An Enchantment of Ravens(49)
“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.”