“You’ve run out of magic,” I said softly, touching his wrist. Amber-colored blood had soaked through the makeshift bandage.
He flinched, and his expression shuttered. He raised his hand and looked at it front and back, taking in the long, spidery, oddly jointed fingers as if the sight disturbed him as much as it would a mortal.
“The ensorcellment draws upon my strength,” he said. “I cannot protect you from him any longer.”
“You won’t need to,” I replied.
A tremor shook the floor. Though I sensed no further movement, the whole house groaned as though lifted several inches from its foundations by brute force. When it settled with a resounding thud, all the boards shook and plaster dust trickled down from the ceiling. Rook glanced around, seeing something I could not. I didn’t need to ask. The enchantment on my home was broken. The Alder King had come here for only one reason, after all—to kill us both. And he wasn’t wasting any time.
I pushed aside the pillows and stood. My knees gave way for the third time in twenty-four hours, and Rook caught me again, holding me up as though I weighed nothing. I reached for the portrait.
“Isobel,” he said. My hand paused. “I am not very good at—declarations,” he went on, after a hesitation. And then he hesitated some more, looking down at me, absorbing the sight, and seeming to forget whatever it was he had on his mind.
“I know,” I assured him fondly. “I seem to remember you insulting my short legs the first time, among other things.”
He drew up a bit. “In my defense, they are very short, and I cannot tell a lie.”
“So what you’re trying to say is that you love me, short legs and all?”
“Yes. And—no. Isobel, I love you wholly. I love you eternally. I love you so dearly it frightens me. I fear I could not live without you. I could see your face every morning upon waking for ten thousand years and still look forward to the next as though it were the first.”
“I think we disparaged you too much,” I breathed. “That was a fine declaration indeed.”
I seized his collar and pulled him down for a kiss, ghoulish countenance and all, ignoring his muffled sound of protest, which did not remain on his lips for long. His teeth were sharp, but he kissed me with such tenderness and care it didn’t matter. A flower blossomed inside me, a soft, rare bloom aching for light and wind and touch. In another world, it might have been our last kiss. In this one, I wouldn’t allow it.
We broke apart as a shadow crossed the window. Reluctantly Rook released me, and I tottered forward on legs as weak as a newborn fawn’s. I took up the portrait like a shield and turned around.
Something was happening to my door. Dark, glistening spots spread across it like an ink spill soaking through a page, or a candle flame blackening a piece of paper from beneath. It wasn’t until the sweet stench of decay hit me, and white mold fuzzed over the surface, that I realized the door was rotting. It sagged on its hinges, wood warping. The boards peeled away in strips, disintegrating into spongy lumps as they fell. The brass doorknob clattered to the floor and rolled into a corner. And the Alder King ducked inside, bending at the waist and turning his broad shoulders sideways to fit through the now-empty doorway. The light eclipsed him from behind, transforming him into a black silhouette too bright to see. Heat rolled across the room.
I had had many fair folk in my parlor, yet never one like him. As he straightened, the sun of a different age kindled fire in his beard and glowed on his emerald surcoat, striking him at an angle and intensity for which the room’s windows were not responsible. He was from a time that was not our time, and the weight of it enveloped him like a cloak. Conscious that I was so small standing in front of him I might as well have been a child, I took a step forward. He didn’t look at me. It was as though he didn’t even see me. Beneath the heavy brows his eyes searched through an eternity of years, seeking the present, looking for an hour and a day less significant to him than a single mote of dust suspended in the air among uncountable thousands.
My confidence faltered. My plan had one flaw—it wouldn’t work unless he looked down. So I cleared my throat to speak.
“We worshipped you once, didn’t we, Your Majesty? I saw the statues in the forest. They were carved by human hands.”
He tilted his head as though listening to a distant thread of birdsong.
“I have never heard a tale or read a book in which it was not summer in Whimsy,” I continued. “Before you punish us, will you tell me how long you have ruled?”