“I think you’ve spent quite enough time with our dear Isobel. Don’t you agree, darling?” Foxglove’s smile thawed unconvincingly as she turned it on me. “Lark’s so young. She means well, but she isn’t the best company for a mortal girl. I, on the other hand, have dealt with humans many times. And I have an extensive wardrobe, filled with hundreds of dresses accumulated over a long, long lifetime.” Her eyes flicked back to Lark, relishing the fruits of her well-aimed blow. “Do come with me instead.”
My stomach churned at the thought of being alone with Foxglove. I’d have better chances locked in a room with a starving tiger. But what would she say if I denied her in front of the whole court?
“No.” Nettle stepped forward. “Why don’t you come with me? I’ve only just started visiting Whimsy, but everyone’s already talking about my enchantments.”
So fleetingly and savagely I almost missed it, Foxglove’s face contorted into a hideous frown.
More fair folk joined in. Soon I stood in the middle of a loud, grasping throng, over a score of immortal women vying for the privilege of lending me a mask and gown, like greedy children arguing over a toy they would sooner tear apart than share. I searched for Rook, but when I caught a glimpse of him between two fair folk’s bodies, he had already taken his leave and was halfway across the clearing. Gadfly walked beside him with a fatherly hand on his back, the other brandishing a cravat in the air.
We had arranged the ensorcellment for situations just like this one. I was immune to all fairy magic but Rook’s, and if anyone attempted to harm me physically, he would sense it. But faced with the claustrophobic press of so many people clawing at me at once, I couldn’t quell my rising panic with logic.
Why was this only happening now? Lark had laid claim to me without any competition whatsoever on my first day in court. I glanced toward her, only to find her missing. Unlike Rook, she was nowhere to be seen.
My breath caught in my throat. I did know the answer: Lark had shown weakness. Like predators, the fair folk had seen her stumble, and they had pounced. Now it was simply a matter of who would take her place.
High overhead, between the fair folk bending over me, a branch bounced as something landed in the canopy. I glimpsed a scrap of shiny black before the heads closed in again. Had that been a raven’s feathers, or just a flash of the blood-dark garnets studding Foxglove’s hair? I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear. And I wasn’t getting enough air—their feral animal perfume was suffocating. Light-headed, I tensed my muscles to charge through the mob, to escape the cramped onslaught of smell and noise and unwanted touch no matter the consequences.
“Stop.” A soft, wispy voice spoke. Barely anyone noticed. Its owner stood at the edge of the crowd, hands knotted into fists at her side.
“Aster,” I gasped. I strained toward her, but couldn’t get anywhere with so many fingers grasping at me, so many bodies crowding in close.
She noticed, and gave me a small nod. “Stop,” she repeated, turning back. “Leave Isobel alone now, everyone. I will be the one to prepare her for the ball. I will be the one to prepare her for the ball!” Her voice rang out like a gunshot. All heads turned, and everyone went silent. For a second, only a second, a hot ember of true anger flared in her eyes. I think I was the only one capable of recognizing it. But even though the fair folk couldn’t put a name to what they saw, it affected them still. They shrank back, uncertain.
Yanking my hands from the two fair folk who gripped them, I managed a clumsy curtsy. “Why do you think you should be the one, Aster?” I asked. My voice rasped, dry and desperate. I hoped they couldn’t sense my fear. “Please tell me.”
She raised her chin. “I drank from the Green Well. None of you can say the same. Tonight, the privilege belongs to me.” And she held out a fragile hand.
My scrabbling fingers met hers. For some reason, it startled me that there was nothing human about her steely grip. She pulled me free of the throng, toward the stair. The other fair folk sighed wistfully. “Oh, dear. Perhaps next time . . .” “It would have been such a pleasure . . .” “I’m ever so fond of your work . . .” I suppressed a shudder as each one purred their regrets at me while I stumbled past, their breath caressing my cheeks like feather plumes.
Aster silently led me up the stair. And while we went, I counted. One raven, watching us silently from the banister. A second peered out of the dogwood throne’s flowers. A third flickered across the clearing, as liquid as a shadow, and a fourth and fifth hopped bright-eyed along a branch. None of them showed signs of dispersing. If there was a sixth—
But Aster’s hand tugged on my wrist, and I couldn’t stand there exposed on the stair’s landing. Together we passed into the labyrinth. Whether it was my imagination or otherwise, the unfamiliar bend she chose looked stranger, wilder, its clutter less friendly. I didn’t recognize the rocking horse positioned at the corner, its paint peeling and faded with age. I stepped on something, and would have turned my ankle if not for Aster’s hand steadying me. It was a carved bird figurine, partly enveloped by the floor. We passed a giant church bell grown over with bark, sticking out of the wall at an angle. Farther on, a doll’s hand protruded from the leafy ceiling. The collections of Craft must have lain here so long untouched that the labyrinth had begun enveloping them, where they would remain for eternity, forgotten.
Finally Aster drew me around another corner and stopped. She peered back the way we had come, with the hushed alertness of someone listening. “We were not followed,” she murmured to herself.
“I must thank you,” I said, “for coming to my—”
She turned, eyes wild. “Do not thank me!” Each syllable of her fraught whisper struck me like a slap across the face. I froze, stunned.
With a trembling hand, she tucked her hair behind her ear. A smile plucked at the corners of her mouth. She darted another look behind us. “Come along,” she said, as though nothing had happened, and pulled me into the room waiting beyond. “I must prepare you for the masquerade.”
Thoughts awhirl, foreboding yawning darkly in the pit of my stomach, it took me a moment to process what I had stepped into. I stood in a chamber completely lined with books. Stacked books stretched up the walls like bricks and paved the floor like cobblestones. Gilt titles winked at me from scuffed spines. A musty smell of leather and yellowed paper filled the room.
“You’ve collected all of these?” I breathed. “Have you read them all?”
Aster hesitated. Her free hand fluttered uselessly, then alit on a book. She slid her fingertips down it, but didn’t pull it from the wall. “They are Craft.” She spoke softly. “The words—they don’t always make sense, but I need them anyway, you see. It’s as though there’s something I’m looking for. I always think, once I have just one more, it will be enough . . .” Her words dwindled.
“But it never is,” I said.