“Why are you doing all this?” I asked, keeping my voice soft.
His eyes shifted from the torque to meet mine. “All what?”
“The cloak, this gown, introducing me to Aliena and everyone in the Hollow. Taking me to the revelry. Why not just…bring me to the person I’m supposed to heal and get it over with?”
His mouth twitched, winced, and I wondered if he was trying to lie before he said, “My master ordered it.”
“Your master ordered you to doallof this?”
“He told me to take care of you.”
“Why would he care so much about me? Is he the one I must heal? Surely, someone else in the Arden has a healing gift? Or knows how to use medicinal plants?”
“I told you that you’d have your answers tonight,” Devil said, shaking off the strange cloud and offering me his arm. “My sweet Arachne, you are truly a miracle worker. Thank you.” The spider-woman, who had come back into the room, just let out a little grunt. But she was clearly fighting back a smile as he took her human hand and kissed it.
“Away with ye, Puck,” she said. “The girl dinnae want to stay here when there’s enjoyment to be had at Court. Behave yerself!”
“You ask too much of me,” Devil laughed, giving her a shallow bow.
“Thank you so much,” I said quietly to Arachne. She reached out and took my hands in hers as her spider legs moved down to shake the fabric of my skirt out, making minute adjustments while I tried to ignore their proximity.
When Devil walked away toward the door, she leaned in and whispered, “Be wary the heart of the Arden, the place where all sweet waters flow, be wary of fools and of fawners, be wary what loose tongues might know.”
“What does that mean?” I hissed.
Arachne peeked over my shoulder at Devil and just said, “Yer safer with that creature than any other folk in this forest.”
“But I don’t—”
“May,” called Devil. “We must go.” I gave Arachne one more look, which she met with pursed lips and a nod, then lifted the bottom of my gown and walked to the door.
Outside, the sun was just beginning to dust the tops of the trees with gold, gilding them in preparation for evening. There was a feeling in the air I couldn’t quite describe, a pleasant anticipatory tension, which crept over me until I very nearly forgot Arachne’s dire warning.
“Please tell me we aren’t walking all the way there,” I said to Devil, lifting my gown so he could see the simple linen-and-leather shoes Arachne had given me. Before he could answer, my stomach growled loudly and I put a hand over it. “Andpleasetell me there will be food.”
“More food and wine than you’ve ever seen in your life and no, we will not be walkingorflying.” He reached down to take my hand. “But we must be standing much closer for this particular magyk to work, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
I took a full step away from him. “You willnotbe kissing me again. I’d rather walk.”
“Icanbring you across the Arden without a kiss, you know.”
“Then why did you kiss me yesterday?!”
He nodded toward the trees, where I could just barely see Will being forced into some sort of game with Myrtle and her companions. “Are you telling me you do not want to pay him back?”
“I do not.”
“And are you also telling me you did not enjoy my kiss?”
“Certainly not!”
“Liar.” He did not elaborate, just folded his arms and smirked while I gaped at him like a fish. The circumstances had been so upsetting that the kiss itself hadn’t mattered, but his comment had now forced me to return to the scene in my mind, which brought a searing heat to my cheeks. I was sure he could see it, because he just shrugged and said, “If you are going to continue on your quest of self-denial, so be it. It must be terribly hard for you to differentiate a good kiss from a bad one anyway, since you have so little to compare to.” His eyes flickered over to Will again, then he moved in closer, placing his hands on my upper arms.
Unwilling to allow him the satisfaction of my discomfort, I allowed it, but muttered, “I’ll thank you to leave Will out of this.”
“How exhausted you must be from defending his honor when he would not even defend his own feelings for you,” Devil replied. The statement caught me off guard, so I merely forced a laugh and dropped my eyes to the ground. When I looked back up, the biting retort on my tongue died instantly.
If the Hollow was a sweet, whimsical faerie forest I’d seen in picture books, where tiny winged people danced around mushroom rings,thispart of the Arden was the dark and otherworldly home of the fay. The trees here were far taller and more austere, raising the forest canopy far above our heads and effectively blocking out the waning sunlight, making it feel as though night had already arrived. All throughout the high limbs bobbed multi-colored orbs of light, much like the ones Devil could conjure up. But it was the Fair Folk themselves who truly took my breath away. We were surrounded by dozens of them, in all shapes and sizes. They were adorned in the most stunning and intricate clothes I had ever seen, each outfit altered to accommodate a wide variety of wings, tails, horns, ears, and paws borrowed from the forest’s creatures, as well as skin, appendages, and hair more closely resembling vines, mushroom caps, roots, leaves, or bark. Above us fluttered the smallest citizens of the Arden, creatures much like Primrose, on their tiny bird or insect wings.
