A sparkling fall day greeted us beyond the glade. We walked for hours with no sign of the Wild Hunt, encountering nothing more dangerous than the occasional acorn dropping from a tree over our path. Surrounded by the forest’s peaceful beauty, with the sun warming our backs, it was hard to remain pessimistic for long. Even Rook’s steps lightened the farther we traveled without incident.
“What are you smiling about?” I asked, bending over in another futile attempt to wipe the stickiness from the apples we’d found for lunch off my fingers, and watching him suspiciously.
“I just recalled the spring court holds a ball this time of year. If we haven’t missed it, we might be able to attend.”
“Yes, that seems like the perfect thing to do while fleeing for our lives,” I said.
“Then we shall go,” he concluded, pleased.
I snorted, completely unsurprised. “Fair folk are impossible.”
“That’s irregular, coming from a human who can’t even eat a raw hare.”
Hastening along behind him, trying to keep up with his long strides, I decided not to argue about the hare. I was coming to realize that the Craft was so enigmatic to fair folk I might as well have refused to eat meat unless it had been bathed in widow’s tears under a new moon. Realizing that your own magic held more mystery to fair folk than theirs did to you was a peculiar experience. I felt like some sort of wizard with delicate and arcane indispositions, not an artist and a perfectly ordinary person.
We passed a mossy boulder with a squirrel perched atop it. I turned to have a second look, and both the boulder and the squirrel were gone. Scanning the forest around us, I realized that though it was made up of the same types of trees we’d been walking through before, they weren’t the exact same individual trees. I looked forward, and looked back again. Yes—that ash with the overhanging branch had vanished. Straining my eyes, I thought I made it out a quarter of a mile or so behind us in the distance. With all the leaves in between it was difficult to tell for certain.
I remembered the old tales, and faltered.
“You aren’t doing something with time, are you?” I asked.
He looked at me loftily over his shoulder, which meant he was confused by my question but didn’t want to admit it.
“When I get back to Whimsy I’m not going to find that everyone I know died a century ago, or that I’ve suddenly become an old maid, am I? Because if that’s the case you need to put it to rights.” I said this firmly, trying to tamp down my rising alarm. “I just noticed the way we’re traveling. Each few steps we take must add up to fifteen minutes or more of walking.”
“No, the autumnlands are merely doing my bidding and hurrying us along. You mean to say you haven’t noticed it until now?” I frowned. Indeed, I hadn’t. “I give my word that time has passed normally since we entered the forest. What you’re thinking of is an ensorcellment, and quite a nasty trick to play on humans. Which is precisely why it’s done, of course,” he added.
“You had better not have done that to anyone,” I warned him.
“I haven’t!” he said, with feeling. He proceeded to ruin the effect by continuing, “It’s always seemed tiresome. All they do afterward is leak a great deal, and then come back to the forest to shout at you.”
I shook my head. God, what a menace.
We walked on. One moment I was admiring a stand of fiery rowans, and the next I stepped into a different forest altogether. Everything was green. Not the rich simmering greens of summertime, but pale greens, lacy greens, delicate gold-greens, all layered up on the trees like icing and chiffon. Knee-high wildflowers parted around my legs. A bee droned sleepily past my face.
Delighted laughter bubbled up in my chest. We were in the springlands!
“Can we stop for a moment?” I called out. Rook hadn’t paused and was now halfway across the clearing. “Only if it’s safe, that is. This is wonderful. I’d like to try to paint it once I’m home.”
He halted and gave me a furtive look.
“It’s nearly as lovely as the autumnlands,” I added loudly for the sake of his pride.
That seemed to mollify him. “There’s a place over here to sit down.” He ducked beneath some branches. When I caught up with him, he was sitting on the lip of a squat stone well halfway covered up by moss. Bluebells and feathery-looking ferns sprouted all around it. I sank down on the opposite side with my back turned to his, as that morning’s events made keeping a distance seem wise, and considered taking my shoes off.
Then I looked at the well and forgot all about wiggling my toes in the ferns. The well was small, old-looking, and unremarkable in every way. I looked at it for a long time.
Rook said quietly, “I’ve brought you to the Green Well.”
I shot up as though my buttocks had just landed on a bed of hot coals. A slushy sound filled my ears, and my vision darkened around the edges. Desperate to get away, I tottered over to a tree and leaned myself against it, breaking out in a clammy, crawling sweat. I’d never fainted before, but the feeling of being on the verge of it was unmistakable.
He spoke again with his head angled, not quite looking at me over his shoulder. My abrupt movement puzzled him; I don’t think he saw the extremity of my reaction. “Nothing will happen unless you drink from it. But I understand the opportunity to drink from the Green Well is many humans’ dearest wish.”
I slid down the tree trunk and sat uncomfortably on its gnarled, jutting roots, wildflowers tickling my legs. He was right. Of those mortals who vanished into the forest, the majority sought the Green Well, hoping to find it on their own despite the insurmountable risk. Masters of the Craft toiled for years in pursuit of this end. Only perhaps one human every hundred years was bestowed with the honor. It was lusted after more than any enchantment, any glittering quantity of gold. And of all the things on earth, it terrified me most.
“It occurred to me,” he went on, “that this might be an ideal alternative for you under the circumstances. You would no longer require my protection, or fear any of the forest’s dangers. You could come and go in the autumnlands—and any other fairy court,” he hastened to add, “as you please. And of course, you would live forever.”
Somehow, I found my voice. “I can’t.”
This time he did look at me. Absorbing my expression, he stood up halfway. “Isobel! Have you taken ill?”
I shook my head.