Margaret Rogerson

Finally, Gadfly ate the cake. I didn’t see him chew before he swallowed.

“We’re just about finished for the day,” I told him. I wiped my brush on a rag, then dropped it into the jar of linseed oil beside my easel. “Would you like to take a look?”

“Need you even ask? Isobel, you know I’d never pass up the opportunity to admire your Craft.”

Before I knew it Gadfly stood leaning over my shoulder. He kept a courteous space between us, but his inhuman scent enveloped me: a ferny green fragrance of spring leaves, the sweet perfume of wildflowers. Beneath that, something wild—something that had roamed the forest for millennia, and had long spidery fingers that could crush a human’s throat while its owner wore a cordial smile.

My heart skipped a beat. I am safe in this house, I reminded myself.

“I believe I do like this cravat best after all,” he said. “Exquisite work, as always. Now, what am I paying you, again?”

“So practical.” He sighed at the tragedy. “You are the most admired Crafter of this age. Imagine all the things I could give you! I could make pearls drop from your eyes in place of tears. I could lend you a smile that enslaves men’s hearts, or a dress that once beheld is never forgotten. And yet you request eggs.”

“I quite like eggs,” I replied firmly, well aware that the enchantments he described would all turn strange and sour, even deadly, in the end. Besides, what on earth would I do with men’s hearts? I couldn’t make an omelette out of them.

A painting hung on the wall beside the entry. Faded with age, it depicted a man standing on a knoll surrounded by oddly colored trees. His face was obscured, but he held a sword that glinted brightly even in the gray light. Pale hounds swarmed up the knoll toward him, suspended in midleap. The hair stood up on my arms. I knew this figure. He was a popular subject of paintings done over three hundred years ago, when he stopped visiting Whimsy without explanation. In every remaining work he was always standing in the distance, always battling the Wild Hunt.

Tomorrow, he’d be sitting in my parlor.

“I’ve been tracking that beast for two days, and I might not have caught up to it if you hadn’t drawn its attention,” said a warm, lively voice. “It’s called a thane, in case you’re interested.”

My gaze snapped up from the fairy beast’s remains. A man stood before me, so eclipsed by the sun I couldn’t make out his features, only that he was tall and slender and in the process of sheathing a sword.

“Drawn its—” I stopped, baffled and more than a little offended. He spoke as if this were sport, as though my life mattered not at all; which of course told me everything I needed to know. This figure might look like a man, but he wasn’t one.

“Thank you,” I backtracked, choking down my protests. “You’ve saved my life.”

“Have I? From the thane? I suppose I have. In that case, you’re most welcome—oh. I don’t know your name.”

“Isobel,” I supplied, scrambling to my feet. I dropped him a curtsy.

If he realized I’d given him my false name, he showed no sign. He stepped right over the pile in one long-legged stride, bowed deeply, and took my hand in his. He raised it, and kissed it. I hid a frown. Supposing he had to touch me, I rather wished he’d helped me up instead.

“You’re most welcome, Isobel,” he said.

His lips were cool against my knuckles. With his head ducked before me I only saw his hair, which was unruly—wavy, not quite curly, and dark, with just the slightest red tint in the sun. Its fierce unkemptness reminded me of a hawk’s or raven’s feathers blown the wrong way in a strong wind. And like Gadfly, I could smell him: the spice of crisp dry leaves, of cool nights under a clear moon, a wildness, a longing. My heart hammered from terror of the fairy beast and the equal danger of meeting a fair one alone in a field. Therefore I beg you to excuse my foolishness when I say that suddenly, I wanted that smell more than anything I had ever wanted before. I wanted it with a terrifying thirst. Not him, exactly, but rather whatever great, mysterious change it represented—a promise that somewhere, the world was different.

Well, that simply wouldn’t do. I hoisted my annoyance back up like a flag on a mast. “I’ve never known a kiss on the hand to last so long, sir.”

He straightened. “Nothing seems long to a fair one,” he replied with a half-smile.

A trace of disappointment moved his brow when I told him we were finished.

“Can I come back again tomorrow?” he asked.

I looked up from untying my apron. “Gadfly has a session scheduled. The next day?”

“Very well,” he said, annoyed—but not at me, I sensed.

SEPTEMBER PASSED so quickly I felt I’d dreamed it. I finished Gadfly’s portrait and soon afterward gained another patroness, Vervain of the house of summer. But it seemed to me my days were spent with Rook and Rook alone.

Walking along a blade’s edge was only fun until the blade stopped being a metaphor.

But then the horn sounded again, and he only added, “One raven for uncertain peril. Six for danger sure to arrive. A dozen for death, if not avoided. The enchantment is sealed.”

He ducked below the lintel and dashed out the door. Just like that, he was gone forever.

“I’m sorry about Rook,” she said, reaching up to give a strand of my identical hair an affectionate tug.

I froze. My mind reeled, teetering at the edge of a precipice. “I don’t know what—”

“Isobel, I’m not blind. I knew what was going on.”

Acid soured my stomach. My voice came out thin and tight, prepared to rise stridently in defense. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Her hand flopped down to the coverlet. “Because I couldn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know. I trusted you to make the right choice.”