An Enchantment of Ravens(23)
I looked around. My stomach somersaulted, and my mouth went dry. The sparse, mossy undergrowth afforded a clear view into the far distance. I saw no tall figure, no raven winging through the forest. Rook truly did appear to be gone.
Run, I thought. But trying to urge my feet to move was like being four years old again, shifting at the foot of my mother’s bed after a nightmare, unable to speak a word to wake her. The forest slumbered too. How easily would I draw its attention, and was I really prepared for that nightmare?
As it turned out I needn’t have even bothered thinking about it. Something thumped into the leaves behind me, and I turned to find Rook standing over a dead hare.
“Go on,” he said when I didn’t move, glancing between me and the animal.
I shuffled forward and picked it up by the scruff of its neck. It was still warm, and watched me with its shiny black eyes. “Um,” I said.
“Is there something wrong with it?” His expression became guarded.
I was ravenous. I was sore. I was terrified. And yet looking at Rook I imagined a cat proudly bringing its master dead chipmunks, only to watch the two-legged oaf lift these priceless gifts by the tail and fling them unceremoniously into the bushes. Before I knew it I’d dissolved into laughter.
Rook shifted, torn between uneasiness and anger. “What?” he demanded.
I sank to my knees, the hare on my lap, gulping in air.
“Stop that.” Rook looked around, as if concerned someone might witness him mismanaging his human. I howled even louder. “Isobel, you simply must control yourself.”
He might have traveled with humans, but he most assuredly hadn’t dined with us.
“Rook!” I half-wailed his name. “I can’t just eat a rabbit!”
“I don’t see why not.”
“It’s—it needs to be cooked!”
For an instant, before he slammed the door shut on his expression, horror and confusion gripped him. “You mean to say you can’t eat anything at all without using Craft on it first?”
I took a shuddering breath, calming down, but knew I’d go off again at the slightest provocation. “We can eat fruit as it is, and most nuts and vegetables. But everything else, yes.”
“How can this be,” he said to himself quietly. That was all it took; I gave a strangled sob. He crouched and scrutinized my face, which I’m sure at that moment looked anything but attractive. “What do you require?”
“A fire, to start with. Some . . . some branches to make a spit out of, I suppose. Or maybe we could cut it up and skewer it? I’ve never cooked a rabbit outdoors before.” I might as well have started reciting an incantation. “Wood,” I revised for him. “Some kindling about this size”—I spread my hands—“and a long, thin, sturdy stick with a pointy end.”
“Very well.” He rose. “I will bring you your sticks.”
“Wait,” I said, before he could vanish again. I held up the hare. He tensed. “Can you skin this for me? You know, remove the fur? And it needs to be in pieces, too. I can’t do any of that without a knife.”
“How very mortal you are,” he said disdainfully, and seized the hare from my hand.
“Oh, and take the insides out first, please,” I added, undeterred.
He halted just as he was about to disappear, shoulders stiff. “Will that be all?”
A devilish part of me wondered how far I could push him. If I pretended it was necessary for my Craft, could I command him to stand on his head or turn in a circle three times while he prepared the hare? Only my empty stomach’s increasingly urgent demands prevented me from having some fun at his expense. “For now,” I replied.
Less than twenty minutes later we sat in front of a badly smoking fire, which had seemed hopeless until Rook tired of watching me rub two twigs together and set the kindling ablaze with a flick of his long fingers. He cast impatient glances at the sun while I turned a haunch (at least I think that’s what it was—fair folk weren’t scrupulous butchers, as it turned out) over the flames. Grease dripped from the meat, hissing when it struck the smoldering wood. My mouth watered, and I tried not to dwell on the likelihood that under better circumstances, I would find the odor rank rather than appetizing. I’d never known rabbit to smell quite like this. But as long as I kept charring it by accident, at least it probably wouldn’t make me sick.
Waiting for me to finish, Rook gave his seventh dramatic sigh. I’d started counting.
“You give it a try, if you’re so bored,” I said, handing over the skewer. He took it between his thumb and forefinger. After examining the meat, turning it to and fro, he flippantly lowered it toward the fire.
Instantly, a change came over him. At first I thought he had spied something awful in the forest behind me, and I jerked around with my skin crawling. There was nothing there. Yet he still wore the same expression: his eyes wide and stricken, his features utterly still, as if he’d just received news of someone’s death, or was dying himself. It was terrible in a way I cannot describe. I’ve painted a thousand faces and never seen such a look.
What was happening? I scrabbled for an answer until I realized—Craft. We could transmute substances as easily as we breathed, but for fair folk, such creation did not exist. It was so contrary to their nature it had the power to destroy them. Astonishingly, even something as simple as roasting a hare over an open flame seemed to count as Craft according to whatever force governed his kind.