An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson

Author:Margaret Rogerson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Twelve

THE WICKER floor cascaded downward, starting at the tips of my shoes. Slender birch supports rose from the ground to meet the newly forming stairway at intervals, creating elegant arches above and below, their branches fanning out as banisters.

In mere seconds I stood at the top of a broad, sweeping stair grander than that of any palace, stretching down five stories or more. At the bottom a crowd of fair folk awaited, arranged around a semicircle of open grass to which I assumed we were about to descend. Gadfly knelt in the middle of it, his hair glinting silver in the sun. As I watched he stood, reviewed the tip of his index finger, and then discreetly brought it to his lips, sucking away the blood. He had done all of this, it seemed, with little more than a single drop.

My pulse raced stumbling along. Though my worst fear hadn’t come to pass, I now possessed ample material with which to replace it. There were even more fair folk gathered here than there had been in the meadow before, and as grand as Rook looked beside me, I was the one they’d truly come to see. All of them were dressed to perfection in the delicate pinks, greens, blues, and yellows of a spring garden, resplendent in silver embroidery and mother-of-pearl buttons, with jewelry that glittered as brightly as their immortal eyes. I knew if I walked among them for hours, I wouldn’t find a single chipped nail or hair out of place. And I also knew that each and every one of them could kill me as easily, and as casually, as dropping a teacup.

Gadfly inclined his head to us.

One foot in front of the other. That’s all it took. Yet the descent seemed to stretch on for minutes rather than seconds, and the crowd waited in complete silence, the only sound the susurrus of my gown’s fabric slithering over the steps behind us. The closer we grew, the more unnatural the multitude of fair folk looked. The flawlessness that only nagged at me a little in the presence of one or two of their kind amplified to a sensation of dread when I was confronted by so many, as though I were beheld by an army of living dolls.

As soon as my first shoe touched the grass, a delicate chime of laughter, sighs, and whispered conversation rippled outward through the crowd. And so the introductions began.

When Gadfly turned around, scrabbling ensued among the fair folk in the front. A woman with arresting hazel eyes emerged victorious. She adjusted her hat back into place with a queenly smile as she swept forward, placing her hand in Gadfly’s. She wore a lilac dress with a high lace collar that strangled her slender neck, and the flaw in her glamour, unnaturally sharp cheekbones, was more subtle than most. Like many of the other fair folk present, she was fair-skinned—a common spring court characteristic, whereas the autumn and summer courts tended toward richer complexions like Rook’s, every shade of sunlight-gold and acorn-brown and deep umber.

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