“Give—what are you talking about?”
In his eyes, a flicker. But if I’d gotten through to him, he steeled himself quickly against his doubts. “You did something to it, between the last session and when it was sent to me. There’s a wrongness to it now. Anyone who looks at it can tell.”
“I painted you. That’s all. That’s all my Craft involves, how could it be . . .” Oh. Oh, no.
“You did do something,” he hissed, his fingers curling against the wall.
“No! I mean, I did, but it wasn’t some sort of—scheme, or—or sabotage. I swear. I painted you exactly as you are. I saw it, Rook. I saw everything, though you might try to keep it hidden away.”
Well. I may be an artistic prodigy, but I’ve never claimed to be a genius. Only at that moment did it occur to me that Rook’s secret sorrow might be secret for a reason. It could be a secret even to him.
“You saw everything?” His voice grew menacingly quiet. He leaned over me, caging me in with his body from all angles. “What do you think you saw, Isobel, with your mortal eyes? Have you ever seen the splendors of the summer court, or witnessed fair folk as old as the earth itself slain in the glass mountains of the winterlands? Have you watched entire generations of living things grow, flourish, and die in less time than it takes you to draw a single breath? Do you recall what I am?”
I shrank against the boards digging into my spine. “I could change it for you,” I said, wondering if I’d just lied to him. Even though my life might very well depend on it, I found the prospect of destroying my perfect work unimaginable. It was the only example of its kind in the entire world.
Rook barked a bitter laugh. “The portrait was unveiled publicly before the autumn court. All my house has seen it.”
My mind went blank. “Shit,” I agreed eloquently, after a pause.
“There is only one way to repair my reputation. You’re coming with me to stand trial in the autumnlands for your crime. Tonight.”
“Wait—”
Rook withdrew. Dazzled by the moon shining directly into my eyes, I found myself marching after him across the yard toward the shoulder-high wheat. My legs moved in fits and jerks, like a marionette’s legs controlled by a puppeteer. Senseless panic seized me. No matter how fiercely I railed against my body’s betrayal, I couldn’t stop walking.
“Rook, you can’t do this. You don’t know my true name.”
He didn’t bother turning around as he spoke. The sweep of his coat was all I had to go on. “If you were ensorcelled, you wouldn’t know it—you would follow me willingly, believing you’d made the decision on your own. This is nothing more than a trifling charm. You seem to have forgotten what I am after all. There is only a single fair one in all the world stronger than I, and two others my equal.”
“The Alder King,” I murmured. In the distance, the trees swayed.
Rook stopped in his tracks. He turned his face to the side, presenting me with a view of his profile, though he didn’t quite look at me, as if unwilling to take his eyes off something else. “Once we’re in the forest,” he said, “do not speak those words. Do not even think them.”
A chill gripped me. The only thing I knew about the Alder King was that he was the lord of the summer court and he had ruled fairykind forever. His influence spread far, locking Whimsy in its eternal summer. In that moment it seemed the trees were leaning together, whispering. Waiting for me to walk past those rusty, crooked nails and walk beneath their boughs, so they could watch and listen. I’d almost reached the edge of my yard, and felt as though I were about to step beyond a pool of lantern light into an endless darkness crawling with horrors. No, I didn’t just feel like it—I was.
I couldn’t scream. If Emma ran outside I had no idea what might happen to her, and the idea of the twins seeing this sickened me. But I couldn’t just march after him like an unresisting puppet, either, straight into the shadowy forest ahead.
Swallowing hard, I bunched my skirts in my hands and gave his back an awkward top-only curtsy.
He spun on his heel and bowed, glaring as though he might kill me on the spot. As soon as he’d turned around and taken another step, I curtsied again. We repeated this odd ritual four times, his expression growing increasingly furious, before I felt the charm controlling my legs creep farther up my body, petrifying my waist to the rigidity of a porcelain doll’s. So much for that plan.
We plunged into the field. Wheat swished all around me, tickling and scratching, catching on the rough fabric of my clothes. When I looked over my shoulder I saw no lights on in the house. Was this the last time I’d ever see my home? My family? The silver-lined shingles and eaves, the big old oak by the kitchen door were suddenly so dear to me that tears sprang unbidden to my eyes. Rook didn’t notice my distress. Would he care at all if he saw me weeping? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Either way, it couldn’t hurt to find out.
I flexed my fingers. Good—my arms were still free. I found the pocket hidden among my skirts’ loose folds and started picking at a seam with my fingernails.
“Rook, wait,” I said. Another hot tear skated down my cheek and dripped inside my collar. “If you care anything for me at all, or ever did, stop for a moment and let me compose myself.”
His pace slowed, dwindled to a halt. My own marching didn’t wear off until I stood close behind him, which was exactly what I’d hoped for.
“I—” he began, but I didn’t get a chance to hear what he’d been about to say.
I seized his hand and squeezed it tight, making sure the ring I’d picked out of my pocket seam pressed against his bare skin. It wasn’t just any ring. It was forged from cold, pure iron.
He swayed where he stood, as though the ground had dropped out beneath him. Then he tore his hand from mine and started back, rounding on me with his teeth bared in a feral snarl. My stomach lurched. Over the years, observing the individual imperfections in each fair one’s glamour, I’d put together a picture of what they looked like underneath. As it turned out, I still wasn’t prepared for the sight.
In his true form Rook resembled some hellish creature spawned from the forest’s heart—not hideous, precisely, but terrifyingly inhuman. The life had leached from his golden skin, leaving him a sickly tallow gray, with hollow cheeks and hair that tangled about his face like the shadows cast by a briar thicket. His luminous eyes reminded me of a hawk’s, soul-piercing and devoid of mercy or feeling. His fingers were uncanny in their length and jointedness, and I could tell by the way his clothes hung from him that he had grown gaunt as a skeleton beneath them. Worst of all were his teeth, each one needle-sharp behind his peeled-back upper lip.