He sank back down, absorbing my words. I’d expected to offend him, but he only looked a bit dazed, as though something had struck him over the back of the head. Perhaps the effort to comprehend what I’d said left him reeling. From his perspective, after all, human emotion wasn’t a blessing—it was a misery and a curse. Why wouldn’t I want to be rid of it?
After a long hesitation, he gave a faltering nod. “Very well. I will not ask it of you again. But now, there is something else we must discuss before we continue on to the spring court. It’s a matter of great importance.”
“Please go on,” I said. The frigid terror gripping me melted away bit by bit, leaving a trembling weakness behind. Seeing the Green Well and denying it aloud made it seem less threatening somehow. I had faced it, and emerged unscathed.
The ferns rustled. I looked up to find Rook pacing across the clearing. “Fair folk don’t bring humans into the forest lightly. In fact, you will be the first mortal to visit the spring court in over a thousand years. To avoid suspicion, we must invent some explanation for why we’re traveling together. But . . .”
“It can’t be a lie, or else you won’t be able to talk about it.”
He glanced at me, and nodded tightly.
“I’ve always heard that the best lies are the ones closest to the truth. What will they assume first, seeing us together?”
“That we’ve fallen in love,” he said, in an utterly neutral tone.
“And it wouldn’t be your first time.” He froze. “I saw what’s in your raven pin—by accident, when you were unconscious. I’m sorry, Rook. I’m not going to pry, but it is relevant to our predicament. Naturally they’d draw conclusions, however far-fetched . . .” His stillness sank in. Dread resounded within me like the striking of a gong. My skin tightened and prickled.
“Are you in love with me?” I blurted out.
A terrible silence followed. Rook didn’t turn around.
“Please say something.”
He rounded on me. “Is that so terrible? You say it as though it’s the most awful thing you can imagine. It isn’t as though I’ve done it on purpose. Somehow I’ve even grown fond of your—your irritating questions, and your short legs, and your accidental attempts to kill me.”
I recoiled. “That’s the worst declaration of love I’ve ever heard!”
“How fortunate,” he said bitterly, “how very fortunate you are, we both are, that you feel that way. We aren’t about to break the Good Law anytime soon.” I looked away from the raw anguish in his eyes. “The love must be mutual, after all.”
“Good,” I said to my hands.
“Yes, good!” He paced back and forth. “You’ve made it quite clear how you feel about fair folk. Now stop making me feel things,” he demanded, as though it were as easy as that. “I must think.”
My face felt hot and cold at once. His words rang in my head. This wasn’t anything like how I’d ever imagined a romance would go, if I were to have one in the first place. God, how close we’d come to disaster. If only our sentiments for each other had overlapped . . .
But would it have mattered? I was no longer certain that what I’d felt for Rook back in the parlor truly had been love. It had felt like it at the time. I’d never experienced anything like it before. But I’d hardly known him, even though in my feverish infatuation I’d felt as though we’d been confiding in each other for years. Could you really love someone that way, when all they were to you was a pleasant illusion? If I’d been aware he would kidnap me over a portrait, I dare say I would have changed my mind.
And yet—I did feel something for him. What was that something? I picked at my emotions like a snarled knot and came no closer to finding an answer. Was I enamored with what he represented—that wistful fall wind, and the promise of an end to the eternal summer? Did I only want my life to change, or did I want to change it with him?
Frankly, I had no idea how anyone knew if they were in love in the first place. Was there ever a single thread a person could pick out from the knot and say “Yes—I am in love—here’s the proof!” or was it always caught up in a wretched tangle of ifs and buts and maybes?
Oh, what a mess. I planted my face in my skirts and groaned. I only knew one thing for certain. If even I couldn’t figure myself out, the Good Law wasn’t about to do it for me.
Rook’s shadow fell over my tumbled hair. “Your behavior is extremely distracting,” he announced. “I need to come up with an idea soon, or we’ll be stuck here overnight.”