He inhaled sharply. “What?”
“I trust you.” Fierce conviction flooded me like morning light, searing away every doubt. “I know you. I’ll take you at your word. But,” I added, “if I begin paying you too many compliments while you have me ensorcelled, I will become suspicious.”
He didn’t seem to have quite grasped my answer. I don’t think my weak joke even registered with him. He bent a knee, bringing our faces to the same level. “Isobel, before you decide for certain, you have to know this would unbind me—I would be able to touch you again when you aren’t in danger.”
“Good. I don’t want you dropping me again.”
He gave a startled laugh, dangerously close to a sob. He looked at me as though I were life’s greatest mystery. “You mortals are terribly strange,” he said, in a tight voice.
“Coming from you, I’m beginning to suspect that’s a compliment. Is there anyone else around?” He shook his head. He didn’t take his eyes from my face, but I had faith that he didn’t need to look to know. “Then hold still,” I said.
There is magic in names. Mine had only been spoken aloud once before in all the world’s history. I was the sole living person who knew it. The sound, the shape of it would never leave me, even though by all rights I shouldn’t remember it—my mother had whispered it into my ear just after I was born, a tiny infant still red and wrinkled from the womb. This is how it went. I leaned forward. I placed my lips so close to the shell of Rook’s ear that when I spoke, in a breath quieter than a whisper, quieter than the folding of a moth’s wing, the warm air stirred his hair.
And so, I gave him my true name.
Sixteen
THE NEXT day the court buzzed with talk of the masquerade, which would begin at dusk. By the time the shadows lengthened I had not only completed a portrait for nearly all the fair folk in the spring court, but had also heard an exhaustive account of what each one was wearing, who had stolen fashion ideas from whom, and several deeply alarming suggestions of sartorial revenge.
The more portraits I finished without incident, the more I relaxed. By the time I’d reached the last fair one in line, I was cautiously prepared to believe my plan had succeeded. More of my subjects had had peculiar reactions to their portraits, freezing to stare at their faces or spending the rest of the afternoon in a state of distraction, but mercifully, neither they nor any of the onlookers seemed to catch on—for once their utter ignorance of human emotion worked in my favor. I was intrigued to note that just like yesterday, a clear pattern had unfolded. It was always the older fair folk who were the most affected by my Craft.
Of the ensorcellment, I felt nothing. The absence of my awareness of it was its most disturbing feature. I poked and prodded at the back of my mind as I might a loose tooth, knowing the tooth was loose, yet never detecting a wiggle. At times, I even wondered if Rook had applied it successfully. But he seemed certain, and there had been a change in the glade after I told him my name, a sort of sigh, as though all the trees and ferns and flowers had let out a breath at once.
And it was an ensorcellment, after all. If I was able to sense it, it wasn’t doing its job.
I stifled a groan when I stood, hoping my legs would recover in time for the dancing. My final subject was a tall, grave-looking fair one named Hellebore, who took his portrait with an amused bow. He examined it as he wandered off. Before long he pressed the back of his sleeve against his mouth, stifling an errant chuckle. He laughed again. Then he stumbled. And then he slumped against a tree, giggling helplessly, struggling for breath. His mirth wasn’t controlled, inhuman—it verged on hysterical.
I’d drawn him laughing.
Skin crawling, I knelt to tidy up my workspace, needlessly ordering the teacups and remaining strips of bark. Hellebore had walked far enough away that with luck, no one would notice and make a connection.
And then I caught sight of Foxglove. She’d paused in her game of ninepins across the lawn, observing him with narrow suspicion. When his laughter overcame him and he toppled to the ground clutching his stomach, she turned sharply to stare at me, nostrils flared and shoulders rigid.
“Isobel,” Gadfly said from his throne.
I braced myself and raised my head. He wasn’t smiling; his expression was serious, in a mild, pleasant sort of way. This was it. My very last portrait, and everything was over.
But he only went on, “I believe Lark has something to say to you.”
A teacup slipped from my unsteady grasp, knocking against its neighbors with a quiet clink.
Lark minced over from where she’d been standing next to Gadfly, half hidden by the throne’s flowering branches. Her face was impassive as she sank into a deep curtsy in front of me. Then, to my surprise, she burst into tears.
“I’m—I’m s-sorry I turned you into a hare, Isobel,” she stuttered out between gasps. Huge, woeful droplets dripped down her cheeks and off her chin. She sniffled noisily. Disquieted, I wondered if she was imitating me, the only example of weeping she’d ever witnessed. It wasn’t a flattering impression. “I only—I only wanted someone to play with.”
Was Hellebore still laughing? Was Foxglove still watching me? Had anyone else noticed? I couldn’t risk looking. With an effort, I forced my attention to remain solely focused on Lark. Despite what she’d done, I really did feel sorry for her. “I forgive you, Lark.”
“Can we still be friends?” she wrung out piteously.
“Yes, of course we can.” I added for appearances’ sake, “But please don’t play any more tricks on me.”
“Oh, good!” Her messy tears vanished instantly, leaving no trace of wetness or splotchiness on her porcelain doll face. Because, of course, she hadn’t specifically said she was sorry because she had almost hurt me, or because she had frightened me. More likely she was only sorry for turning me into a hare because she’d been caught and punished for it.
“Come along, then,” she said. “The ball’s starting soon, and you need a costume. I already have one picked out. You’ll adore it. It’s—”
Someone slapped away the hand she’d reached out to me. At first I thought it was Rook. But instead Foxglove stood beside us, wearing her frigid, strangled smile. Lark’s expression went blank. She swiftly pulled her hand to her chest, but not before I spied a long, thin cut, like the swipe of an animal’s razor-sharp claw, fading from the backs of her knuckles.