Ironskin

“No,” she whispered to it, “no no no no no…,” and above her she felt him lurch another half-step, and another, and the blue seemed less all the time as she told it no, peeling off, crackling away. “You can make it,” she told Edward, while simultaneously willing the blue: no no no.

 

Another step and he was past her. Another, and he was to the last tree, then out, out of the woods, onto the back lawn.

 

“Jane,” he said, that wonder sharp in his voice. “Jane!”

 

“Coming, sir,” she said, and there was a tremble in her voice. She shoved the mask into place, buckling it firm against her now-tangled hair. A blue flash zipped along the ground, back into the woods, and vanished out of sight.

 

She stumbled from the woods, shivering, and suddenly his arms were around her, holding her close.

 

“I should never have put you in danger, oh, Jane.…”

 

“I am fine”—gulp—“I am fine.” The sharp adrenaline and rage were draining now, lessening until she was very aware of his arm around her shoulders, his hand holding her upper arm tight.

 

Perhaps he realized it at the same moment, for he released her.

 

He shook his head as if grounding himself in the present, and some of the old color returned to his face. His face closed off, became the familiar sardonic mask. He ran a hand unconsciously over his side where the blue had been and no longer was, tucked the thick satchel under his arm. From a distance he said, “I owe you a rather sizable debt, Jane, do I not?”

 

“Sir?”

 

He cast around for something to do, reached to pick up one dry branch blown free from the forest by the windstorm. He turned it to study the thorns, then tossed it into the undergrowth. “I frequently walk here to throw back the branches,” he said, and there was a self-mocking note to his voice that suggested he was trying to lighten the situation. “If I let them, the trees would come right up to the house.”

 

“Sir, how is your ankle?” said Jane.

 

“It is well; never mind it.” He picked up more branches and hurled them into the forest. “It is the trees that must concern you. This is Birnam Wood, and as in Shakspyr’s tale of madness, it is creeping toward me. But this wood is alive; it will catch me before my time is through.” He was retreating again—closing himself off behind archaic, formal ways of speaking and dark thoughts.

 

Then he turned and saw her expression, and his mouth twisted in a sort of smile. “Forgive me,” he said. “It is but a wild fancy. For aught I know this stretch of yard has the same measurements as when it was laid two centuries ago. But you did not come out here to let me lean on your arm like an old man and hear me talk of moving trees. No, there is something of far greater import on your slim shoulders. Speak, Jane, what would you have me do? Now and forever, you must see I am in your service.”

 

She shivered at his talk of moving forests, and said, “I could almost agree with you that the trees move, sir.”

 

“Edward,” he said. “I could almost believe in your ridiculous fancies, Edward. If you were not so clearly a raving lunatic, Edward.”

 

“You’re not!” she said. “I saw the blue on your ankle!” She startled at her own outburst and stopped herself, though deep inside ran the frightened thought: five years, they had been gone five years. They were gone for good, weren’t they, weren’t they…? She could feel her boots sinking into the mud in the silence.

 

“I’m not mad, eh?” He scoffed at himself. “It is gone now, Jane. Just a passing madness of a madder wood. What proof have you that I am not a lunatic, or worse?”

 

She was silent another moment, and then suddenly all her thoughts seemed to burst forth and off her tongue and she said, “I think you carry a dark burden, sir—Edward.”

 

“I do?” His tone mocked her worry, but she pressed on, her brain making previously half-formed ideas into connections on the spot. It was not just the burden of his craft; no, there was more.

 

“I think you blame yourself for Dorie’s manner of birth,” she said. “And further … and further I think you go—you went—into the woods secretly, to try to find the fey, so they will undo what they’ve done to her.”

 

“Isn’t that rather dangerous of me? To seek out the fey? Besides, what could one little fey do to help me, even if I found them?” The dry branch broke in half under his grip. He tossed half aside and his hands closed around the remaining piece, his fingers weaving through the black thorns.

 

She thought back to the stories. “The Queen, then. She can make bargains. You’re looking for the Queen.”

 

“A lofty ambition,” he mocked. “And when I find her?”

 

“You’ll bargain for Dorie’s soul,” she said.

 

But this guess seemed to fall short.

 

Mr. Rochart tossed away the stick and clasped her shoulder, steering her back toward the house. “The guests will arrive soon,” he said, as lightly as if they had been only talking about the weather. “For this tedious chore we call a ‘party.’ We pronounce mingling with uninspired souls ‘charming,’ and talking of unimportant topics ‘delightful.’ Oh, I despise it. Pity me, Jane, for I must smile and play the artist for all these women with their expectations.”

 

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