“Did you trust my mother?” she demanded, for his words had awakened a small flicker of anger in her, and she fought back her fear of him with it.
“Your mother!” he roared, and she felt the blast of his frustration radiating out from him like a bonfire. She raised her arm as if to defend herself, but as quickly as his fury had erupted it was choked off, and he was holding himself up against a nearby tree as if he could not stand without it. “Your mother,” he said in a calmer voice, “has nothing to do with our agreement.”
Though he seemed weakened, she stood as if pulled by him, and he straightened up and drew her into his arms. She felt her chest heave; she was afraid she was going to cry. She felt the pulse of his body beneath her cheek, pressed against the fastenings of his cloak, and she realized for the first time that he wore a cloak that night—it was nearing winter, and the thought that he might need the warmth as much as she did made her feel grounded, relieved. It gave her the courage to say, “I have another wish,” though she knew that if one wish were foolish, a second was far more dangerous.
She felt the rumble of his voice beneath her cheek as he asked, “What do you wish for, Aisling?”
“I wish to go to the masquerade on Souls Night,” she said in a small voice.
He reached up and stroked her hair, and said, “You have still not paid for your first wish.”
“I will pay,” she insisted. “But please, I beg you, grant me this second wish.”
With a sigh, he stepped back from her and held her at arm’s length. “So be it,” he said.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“The enchantment will be weaker, this time, for you will be farther from the Wood,” he said. “It will end at midnight, so you must return home before then.” He bowed his head. “You must go home. It is time.”
“Sidhean,” she began, but he was gone before she even finished saying his name. Just as it always had, his sudden departure left an ache inside her: Every time, it felt like he took a part of her with him.
Chapter XVII
The morning of the Souls Night masquerade dawned with an unusual fog, and when Ash went out into the garden to pump water for her stepsisters’ baths, the King’s Forest was invisible behind the cool white mist. It burned off during the course of the morning, and each time she went back outside to empty dirtied bathwater into the meadow, she could see a bit farther, until at last, by noon, the sun was clear and cold above. After lunch, Ash helped Ana into her gown, a green-and-blue velvet dress with a high collar and a feather-trimmed skirt. When Ana held the feathered mask over her eyes, she looked like a peacock. Clara wore a dress of brown and cream velvet, and her feathered mask, in comparison, made her look like a sparrow. Ash spent longer than she should have braiding small pearls into Clara’s hair, so that when Jonas drove into the courtyard with their carriage, they were late. Just before sunset, they left to dine with their cousins in the City before continuing on to the masquerade at the palace.
Ash closed the door behind them and went back into the kitchen, rubbing her hands over her face. She had just begun washing the dishes that were stacked in the sink when there was a knock on the back door. She dried her hands off, took a deep breath, and went to open it. Once again, there was a satchel sitting on the doorstep. This time, it was made of blue velvet tied shut with a fine silver chain; on the ends of the chain dangled sapphire baubles. She picked it up and brought it into her room, where she poured the contents out onto her bed. An ice-blue silk dress flooded out over her patchwork coverlet like a rush of cool water. The bodice was embroidered with hundreds of tiny crystal beads in a complex pattern of flowers, and in the dusky light that came through the window, the bodice shimmered like the scales of a fish.
She took off her faded brown dress and put on the new one, and it felt like wearing the weight of spring: soft and warm, with the breath of an evening breeze over her skin. There were shoes, as well—satin slippers in the same ice blue—and a mask shaped like a butterfly, embedded with what seemed to be hundreds of tiny diamonds and sapphires. There was a shimmering silver rope studded with diamonds that she braided into her hair, and there were diamond pins to fasten her hair in place. At the bottom of the satchel was a black wooden box, and inside on a bed of velvet was a necklace in the shape of a diamond cobweb with a great sapphire at its center. She put it on and looked at herself in the small mirror on the back of her door, and the jewels blazed with an unearthly light, shedding a pale, cold glow over her face. She put on the mask, which was tied with a silken cord so thin she could barely see it, and at last she took out her moonstone ring and slipped it on her right hand. She had a fleeting sensation of eyes on her—Sidhean’s eyes—but when she blinked the feeling was gone, and the ring was only a ring.
She was ready when she heard the knock on the front door. She opened it to find a slender, short man who came barely to her shoulder. He was dressed all in white, and in the light of the lantern he held, his eyes glittered gold. He said to her in a strangely accented voice, “We are here to bring to you to the ball.” Behind him in the courtyard stood an elegant carriage drawn by a pair of matched white horses. A footman stood waiting near the carriage door, dressed like the man in front of her. She knew that they were no more human than the woman she had seen in her kitchen on the day of the hunt, but this time, she did not have any desire to ask questions.
She came outside and closed the door behind her, allowing the footman to help her into the carriage. She felt the carriage shift slightly as the driver and the footman stepped onto the driver’s seat, and then they were off, moving more smoothly than any carriage she had ever ridden in before. The seat was upholstered in white satin, and though it was a cool night, the interior of the carriage was warm as summer. She looked out the window, but she could see nothing; even when she pressed her face to the glass there was only dark outside, and she could hear no passing sounds. They traveled quickly, for it seemed to be scarcely a quarter of an hour before the carriage pulled to a stop and the footman leapt off his perch to open the door for her. She stepped out into the palace courtyard, which was filled with a great many carriages and lit by hundreds of globe-shaped lanterns hanging high overhead. The palace doors were open, and light and sound came at her in a great torrent after the silence of the carriage ride. The masquerade had already begun.
She turned back to the driver to thank him, and he said to her, “Do not forget: All this will end at midnight.”
“I will not forget,” she told him, and then the footman stepped back onto his perch, and the small white carriage rolled away through the crowded courtyard and vanished through the main gates.
She turned back toward the palace and took a deep breath to steady herself, and then she walked carefully through the crowd of carriages and up the steps toward the grand, open doors. As she went into the entry hall, those she passed turned to look at her, and many of them whispered about her in her wake, for none had ever before seen a gown such as hers. She went up the wide marble steps at the end of the hall and passed a set of huge mirrors hanging on the wall that reflected the burning light of the chandeliers. She paused and looked at her reflection in those mirrors, and she could barely recognize herself. The glittering mask over her face and the diamonds around her neck were luminous, and her dress seemed to float over the floor. She looked, she thought, like a fairy woman, and when she raised her hand to touch her face to make sure she was still flesh and blood, she saw the moonstone ring glowing as hot as fire.
She swallowed and turned toward the ballroom, hesitating in the grand doorway to stare at the spectacle ahead of her. The room was hung with silver and gold garlands and heaps of white hothouse camellias. There were hundreds of people dressed in crimson and gold and emerald dancing to the music of flutes and pipes. Directly across from her on the other side of the ballroom, tall glass doors led into the cool night. She had never seen so many people in her life, and she felt overwhelmed, for it seemed that a good many of them were staring at
her as she stood there in the doorway of the ballroom in her glimmering fairy gown, searching for the King’s Huntress. When someone came up the stairs toward her and bowed, she did not realize that he was bowing to her until he asked, “Would you like to dance?”
He wore a blue and red uniform with elegantly polished black boots, and his epaulets gleamed gold. He extended a hand to her, and she said in sudden realization, “I do not know how to dance.”
He smiled at her beneath his mask that looked like the face of a hawk—or at least, his mouth curved upward. “Let me show you how,” he said, and again he extended his hand to her.
In something of a daze, she took his hand and allowed him to lead her down the steps. As they descended toward the dance floor, the crowd parted, and the guests in all their multicolored gowns and glittering masks stepped back to watch them take a position in the center of the floor. Her partner bowed to her, and following his lead, she curtsied, and the musicians began to play. Somehow she managed to copy his steps, and as more and more people began to join in the roundelay, it seemed as if her shoes were leading her along, telling her feet and legs where to move. It was a bit unsettling, and as she turned she could feel the gown swirling around her like wings trying to lift off, but her stolid, uncompromising humanity was weighting her down in an eerie battle. When the dance finally concluded, she bowed to the man with relief, for she did not enjoy the feeling that her shoes knew more about dancing than she did.
But her partner had not noticed her discomfort, and he said, “You are a beautiful dancer.” He offered her his arm as he escorted her off the dance floor. “Will you come and have some refreshment?”
“All right,” she answered, and as they walked off the dance floor she wondered why so many people were looking at them. He led her through the tall glass doors and out into the chilly night. They walked across a courtyard paved in white stones, past a fountain shaped like a horse and rider, and toward a grand glass conservatory, lit from within by hanging lanterns.
The guards standing outside the entrance to the conservatory bowed to them as they approached and then opened the door, and Ash realized, suddenly, that the man she had danced with was Prince Aidan, for he wore the royal crest on his shoulder, and when he spoke to her, she remembered, at last, the sound of his voice. “Only my special guests are allowed to enter here,” he said to her, and inside the conservatory was a wonderland of blooming flowers and greenery, and the air was warm from the braziers that were placed down the center gravel aisle. On either side of the path were cushioned couches, and all around were potted plants: artfully trimmed orange trees, flowering camellias, white roses twining up lattices along the glass walls. On the couches and along the paths, there were ladies dressed in gowns of many different colors, their feathered headdresses studded with jewels, and as Ash and Prince Aidan walked down the path, they all turned to look at her. He took her to an armchair and said, “Will you rest for a moment? I will return shortly.”
Ash nodded and sat down. The prince bowed to her and departed, and she watched him proceed down the path, greeting those he knew along the way. There was still no sign of Kaisa. She looked down at her hands to avoid the people who stared at her, and saw that the hanging lanterns were reflected in her ring like small embers. She felt awkward and ungainly and grateful for the mask that hid her face, and she felt Sidhean’s magic all around her in a way she had not felt on the day of the hunt. Perhaps she was far enough away, now, from the Wood that the magic had to be stronger—or perhaps it was this gown, for she felt it must have been worn before by some fairy princess who once lived in an immense palace built of crystal and gold. It was as if she had slipped into someone else’s skin, and it did not quite fit.
Thoroughly discomfited, Ash left her seat rather than wait for Prince Aidan to return. She walked in the opposite direction that he had gone and turned off the central aisle as quickly as she could, making her way past seated couples and boxes of rosebushes. At last she found an exit, and she pushed open the glass door and escaped outside, relieved to be away from the prying eyes of those who had watched her departing. She closed the door behind her and looked around. She was on a brick path that led away from the conservatory, and on either side of the path hedges grew to the height of her shoulders. With no other choice, she went forward and followed the path until it ended in a door in a wall. She reached out and put her hand on the cold brass handle, and it opened into a corridor lit with candles placed in pewter sconces molded into the shapes of tree branches. She was inside the palace again, but she did not know where; the corridor was empty but for her and the shadows made by the flickering candlelight.
Her footsteps were loud on the flagstones as she walked down the corridor. On the wood-paneled walls hung portraits of women dressed in hunting gear, some sitting astride grand horses, some standing stiffly in the foreground of a wooded landscape, and one, with her long blond braid flying out behind her, raising a sword to a rearing stag. The corridor ended in a circular chamber with two black doors on the far side, and to her right, an archway revealed another corridor that turned a corner to an unseen destination. On the floor of the circular chamber, the tiles were inlaid with the image of a horse and rider facing a bowed stag, and as Ash walked around the image, looking at the skill with which the horse’s eye had been shaped, one of the doors opened, and Kaisa emerged. She seemed surprised to see Ash there and said, “Are you lost, madam?”
Ash realized that the huntress did not recognize her, for she was wearing the mask still. “No,” she said in relief. “I was looking for you.”
Kaisa came toward her curiously, recognition dawning in her. “Ash?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Ash. She could see the hollow in the huntress’s throat, now, where the collar of her shirt was open; her skin was colored gold in the candlelight. She came closer to Ash and lifted her hands to the mask, and when the cuffs of Kaisa’s shirt fell back, Ash saw the glint of silver on the huntress’s wrist before she untied the silk cord that held the mask to Ash’s face.
When Kaisa stepped back and saw her, she raised her eyebrows and said, “What a gown you are wearing.”
Without the mask, Ash felt self-conscious; she was not sure if Kaisa had ever looked at her like that before. She held out her hand to take the mask back, but Kaisa did not give it to her. “Let me have it back,” Ash said.
“I prefer to see the face of the person I am talking to,” said Kaisa.
“Then you must not enjoy the masquerade.”
The huntress shook her head. “Not especially. I feel that there are so many opportunities for slights—perceived or real—when we do not know who we are with.”
“You don’t enjoy the mystery of it?”
“There are other mysteries I prefer,” Kaisa said, and then she returned the mask to Ash, who took it but did not put it on. “Shall we go back to the ball?” Kaisa asked. “I am sorry I was not there to greet you.”
Ash laughed nervously. “I can go back…but I must wear my mask.”
“I suppose it is a masquerade,” Kaisa admitted.
“Do you not have a mask?” Ash asked. The huntress wore a dark green shirt, the sleeves laced together with a brown cord from elbow to wrist, and brown breeches with shining boots, but she did not carry a mask.
She shook her head. “I don’t like them.” She gestured toward the corridor that led away from where Ash had come from. “Shall we go?” This corridor was also paneled in wood, but after a short stretch it opened into a wider hall, lit with hanging chandeliers. It was empty but for the two of them. “Why were you in the conservatory?” Kaisa asked as they walked.
“I was with Prince Aidan,” Ash began.
“You were with the prince?” Kaisa said incredulously.
“It is not what you think,” Ash objected, laughing. “He—he asked me to dance. He did not know who I was. Then he took me to the conservatory.”
“Did you tell him who you are?” Kaisa asked.
“No, I
—I left,” Ash said, sounding rueful.
The huntress laughed. “This is why masks lead to trouble,” she said.
Ash had a sudden, horrifying thought, and she said, “Please—don’t tell him who I am.”
“Why not? Are you afraid it will ruin your reputation?”
Ash laughed in spite of herself. “Of course not,” she said, “but if my stepmother hears of it…it will do me no good.”
Kaisa seemed amused. “Do you truly believe that Lady Isobel’s opinion would matter more than Prince Aidan’s?”
“You don’t know her as well as I do,” Ash said grimly. “Just—let Prince Aidan remain in the dark about one of his dance partners tonight.”
Kaisa’s mouth twitched in a smile. “All right,” she relented. “He shall have this one mystery, then.”
As they approached the ball they began to hear the music drifting down the corridor, and when they turned the corner they came to a balcony overlooking the ballroom. Ash went to the edge of the balcony and looked down at the dancers, and Kaisa came and stood beside her, leaning on the wide marble balustrade. “It is quite a sight,” Ash said.
“Indeed,” said the huntress. “But your gown puts all of theirs to shame,” she added with a smile.
Ash was embarrassed. “It…is not mine,” she said.
“Whose is it?” Kaisa asked. “The Queen’s?” She straightened up and reached out to touch the jewels around Ash’s neck, her fingers warm against her skin. “These are worth more than a fortune,” she said. Then she moved away, stepping back and crossing her arms, and gave Ash an appraising look. “You look beautiful,” she said, and Ash could not meet her eyes. “But the dress does not suit you.” The warmth that had flooded through her when Kaisa had touched her twisted; she felt her cheeks flaming. “It looks like it is suffocating you,” Kaisa continued. “Who gave you this gown—and that horse you rode to the hunt? You must have a wealthy benefactor.”