We strode forward arm in arm. The straight avenue stretching down the center of the room was lined by tall pillars of the same sparkling, translucent stone as the walls and balconies. The stagnant heaviness to the air and the absence of any hint of sky alerted me to the possibility that despite the brightness, we were underground. As we passed the first pillar I saw a bark pattern on its surface and realized they were not stalagmites or carvings, but rather petrified trees preserved so long beneath the earth they had turned to crystal. I took a deep breath and leaned on Rook, conscious of the chamber’s unfathomable age, and the claustrophobic weight that crushed down on it from above.
The hall’s end was lost in a haze of dazzling light, impossible to look at directly. The Alder King could be seated, watching us approach. Or perhaps he was yet to arrive. I did not know.
Sound carried far here. It reminded me of a cathedral between choral movements, when everyone sat down, whispered, shifted, and flipped through the pages of their hymnals, filling the vaulted ceiling with a noise like hundreds of birds rustling their wings. Rook’s hard-soled footfalls echoed. I could even hear the enchanted petals dropping from my dress, whispering silkily against the reflective floor. Individual words and phrases jumped out of the blur of voices, sometimes indistinctly, sometimes as clearly as though they’d been shouted in my ear.
“Rook,” a baritone said, and it took me a panicked moment to grasp that it was a spectator speaking to his companion up on a balcony, not addressing Rook firsthand. “Did you—” someone else murmured, followed by the sharp, carrying sibilance of “kiss.” “Isobel!” a girl’s voice yelped, and my heart kicked against my ribs like a spooked horse.
“Pay them no mind,” Rook said, gazing straight ahead. “Pretend it is just you and I, walking alone. They are but the wind.”
With the way my vision blurred in and out, I almost could. “I never knew the wind had such an appetite for gossip.”
“You mortals, with your limited perceptions.” Though he didn’t turn his head, I felt his regard shift. A small smile touched one corner of his mouth. “Watch me.”
Showing off even now, I thought. But I couldn’t deny that a spark of excitement galvanized my veins and caught my breath in anticipation of whatever he was about to do. Cavalierly, still smiling, he raised his wounded hand and unclenched the fist he’d made of his remaining fingers. Drip, drip, drip. His blood spattered a trail across the floor. Someone gasped. Another cried out fearfully. Shoes stomped and shuffled as fair folk jostled against the railing for a better view. One woman seized the long curls of another and yanked her backward to clear a spot. In the brief gap I spied a silvery-blond head ducking past, its color a stark contrast to the rich chestnuts and auburns of the summer court. Gadfly? No, it couldn’t be . . .
The nearest pillar exploded in a cascade of sparkling crystal shards. Then the next, and the next, and the next, all the way into the distance. Living branches unfolded from their shattered husks, aflame with scarlet leaves. Roots bulged from the floor, splitting the stones in violent upheaval, sending cracks zigzagging in every direction that struck the corners and raced jaggedly up the walls. Screams rang out as chunks of masonry sheared away from one of the balconies and came toppling down in an avalanche of sundered rock, drowning out the tinkling of falling crystal. Residue filled the air, glittering like diamonds.
I stumbled over the broken floor, but Rook steadied me, helping me over a root that still grew, writhing and distending as it inched wormlike across the ground, spilling forth hairs. He did not favor his injured hand. He couldn’t afford to.
Unyieldingly, unstoppably, his autumn trees pressed against the ceiling and spread. Their foliage muted the hall’s blinding light into the jeweled tones of stained glass. Now, for the first time, I saw what awaited us.
The Alder King. He sat slumped forward on a throne elevated at the level of the highest platforms, vines entangling him against the wall like a heart ensnared in a web of arteries. His face, his beard, his robes, the throne, and even the vines were all the same pale, powdery gray, lifeless as marble, as though he had become part of the room itself. His sleeping countenance gripped me with a terror I couldn’t explain. Somehow I knew he wasn’t as lifeless as he looked. I felt his slow awareness turning toward us, as surely as a lighthouse beam circling in the dark. And oh, I didn’t want to see him wake up.
Rook squeezed my arm, and his next step hesitated a split second before his boot struck the floor. He’d felt it too. Unlike me, he couldn’t show his fear—his weakness. Glancing at his face, I found his eyes fixed on the Alder King with haughty, slightly disdainful anticipation, as though he were merely someone the prince planned to beat at shuttlecocks. But his confidence was fake. Just minutes ago I’d seen him slumped broken and pleading against the Green Well. By now I had witnessed him holding the pieces of himself together enough times to recognize the sight instantly.
I wished that just once I could tell him I loved him and it wouldn’t be a curse upon us both.
The hall had gone silent. Fair folk stared upward like children at the autumn leaves falling. The rubble was already softened by a blanket of foliage, as though it had collapsed long ago. In the newfound quiet, yellow ivy twined over the balconies and spiraled up tree trunks, and my dress fluttered against my legs in a clear night wind. Rook’s branches snaked closer and closer to the Alder King’s motionless form, blooming red.
One of the king’s fingers twitched.
Dust trickled from his antler crown, a thin stream at first, then a cascade as he raised his head. We were close enough now to see the powdery texture of it clinging to his beard. He blinked, revealing filmed-over, colorless eyes that wandered like an old man’s.
“Why do you wake me?” he said in a dry whisper. Though spoken low, his querulous words swept down the hall and scattered in every corner like a gust of dead leaves. Heat followed, and the smell of rot. Sweat broke out on my palms. “I have been dreaming . . . dreaming of ripe grapes, and a sunset reflected on the water . . . I wish only . . .” Puzzled, he glanced around at the vines that had grown over him, imprisoning him against his throne.
“I am here to challenge you, Alder King.” Rook’s words rang out, echoing. “Your endless summer has fallen to corruption. All can see it. Masterless fairy beasts roam the forest, and your own lands decay while you slumber. And tonight,” he added in a yet louder voice, angling his body toward the balconies with his injured hand still upraised, moss spiraling down his sleeve, “a mortal has destroyed the Green Well.”
Shouts followed his pronouncement. “No!” “So it is true!” “The Green Well!” “How will we make the mortals love us now?” Squabbles broke out on the balconies. A few fair folk sank to their knees, clutching the railing in exaggerated attitudes of devastation. They all went silent at a gesture from the Alder King that sent a curtain of dust arcing through the air.
“No. What you say is . . . impossible. The Green Well is eternal.”