I stole my hand out to feel around in my dress pocket. I held my breath as I blindly searched the folds, imagining what might have happened if a fair one had discovered the iron. But presently my fingertips bumped its reassuring shape, and I twisted beneath the sheets to slip it into one of my stockings in the dark.
Conversation and laughter drifted up from below, almost comfortingly human. Yet I could not, would not fall asleep. Above and all around me, Gadfly’s smile shifted subtly in the winking firefly glow. At the periphery of my vision, the changeable light made his eyes seem to move, and sometimes even blink. I had the feeling of being watched without the luxury of knowing for certain that it was only a feeling. And it occurred to me I hadn’t checked under the bed—a childish notion—but it wasn’t difficult to imagine a fair one lying down there in the dark, spidery fingers folded over his chest like a corpse, smiling to himself as he prepared to leap out and surprise me . . .
Wishing it were safe to wear my ring, I clenched my hand so tightly my nails dug dents in my palm.
It felt like over an hour passed; it might have been less. Something clattered loudly in the hallway.
“Wretched teapot!” Rook’s voice exclaimed in vexation.
Just like that, my fear melted away. My chest shook with laughter at the image of Rook staggering, drunk and affronted, through the labyrinth’s crowded hallways, being assaulted by falling teapots. “Rook,” I whispered, trusting he would hear me, “are you all right out there?”
A mortified silence. Then, coolly: “I haven’t the faintest idea why I wouldn’t be all right.”
“That’s true,” I said. “You slew a Barrow Lord, you shouldn’t have any trouble with a kettle.”
He came into the room, wrestling with Gadfly’s green waistcoat. When he’d gotten it off he cast it aside onto the floor like a piece of rubbish. Then he strode right over and, in one smooth motion, insinuated himself into the bed next to me, facing me, under the covers, with the bold and unselfconscious vanity of a cat sitting down on an open book.
I lifted myself on an elbow. My skin prickled with the awareness that his bent leg was almost touching mine—that I could feel his body heat across the narrow space beneath the linens. Recalling my state of dress, and my dangerous thought from earlier, I drew the blankets close.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “You can’t sleep here.”
“Yes, I can. In fact, I must. I can’t let any harm befall you, so it’s best I stay close.”
“You could offer to sleep on the floor, like a gentleman.”
He appeared horrified by the suggestion.
“And I’m not certain you’re in any state to protect me,” I went on, sensing a lost cause. “Just now you were almost assassinated by a teapot.”
“Isobel.” Rook looked at me gravely. “Isobel, listen. The teapot is of no consequence. I can defeat anyone, at any time.”
“Oh, is that so? That’s the truth?”
“Yes,” he replied.
I grappled with exasperated fondness. Despite how annoying he was being, I found it shockingly difficult to resist smiling. “Then you must be very drunk.”
“I am not. There may have been a lot of wine, but I’m royalty, you know. I’m the autumn prince. Therefore, I’m only a little drunk.” With that he closed his eyes.
“You can’t sleep here. You really, really can’t, it’s too—”
The room’s leaves trembled as someone came racing up the hallway. “Oh, no,” I groaned. “Quickly, get under the bed, or transform—”
Wind lifted the covers, and a soft, slithery maelstrom of feathers caressed my arms. When it settled Rook crouched indignantly in raven form among the tousled bedclothes, wings akimbo, as though his body had transformed automatically on my suggestion without his agreeing to it. Before he could change his mind, I snatched him beneath the covers and clasped him against my stomach.
Right as I finished, Lark peered around the doorway. She stared at me for a moment while I pretended to sleep, then giggled and raced away again.
“No,” I said, when Rook began struggling. “If you’re going to stay, you must be subtle about it.”
He kicked his legs and nibbled my fingers, trying to free himself so he could transform again. I saw that more extreme tactics were necessary.
“What a pretty bird you are,” I crooned.
His struggling slowed, then stilled. I felt him cock his head.
“What a lovely bird,” I repeated in a syrupy voice. “Yes, you’re the loveliest bird.” I stroked his back. He made a pleased muttering sound in his breast. Soon his smug silence indicated that he was quite content to remain as he was, so long as I continued my praise.
I knew I wasn’t truly safe now, but Rook’s presence, such as it was, came as an undeniable comfort. The day’s exertions drew over me like heavy wool. Rook’s heart beat against my fingertips through his soft feathers, and my eyes sank closed as I murmured drowsy endearments to the spoiled prince nestled against my stomach, warm within a nest of blankets.
Wink, wink, wink, went Gadfly’s eyes overhead. A hundred of him watched us with unknowable smiles as we drifted off to sleep.