An Enchantment of Ravens(60)

“We are similar in size,” she said. “Most of these should fit you, I think. Do you have a preference for green?”

“No. I don’t have much of a preference at all, really. That must be an odd thing for an artist to say, but I’m not in the habit of painting myself.” I paused, recalling her portrait session. “Why don’t you choose for me?”

Her shoulders tightened. She thumbed the nearest gown’s gauzy train, absently evaluating its texture, then released it without interest. “You look lovely in green, but it’s a spring color. When you drink from the well, I don’t think you’ll belong in our court.”

I slipped along the other row, tracing silk and lace, never taking my gaze from Aster. “Why do you say that?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s just a silly feeling.”

I kept my tone light. “Can I ask—why did you rescue me down there? I might be mistaken, but these past few minutes, I’ve received the impression that it was for a reason. That perhaps you wanted to tell me something.”

She halted, hand paralyzed in midair between two dresses. I was right. A deep, resounding note of dread tolled within me. Something was about to go terribly wrong.

“He knows,” she said.

“About my Craft?”

A quick, dark-eyed glance. “He knows you have broken the Good Law.”

No, I thought. Then, yes.

Because suddenly it was quite clear to me that I was in love with Rook, and it had happened as most quiet, perfect, utterly natural things do: without my even noticing. We had stood together in a glade, and I had trusted him enough to tell him my true name. I turned the strange, marvelous thought around in my head. I loved Rook. I loved him. It was the best thing I had ever felt. And it was the worst thing I had ever done.

I’d doomed us both to death.

Nothing around me changed, though it seemed there ought to be some tangible proof that everything was about to be over. I didn’t collapse to my knees or cry out. I just stood there breathing as usual, trying to comprehend the scope of what was happening, my thoughts measured and calm.

Who was “he”? Gadfly? I supposed it had to be. He’d probably seen this coming from a mile away. Despite our history, perhaps he’d even enjoyed watching my mortal folly unfold. The thought gave new meaning to the way Lark and Foxglove and Nettle and the others had fought over me—fought over who would dress me up in the last gown I’d ever wear.

Quickly as a striking snake, Aster whirled around and seized my arms. Her bony fingers dug into my flesh like claws. Her eyes glittered. “So that is why you must leave the masquerade. Make your entrance, but the moment Gadfly turns his back, you must flee to the Green Well and drink before he catches you. You must. I will help you.”

I might have only imagined it. But when Aster grabbed me I thought I felt a twinge of alarm that wasn’t my own, a ghostly, faraway sensation shivering across me like ripples spreading outward across the surface of a pond. Rook? I asked, but received nothing back.

“Isobel,” Aster was saying.

“No.” I shook my head. “No, I cannot. The story Rook and I told the court—it was a lie. I will never drink.”

“You must.”

“If you could turn back time, if you could do it all over again, would you make the same choice?”

The light left her eyes. Her grip loosened, and she turned away.

“I could show you a way out of the court that no one watches,” she said. “But no matter where you go, they will find you.”

Emma. The twins. They would have gotten my letter this morning, never knowing I was to die the same night. I shook my head, over and over again.

“I can’t ask you to endanger yourself on my behalf for nothing.” A cold fog crept around me. There was one thing left I could do—one thing left to try. “I will attend the masquerade. I need a moment alone with Rook.”

Aster said nothing. She thought I was already dead, and perhaps she was right. She moved ahead down the aisle, halting in front of one of the last gowns. “This one,” she said, and lifted it from its mannequin.

I’d never seen a dress like it. Deep red roses were embroidered in lace over its inner layer of nude, faux-sheer fabric. The roses clustered over the bodice and scattered downward across the flowing skirt, coming apart as though swept away by a breeze. On the other side the dress had been left unadorned, creating the illusion of a low-cut back. Once, it might have taken my breath away. Now there was no beauty in the world, no pleasure, that could shake me from the bleak understanding of what awaited me.

Mechanically, I shed my clothes onto the floor. I stepped into the gown, almost tripping, my body made clumsy and slow by dread. While I crouched to gather the fabric up around my ankles, I paused long enough to brush my hand against my stocking, reminding myself of the ring’s presence. A laughable defense. But it was something.

I straightened.

“Oh,” Aster breathed. She took me by the shoulders and guided me to the mirror.

When I moved, the lace bodice remained stiff and fitted, but the skirt rippled around me in almost impossible swirls, shapes that reminded me of a famous painting of a maiden drowning in a lake at dusk, sinking into shadow as her dress billowed weightlessly after her. Stepping up to the figure reflected in the glass, I almost didn’t recognize myself. I’d been wearing Firth & Maester’s since I’d arrived, but never once had I seen what I looked like in a mirror. The gown’s rich scarlet accentuated my fair complexion and emphasized my dark eyes to a startling degree. I appeared less frightened than I expected. My eyes just stared, and stared, and stared, like pits swallowing up the light, out of a face as blank as the mannequin that had worn the gown before me.