An Enchantment of Ravens

by Margaret Rogerson

  The remainder of the session passed in silence. Not the rigid silence I usually felt in the presence of Rook’s kind, but a warmer and more tentative stillness. It reminded me of the time I’d gone to sit under my favorite tree in town to read in the shade, and found another girl already there doing the same thing. We’d passed hours together after saying only a brief hello. By the time we went home I felt we were friends even though we’d only exchanged a single shy word. Later, I found out she’d left with her parents for the World Beyond.

  I realized how late it was when two curly-haired heads rose up behind the window. Rook remained oblivious to the twins peering inside until May stuck her face to the glass like a suction cup and puffed out her cheeks. Then he turned, but not in time to see them duck down, leaving only a shrinking fog on the windowpane. The sun had nearly set. I still hadn’t figured out what was wrong with Rook’s eyes.

  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.

  I’m not sure what came over me next. When he opened the door he didn’t walk out straightaway, but rather lingered as if he wanted to say something else, just wasn’t certain what. The exact same feeling gripped me. Our eyes met, forging a connection across the room. I drew a breath and then said boldly, chastising myself all the while, “Are you going to return as a raven?”

  “More likely than not, I think.”

  “Before you leave, may I see you change?”

  He hadn’t expected that question. Several emotions crossed his face at once: hope, caution, pleasure. None of them exactly human, but I still couldn’t help but feel they had more substance than the aloof facsimiles of sentiment other fair folk tried on like hats, pale imitations no more real than their glamour.

  “It will not frighten you?” he asked.

  I shook my head. Neither one of us looked away from the other. “I am not easily frightened.”

  A spark flared in Rook’s eyes. Rustling filled the house, the sound of a faraway wind rushing through dry leaves. It rose and rose in volume until I felt the cool wind surrounding me, tugging at my clothes, wild with the intoxicating spice of nighttime forest, shocking me again with that unnameable thirst for change. The cast-off charcoal drawings fluttered where they lay, then blew across the room. As the sun tipped below the horizon, the birdcage flashed blinding gold for an instant before my parlor plunged into shadow.

  Rook seemed to grow taller, and darker, and fiercer. His purple eyes blazed impetuously, untouched by his subtle half-smile. A whirlwind of black feathers rose from the floor to engulf him.

  I must have blinked, because the next thing I knew the papers lay still against the wall and a raven watched me with half-spread wings from atop the birdcage. The last of the dying light shone on its glossy feathers and glittered in its eyes.

  The wind had stolen the breath from my lungs. I knew no words to describe what I had just seen. “That was marvelous,” I whispered finally, and gave the raven a curtsy.

  With a trace of humor, the bird dipped its head before it flew out the door.

  Four

  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.

  Halfway through the month, I’d delayed bringing up the matter of payment as long as I could. Usually my clients made the first move, eager to ensnare me in their thorniest temptations, but I suspected the prince hadn’t dealt with mortals in so long he’d fallen out of practice. Having to broach the subject myself left me unaccountably nervous. I pretended it was due to the anxiety of facing a deviation from my normal routine. But the real reason was that I didn’t want to listen to Rook offering me roses whose perfume would make me forget all my childhood memories, or diamonds that would make me care for nothing but gems ever after, or goose down that would steal away my dreams. I knew that part of him existed, but I didn’t want to see it. And that sentiment was more dangerous than all the enchantments he could offer me combined.

  Three times I set down my brush and opened my mouth before finally, on the fourth try, I found the courage to speak. He looked up from the cup of tea he’d been analyzing—rather suspiciously, I thought—and listened.

  “Yes, of course,” he said when I was done. Then he astonished me by asking, “What type of enchantment would you like?”

  I paused to reevaluate. Perhaps he preferred watching mortals orchestrate their own undoings. In that case, I’d have to be extra careful. I weighed each word on my tongue. “Something to warn me if I or a member of my family is in danger.” I took a moment to review the request’s weaknesses and went on, “For the purpose of this enchantment my family includes my aunt Emma and my adopted sisters, March and May. The sign must be subtle, so as not to draw unwanted attention, but also clear, so I won’t miss it when it happens.”

  He deposited the teacup on the side table, folded his arms, and gave me a crooked smile. I steeled myself. “Ravens,” he suggested, disarming me yet again.

  Ravens? I couldn’t decide whether the idea owed itself to vanity, a depressing lack of creativity, or both.

  “Pardon my directness,” I replied, “but ravens can be quite noisy. If I were running from a”—I wavered and changed course—“a highwayman, for example, I don’t believe a flock of birds squabbling over my hiding place would be to my advantage.”

  “Ah, I see. In that case, well-behaved ravens. They will mind their manners.”

  “You are strangely persistent, sir. Is there anything about these ravens I might come to regret?” Frustration hardened my voice. I couldn’t figure him out. There had to be some catch. God help me, I needed there to be one, to remind me what he was. “They won’t torment me with foreknowledge of my own death, or keep me sleepless at night, or descend in droves whenever I’m about to stub a toe?”

  “No!” Rook exclaimed, rising halfway from his seat. He caught himself, shoved his sword out of the way, and sank back down looking unsettled. I stared. “I am not up to any mischief,” he went on, sounding equally frustrated. “You do not seem as though you would allow it, in any case, if I tried.”

  My stranded words formed a lump in my throat. A fair one never lied. I tore my gaze away from him, away from that look in his eyes I couldn’t put to name—or canvas.

  “No, I wouldn’t. Given your assurances, ravens would be—acceptable.” Mortified by how stiff I sounded, I clenched my fists until my fingernails dug into my palms. “We can discuss the remaining terms tomorrow.”

  He brightened at the mention of “tomorrow” and bowed his head in assent. “I look forward to it,” he replied eagerly, and just like that, all was forgiven. Stifling a smile, I picked up a palette knife by accident before I found my brush.

  After he left, I couldn’t shake the notion that he’d insisted on ravens for a reason. I was almost finished cleaning up by the time the explanation occurred to me. My cheeks warmed, and a wistful pang plucked a sweet, sad chord in my stomach. It was simple, really. He didn’t want me to forget him once he’d gone.

  The remaining weeks blurred together. The season didn’t turn. Yet there in my parlor, while the fields outside simmered beneath a summer sun, a vital change swept through me. When Rook wasn’t there, I thought about him. During our sessions, my heart pounded as though I’d just run a mile. I tossed and turned half the night, tortured by the cipher of his unpaintable eyes, driven restless and half-wild by the moonlight spilling through my window, which I swore was brighter than any moon preceding it. This must be what the awakening of spring was like, I thought. I was alive in a way I never had been before, in a world that no longer felt stale but instead crackled with breathless promise.

  Oh, I
knew that how I felt toward Rook was dangerous. Incredibly, the danger made it better. Perhaps all those lonely years of keeping a polite smile frozen on my face had driven me a bit off-balance, and the madness just didn’t kick in until I’d had a taste of something new. Walking on a blade’s edge every time we exchanged a curtsy and a bow, knowing one misstep could topple me into mortal peril, made the blood sing in my veins. I exulted in my own cleverness. Of all the Crafters in Whimsy, I knew fair folk best. As the days trickled through my fingers like water, slipping past no matter how fiercely I held on to them, hurtling me toward the inevitable end of a moment I wanted to last forever, my assurance that I could handle Rook strengthened to iron.

  And I might have continued believing that if I hadn’t figured out what was wrong with his eyes during our very last session.

  “Gadfly told me the first time you painted him, your feet didn’t reach the floor,” Rook said, which was how it started. “He spoke as though it was merely . . . Isobel, how old are you? I’ve never thought to ask.”

  “Seventeen,” I replied, breaking free from the painting to watch his reaction.

  During our first few sessions he’d sat stiff as a board, apparently under the impression he’d interfere with my work if he moved so much as a hair. Now that I’d assured him I was far enough along that his posture didn’t matter, he sprawled sideways on the settee so he could glance out the window constantly, as though it pained him to miss even one cloud or passing bird. But even so he spent most of his time looking back at me. The rapport between us had grown perilously casual.

  His reaction wasn’t quite what I anticipated. For a long moment he only stared, his expression close to shock or even loss. “Seventeen?” he repeated. “Surely that’s too young to be a master of the Craft. And you’re already fully grown, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. I would have smiled if it hadn’t been for the look on his face. “It is young. Most people my age don’t perform at this level. I started painting as soon as I could hold a brush.”

  He shook his head. His gaze drifted to the floor. Preoccupied, he touched his pocket.

  “How old are you?” I inquired, perplexed by the air of melancholy that had fallen over him.

  “I don’t know. I can’t—” He looked out the window. A muscle moved in his jaw. “Fair folk hardly pay years any mind, they pass so quickly. I don’t believe I can tell you in a way you’d understand.”

  What must it be like? To meet someone, to forge a connection, all in the span of one golden afternoon—only to find out that for her, each passing minute was a year. Each second, an hour. She would be dead before the sun rose the next day. A keen, quiet pain twisted my heart.

  That was when I saw the secret hidden deep within his eyes. Impossibly, it was sorrow. Not a fair one’s ephemeral mourning, but human sorrow, bleak and endless, a yawning chasm in his soul. No wonder I hadn’t been able to identify the flaw. That emotion didn’t belong to his kind. Couldn’t belong.

  Time stopped. Even the dust motes glowing in the air seemed to go still.

  I had to be sure of what I’d seen. I crossed the room in a trance and brought my hand to his cheek so lightly I barely touched him. He hadn’t been paying attention, and he made the smallest movement—almost a flinch—before he looked at me. Yes, the sorrow was truly there. Along with it, hurt and confusion, to a degree that I wondered whether he even understood what he felt, or whether it was as alien to him as so many aspects of the fair folk were to us.

  “Have I offended you?” he asked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply . . .”

  “No, you haven’t.” Somehow my voice sounded normal. “I’ve just noticed something I need to work on before your portrait’s finished. Could you hold your head like this for a few minutes?”

  Aware that I was taking an immense liberty, I raised my other hand, cupped his face, and gently turned it toward my easel at just the right angle for the light to strike his eyes. He allowed me to handle him in silence, his breath warming my wrists, watching me all the while.

  This was our last day together. The first and final time I’d ever touch him. The knowing of it pulsed between us like a heartbeat. With our gazes locked, another truth became unmistakable. I felt a connection between us as tangibly as a hand-shake or a grip on my shoulder. I knew he felt it too.

  Dizzy, I stepped back and slammed the door on it before it could take form. Dark spots swam around the edges of my vision and cold panic squeezed the air from my lungs. Whatever this was, it had to end. Now.

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

  Mortals cared little for the Good Law’s cryptic edicts, but one of its rulings applied to us all the same: fair folk and humans weren’t permitted to fall in love. Almost a joke, honestly. The sort of thing Crafters wrote songs about and wove into tapestries. It never happened, never could happen, because despite their flirtatiousness and their fondness for attention, fair folk couldn’t feel anything as real as love. Or so I’d thought. Now I doubted everything I’d been told about Rook’s kind, everything I’d observed, the neat, sensible rules I’d taken for granted my entire life. Laws didn’t exist without reason—or precedent.

  And its penalty? Oh, you know how these stories go. Of course it’s death, with one exception. To save her life—to save both their lives—the mortal must drink from the Green Well. But only if the fair folk don’t catch them first.

  “If you would remain still for me, please,” I said. My request came out coolly, and my chair’s creak sounded miles away. As I lifted my paintbrush, I dared not look at Rook and witness his reaction to my changed demeanor.

  When the world failed me, I could always lose myself in my work. I withdrew into this sanctuary, where all my other concerns faded beside the demanding compulsion of my Craft. I narrowed my focus to Rook’s eyes, the full, mellow aroma of oil paint, the sensual gleaming trail my brush spread across the textured canvas, and nothing more. This was my Craft, my purpose. We were here for Craft alone. His veiled expression was something only a master could achieve, and I was determined to do it justice. The technique lay in the shadows of his irises—deep, mysterious, and clouded, like the darkness a boat cast onto the bottom of a clear lake. Not the thing itself, but the shape of the ghost it left behind.

  And while I worked the fever filled me, the thrill of my talent, an awareness that I was about to complete a portrait unlike any painted before. I forgot who I was, swept up in this force that seemed to surge through me from both within and without.

  The light faded, but I didn’t notice until the room grew dim enough to leach the color from my canvas. Emma was home; she made quiet sounds moving about in the kitchen, trying to keep her presence unobtrusive as she smuggled the twins upstairs. My wrist ached. Stray hairs clung to my sweaty temples. Without warning, I paused to shape my brush and realized I was finished. Rook looked back at me, his soul captured in two dimensions.

  A horn blast sounded in the distance.

  Rook leapt up across the shadowy room, tension in every line of his body. His hand went to his sword. My first muddled thought was that it was another fairy beast, but the sound wasn’t right: high and nasal, pure of tone. I became sure of this when the horn sounded a second time, shivered, and dropped away.

  A chill rippled across my back. Though one rarely hears it in Whimsy, one never forgets the Wild Hunt’s call.

  “Isobel, I must go,” Rook said, belting on his sword. “The Hunt has intruded on the autumnlands.”

  I stood up so fast I knocked my chair over. It cracked like a musket shot against the floorboards, but I didn’t flinch. “Wait. Your portrait’s finished.”

  He stopped with his hand on the half-open door. Awfully, he wouldn’t look at me. No—couldn’t. I knew then, without a speck of doubt, that he planned on vanishing from the human world once more, utterly and, as far as my own mortal life was concerned, permanently. Neither of us could afford to tempt fate. Once he left, we’d n
ever see each other again.

  “Have it prepared to be sent to the autumn court,” he said in a hollow voice. “A fair one named Fern will pick it up in two weeks’ time.” He hesitated. 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.

  Now I have to tell you how foolish I am. Before that gray and lifeless time following Rook’s departure, I’d always scoffed at stories in which maidens pine for their absent suitors, boys they’ve hardly known a week and have no business falling for. Didn’t they realize their lives were worth more than the dubious affection of one silly young man? That there were things to do in a world that didn’t revolve solely around their heartbreak?

  Then it happens to you, and you understand you aren’t any different from those girls after all. Oh, they still seem just as absurd—you’ve simply joined them, in quite a humbling way. But isn’t absurdity part of being human? We aren’t ageless creatures who watch centuries pass from afar. Our worlds are small, our lives are short, and we can only bleed a little before we fall.

  Two days later, I made a mental inventory of Rook’s unfavorable qualities, prepared to indulge in some vicious criticism. He was arrogant, self-centered, and obtuse—unworthy of me in every way. Yet as I fumed over our first meeting, I couldn’t help but remember how swiftly he’d apologized to me, no matter that he hadn’t had the slightest idea what he was apologizing for. I recalled the look on his face exactly. By the end of the exercise, I only felt more miserable.

  Three days later, I pressed the half dozen preparatory charcoal sketches I’d done of him between sheets of wax paper, bundled them up, and hid them at the back of my closet, resolving not to look at them again until I no longer craved seeing his face like prodding a fresh bruise. The golden afternoon was over. By the time Rook remembered me, if he ever did, I’d be long dead.