An Enchantment of Ravens(52)
Throughout it all I felt Rook watching me, and firmly avoided sorrow.
Every fair one reacted differently to seeing themselves transformed. Some laughed, as if at a delightful joke. Some flinched and giggled skittishly. Most of those, I observed, were younger-looking fair folk. Others, usually the older ones, stood and stared like Foxglove. And a few more went and sat down, gazing quietly into the distance, with such an inhuman expression I couldn’t begin to guess at their thoughts. Though fair folk ceased aging once they looked about like Gadfly, it seemed to me these were the oldest ones of all.
Painting straight through the day was as arduous as running a marathon. My right elbow ached from being held for hours in a bent position. My buttocks and knees became sore from sitting. My fingers—cramped around the quill—first grew stiff, and then painful, and then numb, joints spasming whenever I straightened them. Most of all, my face hurt from smiling. My frozen expression must have eventually become rather horrific, but none of the fair folk appeared to notice.
After a time, many of those who had had their portraits done gathered for games on the lawn. I was relieved to find myself no longer the sole focus of attention as the courtiers played shuttlecocks and ninepins nearby. A spirited atmosphere overtook the gathering. Behind me I heard, rather than saw, Rook shift in his chair. My smile grew genuine as I imagined how much it taxed him to stay put for so long.
Finally he exclaimed, “I must say I don’t see the point of sitting here any longer!” and trotted off to beat Swallowtail at lawn billiards. He then lost a game of blind man’s buff to Foxglove, but rallied and defeated everyone shamelessly at both ninepins and shuttlecocks. Lark fluttered behind him like an inquisitive butterfly as he proceeded to win every match in his path.
The fair folk played at a human speed, I noted with interest. Perhaps this was the only rule that provided a challenge. On several occasions, I saw a feathered projectile fly past a player at a distance they surely could have reached with little effort.
Rook had left his coat behind. Every time he twisted his body, an inch or two of his white shirt showed beneath his tightly fitted waistcoat, accentuating his slimness. His rolled-up sleeves put his muscular forearms on display, and the faintest sheen of sweat gleamed on his throat above his unbuttoned collar. Having seen him slay fairy beasts without perspiring, I recognized the exertion of holding himself back. With each swing, each strike, he struggled not to flaunt his power like a war-horse prancing stiffly in a flimsy parade harness.
Without warning, heat rushed through me. The morning before last—had he broken a sweat then, too? I remembered the way his hands had felt lifting me as though I weighed nothing, running down my sides, pressing me against the tree . . .
With burning cheeks, I finished contouring the lines of my subject’s hair, whipped it off the easel, and passed it on. He ran off laughing at the expression of befuddlement on his portrait’s face and settled into a game of ninepins. My next subject sat down, smoothing her skirts over bare, bird-frail knees.
The heat died like coals dashed across winter flagstones.
It was Aster.
“Good afternoon, Aster.” I scraped up the last of my reserves addressing her as though nothing was wrong—as though merely looking at her didn’t make my skin crawl. “Do you have anything in mind, or would you like me to choose an emotion for you?”
“Oh, you choose, please. I’m certain you can choose better than I.” She gave me a wan smile. But her eyes . . . her eyes were ravenous. Twisted in swaths of muslin, her hands trembled. I knew what she wanted, and I wasn’t sure I could give it to her. Or, more importantly, whether I should.
She wanted to see herself mortal again.
I dipped Rook’s quill. A bitter smell of crushed acorns rose from the bowl as I made my first line in dark ocher. I felt as though I were pouring a glass of water that I was about to show, from the other side of prison bars, to a person dying of thirst. In that moment, I hated the Green Well more than I ever had before. I hated that it existed, and that people wanted it. I hated that I had sat on the edge of it and not felt the vileness radiating from its mossy stones. How dare it look the way it did, an evil thing, a hollow thing, surrounded by ferns and bluebells and singing birds. Had Aster had any way of knowing the eternal horror to which she was agreeing? The tip of the feather quivered with the force of my anger.
I outlined her features in bold, violent strokes. The ink spattered as I worked, giving the sense that her portrait was coalescing onto the page from particles of darkness. Her sharp chin, hollow cheeks, and overlarge eyes took shape beneath my hand, raw in form, but true. I changed the angle of her face so that it was slightly lifted; her eyes gazed directly at the viewer. How dare you? they blazed. Her mouth was shut, but her upper lip curled. How dare you do this to me? Where are your consequences? She looked as though she were about to spring forth from the page to enact vengeance—to wrap her fingers around someone’s throat. I shall deliver them to you!
Thus I gave Aster my rage. Ugly rage, human rage, the rage she deserved to feel but could not, because it had been taken from her forever.
When I finished, I was breathing heavily and a strange energy buzzed through my veins, as though my blood had been replaced with a howling wind. As I met the eyes of Aster’s portrait, a thrill sparked through me. She was alive on the page in a way even my Craft rarely achieved. She was real again.
I needed to stand. The gale force within me demanded movement. I rose painfully from the chair, unable to feel my thighs or buttocks, my knees creaking. I brought the portrait to Aster, who watched me approach with polite confusion. The bark shook in my hand. At the last moment, I remembered to curtsy. Across the court, dozens of elegant forms bobbed obligingly back.