An Enchantment of Ravens(38)
After a long hesitation, he gave a faltering nod. “Very well. I will not ask it of you again. But now, there is something else we must discuss before we continue on to the spring court. It’s a matter of great importance.”
“Please go on,” I said. The frigid terror gripping me melted away bit by bit, leaving a trembling weakness behind. Seeing the Green Well and denying it aloud made it seem less threatening somehow. I had faced it, and emerged unscathed.
The ferns rustled. I looked up to find Rook pacing across the clearing. “Fair folk don’t bring humans into the forest lightly. In fact, you will be the first mortal to visit the spring court in over a thousand years. To avoid suspicion, we must invent some explanation for why we’re traveling together. But . . .”
“It can’t be a lie, or else you won’t be able to talk about it.”
He glanced at me, and nodded tightly.
“I’ve always heard that the best lies are the ones closest to the truth. What will they assume first, seeing us together?”
“That we’ve fallen in love,” he said, in an utterly neutral tone.
“And it wouldn’t be your first time.” He froze. “I saw what’s in your raven pin—by accident, when you were unconscious. I’m sorry, Rook. I’m not going to pry, but it is relevant to our predicament. Naturally they’d draw conclusions, however far-fetched . . .” His stillness sank in. Dread resounded within me like the striking of a gong. My skin tightened and prickled.
“Are you in love with me?” I blurted out.
A terrible silence followed. Rook didn’t turn around.
“Please say something.”
He rounded on me. “Is that so terrible? You say it as though it’s the most awful thing you can imagine. It isn’t as though I’ve done it on purpose. Somehow I’ve even grown fond of your—your irritating questions, and your short legs, and your accidental attempts to kill me.”
I recoiled. “That’s the worst declaration of love I’ve ever heard!”
“How fortunate,” he said bitterly, “how very fortunate you are, we both are, that you feel that way. We aren’t about to break the Good Law anytime soon.” I looked away from the raw anguish in his eyes. “The love must be mutual, after all.”
“Good,” I said to my hands.
“Yes, good!” He paced back and forth. “You’ve made it quite clear how you feel about fair folk. Now stop making me feel things,” he demanded, as though it were as easy as that. “I must think.”
My face felt hot and cold at once. His words rang in my head. This wasn’t anything like how I’d ever imagined a romance would go, if I were to have one in the first place. God, how close we’d come to disaster. If only our sentiments for each other had overlapped . . .
But would it have mattered? I was no longer certain that what I’d felt for Rook back in the parlor truly had been love. It had felt like it at the time. I’d never experienced anything like it before. But I’d hardly known him, even though in my feverish infatuation I’d felt as though we’d been confiding in each other for years. Could you really love someone that way, when all they were to you was a pleasant illusion? If I’d been aware he would kidnap me over a portrait, I dare say I would have changed my mind.
And yet—I did feel something for him. What was that something? I picked at my emotions like a snarled knot and came no closer to finding an answer. Was I enamored with what he represented—that wistful fall wind, and the promise of an end to the eternal summer? Did I only want my life to change, or did I want to change it with him?
Frankly, I had no idea how anyone knew if they were in love in the first place. Was there ever a single thread a person could pick out from the knot and say “Yes—I am in love—here’s the proof!” or was it always caught up in a wretched tangle of ifs and buts and maybes?
Oh, what a mess. I planted my face in my skirts and groaned. I only knew one thing for certain. If even I couldn’t figure myself out, the Good Law wasn’t about to do it for me.
Rook’s shadow fell over my tumbled hair. “Your behavior is extremely distracting,” he announced. “I need to come up with an idea soon, or we’ll be stuck here overnight.”
My reply came out muffled by fabric. “Whatever it is, it should have to do with Craft. That’s the one thing we can count on to properly distract them.”
Belatedly, it occurred to me that Rook wouldn’t know where to begin. He didn’t possess the barest inkling of what Craft entailed. I snuck a peek at him through my hair, and found him standing over me looking predictably frustrated, a muscle flickering in his cheek as he clenched his jaw.
That left solving things entirely up to me—which, I had no doubt, would turn out far better for both of us in the end. I mentally arranged our problems like dabs of paint: my presence in the forest, Rook’s company, and even the dilemma of his portrait, news of which might have already reached the spring court. And like blending a new color, I began to see that something not only satisfactory, but perhaps even extraordinary could be done with them.
“Listen,” I said, lifting my head. “I have an idea.”
Eleven
MY PLAN required some discussion to ensure that Rook could say the necessary lines. We rehearsed it as we walked, and he was well pleased with how it sounded. I was more than a little pleased myself. I felt the glowing satisfaction of having negotiated a particularly twisty enchantment, or stretched and framed a month’s worth of new canvases in advance. My world was in order again, and finally I had some measure of control over what happened to me next. Moreover, there was a chance I might even put my accidental sabotage to rights.