An Enchantment of Ravens(15)

“Bleeeghhh,” she said, and ejected a live toad onto her quilt.

I shook my head at May’s hysterical laughter. “Well, at least you didn’t swallow it,” I reasoned, lunging after the moist and traumatized creature. I snatched it before it made a bid for freedom down the stairwell. “Now settle down, all right? Emma’s having one of her nights.” They didn’t know what this meant, only that it was serious, and I’d think of some way to bribe them for being on their best behavior.

“Fine,” May sighed, flopping over in bed. She watched me with one eye. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Put it somewhere far away from March’s mouth.” And hope it recovers from the nightmares, I thought, shutting the door behind me.

I drifted through the house, moonlight making foreign shapes of the parlor’s clutter. A half-finished Vervain smiled at me coldly from the easel, wearing an expression that might as well have been carved onto a wigmaker’s mannequin. Working with her came as a shock after Rook, even though I knew she was only a return to normality, whatever that meant in my case.

I crept through the kitchen and outside onto the damp grass, where I set the toad free. It sprang away into the weeds, toward the forest. From here, across the moon-silvered field, the tops of the trees poked above the horizon like a cloud bank.

A breeze stirred the wheat and sighed through the grass, chilling the dew on my toes. The wind blew from the forest’s direction and for a moment I imagined I caught a whisper of that crisp, wild, wistful smell, Rook’s smell, the one that seized my heart and wouldn’t let go. I knew what it was. Autumn.

All at once my chest swelled with unnameable longing, an ache lodged at the base of my throat like an unvoiced cry. Lives to be lived awaited me out there, far from the safety of my familiar home and confining routine. The whole world waited for me. I felt pierced through with longing. Oh, if only I were the type to scream.

I wiped my toady hands off on the grass and stepped back.

A fluttering of wingbeats came from the old oak.

I turned, the breeze lifting my hair, and saw a raven in the tree. But which was it—a raven for peril, or a raven I loved?

Before I could move, Rook stood over me. I only had time to think, Both. For this wasn’t the Rook I knew. As the feathers shed from his form and gathered into a sweeping coat, they revealed a face livid with fury. No half-smile softened this hard, frozen mask, those amethyst eyes burning like conflagrations.

“What did you do?” he snarled.





Five


ROOK’S BEWILDERING question chilled me to the core. Mutely, I shook my head. I needed to get inside.

Anticipating my move, he crowded me against the side of the house and pinned me there. He didn’t touch me, but a clear threat radiated from the arms bracketing my shoulders, the strong hands gripping the wood beside my face. With escape eliminated as an option I found I couldn’t look away from him. His normally expressive mouth was compressed into a thin, bloodless line as he waited for me to answer. I would have welcomed any change in his icy expression, even for the worse, to give me some indication of what was going through his head.

“Rook, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, sounding as daunted as I felt. “I haven’t done anything.”

He drew up to his full height. I’d forgotten how tall he was—I could barely tip my head back far enough to see him. “Stop playing the fool. I know you sabotaged the portrait. Why? Are you working for another fair one? What did they give you to betray me?”

“Give—what are you talking about?”

In his eyes, a flicker. But if I’d gotten through to him, he steeled himself quickly against his doubts. “You did something to it, between the last session and when it was sent to me. There’s a wrongness to it now. Anyone who looks at it can tell.”

“I painted you. That’s all. That’s all my Craft involves, how could it be . . .” Oh. Oh, no.

“You did do something,” he hissed, his fingers curling against the wall.

“No! I mean, I did, but it wasn’t some sort of—scheme, or—or sabotage. I swear. I painted you exactly as you are. I saw it, Rook. I saw everything, though you might try to keep it hidden away.”

Well. I may be an artistic prodigy, but I’ve never claimed to be a genius. Only at that moment did it occur to me that Rook’s secret sorrow might be secret for a reason. It could be a secret even to him.

“You saw everything?” His voice grew menacingly quiet. He leaned over me, caging me in with his body from all angles. “What do you think you saw, Isobel, with your mortal eyes? Have you ever seen the splendors of the summer court, or witnessed fair folk as old as the earth itself slain in the glass mountains of the winterlands? Have you watched entire generations of living things grow, flourish, and die in less time than it takes you to draw a single breath? Do you recall what I am?”

I shrank against the boards digging into my spine. “I could change it for you,” I said, wondering if I’d just lied to him. Even though my life might very well depend on it, I found the prospect of destroying my perfect work unimaginable. It was the only example of its kind in the entire world.

Rook barked a bitter laugh. “The portrait was unveiled publicly before the autumn court. All my house has seen it.”