An Enchantment of Ravens(75)
May recovered first. Scowling, she stomped over to Rook and thrust the thing she was carrying up at him. Next she cleared her throat, commanding the room’s undivided attention.
“A creepy stranger gave us that while we were playing outside.” (“What?” Emma exclaimed, shooting to her feet.) “He told us to hide it and not open it, since it’s a present for you and Isobel. We tried anyway,” she added, narrowing her eyes, “but the lid’s stuck.”
It was a slender box about the length of a man’s forearm, like a box one might store hat ribbons in, but I was well aware that it wasn’t a hat ribbon box, even disregarding the way Rook held it as though it might explode at any moment. My insides gave an uneasy flip.
May glanced at me, feigning indifference. Then she gathered up her courage and declared, “I hate you.”
“May—”
Her hands balled into fists. “Don’t say you’re sorry, because it won’t change my mind!”
I knew she didn’t mean it. She was confused and betrayed and frightened, and being angry at me was her only way of seizing control of the situation. But that didn’t stop my heart from sinking to the floor as she whipped around and stomped into the kitchen. March shot me a skittish look and scampered after her sister. Emma gave us a long, fraught stare—its meaning clear, stay—before she hurried after the twins.
Through it all Rook wore an expression of aloof perplexity, as a cat might watching its favorite furniture get moved about without its permission.
His bewilderment was the last straw. I didn’t have the energy to translate our humanity for him. Grief smashed through my final defenses like a battering ram. I gave a strangled sob, so tired I couldn’t tell if my scratchy, aching eyes owed themselves more to exhaustion or tears.
Rook sank onto the end of the settee. He hesitated, then peeled his coat off and laid it over me. It was warm and smelled of him. Overwhelmed by his gentleness, I began weeping again in earnest. He drew back in alarm, clearly thinking he’d made things worse.
“Er,” he said. He patted the nearest part of me he could reach, which was my foot. “I apologize for . . . that. If you would stop crying now,” he added, a trifle desperately, with a note of princely command.
It was no use. Just then, a random thought renewed my anguish. “Oh, I destroyed your raven pin!” I choked out. “I’m so sorry.”
“Well, I think I’ve found that I don’t need it anymore.”
Because he loved me. I covered my face with my hands.
“Isobel, I appear to be . . . shall I leave the room?”
“No, it isn’t you.” Muffled by my fingers, my voice was smudged pitifully with tears. “I’m just, I’m being really human right now, all right? Give me ten seconds.”
I sucked in a deep, shaking breath and counted to ten. When I reached it, I had stopped crying. Mostly. After a shuddering exhale, I rubbed my face on my sleeve, which turned out to be a bad idea; the lace scraped my swollen eyelids like sandpaper. Reaching out, I enlisted Rook’s help in wedging myself up into the corner of the settee, because I wasn’t sure I could sit upright on my own, and determinedly pretended I didn’t have a bright red face and a snotty nose.
Good enough. “There. Now, let’s open the box.”
His fingers tightened around the box’s edges. Its varnish gleamed in the lantern light. A gift, May had said. My best guess was that it was some sort of cruel joke, a prank played on the two of us for breaking the Good Law. But that didn’t make much sense, did it? One didn’t play pranks on people who were supposed to be dead. No one had expected us to survive the night, much less return . . . return to my house. Unless . . .
Gadfly.
A chill rippled up my legs, over my arms, and into my scalp.
There was something going on here I didn’t know about. Something, I suddenly felt certain, that like most things I didn’t know about, I wasn’t going to like at all. The room shrank away, its familiar odds and ends blending into an ominous clutter.
Rook passed his hand over the locked latch. I forced myself not to look away from the stump of his little finger. He had already used his glamour to make it appear healed, and for the sake of his pride I would not dispute him in the matter. The wound must have hurt terribly, but aside from that single noise he’d made earlier, he revealed nothing.
He snapped his fingers, and the lid sprang open. Inside, upon a pillow of black velvet, lay a newly forged dagger. Its point glinted, needle-sharp.
I asked, even though I didn’t need to, “Is it iron?”
“Yes,” he said.
Whether it was due to the ensorcellment, or simply that we had grown familiar with each other, I knew we had the exact same thought simultaneously. Gadfly, standing over us at the Green Well, describing the terms of our violation and the limited means by which we might escape punishment. The way Rook had pleaded with him to end his life, and thus spare mine. He played games with us even now.
Without another word, Rook passed the box over. I wouldn’t take it, so he set it down on the cushion beside me. Our eyes locked. A silent argument raged between us. When he drew a breath to break the stalemate, I emphatically shook my head.
“No,” I said. “Stop it.”
He leapt up from his seat and knelt on the floor in front of me. He took the dagger from the box and turned it against himself. It shook so badly in his grasp he’d drop it before long, and I took cold comfort in the assurance that he couldn’t use it without help. But when his glamour flowed away I wasn’t prepared for the sight of his true self. His skin held a terrible pallor; his overlarge, queer-looking eyes were shadowed by exhaustion and pain. Sweat had left streaks in the dirt on his face.