His thumb brushed over my wrist as he spoke for me. “She could accept your offer, my Lord, since she has not even danced with her own escort yet.”
“Ah,” Oberon said with a patient smile. “It is probably best if I leave the dancing to the younger folk anyway.” He lifted my hand, but rather than the kiss I expected, he bent at the waist and pressed his forehead to the back of it. Then, he simply stepped away, holding out his arm, and I realized he was beckoning us forward onto the dancefloor.
Alone.
“Our first dance of the new season!” he called, and there was a polite round of applause, laced with curious murmurs.
“Courage, Mayhem,” said Devil softly as he pulled me away from the crowd. We stopped beneath the oculus, in a patch of warm, autumn moonlight, and he dipped into a flourishing bow.
“Devil,” I squeaked under my breath, “I cannot do this…”
He moved closer and settled his hand on my waist while lifting my other into the air. “Look at me, May, and no one else. It’s only us. The moth and her flame. Right?”
In time with the first note of the song, he released a stream of fireflies from his fingertips. They swirled around us—a living manifestation of the long, haunting cry a bow made when it touched a fiddlestring. We spun, and my feet could scarcely keep up with my body, which felt heavy and sluggish beneath the weight of so many eyes. But I did as Devil said, keeping my gaze fixed on him.
Now that Antenor had told me where his eyes came from, I could see it plainly: The soft, watchful brown iris of a stag, guarding his family, always on alert; and the sharp, clever blue eye of a trouble-making jackdaw. The red hawk’s wings behind him glimmered in the autumn light, making a soft rushing noise with every turn we took around the dancefloor, lulling me into something akin to a trance. A smile played on his lips, and once the feeling came back into my limbs, I mirrored it.
“I suppose you find this terribly amusing, don’t you?” I asked. “Humiliating me in front of all these folk?”
“I do not,” he replied, spinning me away and then allowing our bodies to press together when I returned to him, “but refusing my master is far more painful.”
“And here I actually believed it when you said you were at my command. The more fool I.”
“Perhaps you should have commanded me to deny him.”
I laughed. “Are you saying you would have obeyedmeover your king? Your maker?”
“Shall I tell you the true secret of my making?” Devil murmured, eyes now glittering in the swarm of magyk lights surrounding us. “The reason for my very existence?”
“Tell me,” I said breathlessly, my voice drowned in the resonant crescendo of the music. Devil put his hands on my waist and lifted me above his head, holding me aloft as the song reached its peak. Impossibly slow and controlled, using every one of the archer’s muscles in his back and arms, he lowered me as I gripped his shoulders.
When my face hovered only inches above his, he looked up and whispered, “I was created foryou, May.”
Before I could question his ridiculous claim, the song ended and we stopped directly in front of the stone circle. I wrenched my eyes away from his satisfied smile and found myself face-to-face with Titania, who stood on the edge of the dancefloor with Hippolyta. Hovering in the air behind her were five tiny faeries, one of which I recognized as Primrose. But all my limbs were frozen, stiff and solid, by the fury on the faerie queen’s face. For a moment, the only thing that moved was my heaving chest and pounding heart.
“What have you done now, imp?” she hissed at Devil, fists balling at her sides. Oberon was there immediately, not daring to lay a comforting hand on his queen, but instead standing beside me. Awash in confusion and terror, I managed to look up at Devil, but his eyes were fixed on Titania as he answered.
“I have done what I was ordered. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Titania’s ire immediately shifted to Oberon. “What is the meaning of this? Do you now seek to drive me out of the forest altogether?”
“Of course not,” her husband answered calmly, “but there are things…that can no longer stay buried, Titania. Not if the Arden is to survive.”
Devil’s grip on my hand tightened as Titania’s gaze moved rapidly between all three of us. She settled on me, and raised her hand, waving it in front of my face, as if wiping away the condensation on a glass pane. I guessed she was using her own magyk to remove Devil’s glamour, but was not prepared for her reaction. Her face contorted with so many different emotions I could not mark them all, but after a full minute, she settled back on rage.
“Howdareyou?” she hissed at Oberon. “You deceived me, all these years! How dare you think to bring her here, as if it might fix something? As if it might—” She turned away suddenly and I thought I heard a choked sob as Hippolyta reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. The commander was glaring at Oberon too, but her expression changed to something like pity when she looked at me.
Finally, Titania turned back and spoke to her husband. “You are a fool for this, Oberon. Nothing you do will hold back the darkness now, and it will not return what has been lost.” Her amber eyes shifted to Devil. “If you’d like your head to remain attached to your neck,Puck, keep this girl away from me.” She took a few steps back into the stone circle, then raised her arms and flung them out, vanishing in a burst of golden leaves. Everything and everyone beneath the Bower was silent. Not even a breeze dared to rustle the tree limbs above us, and I certainly did not dare to breathe.
Finally, Oberon turned wearily to face the crowd.
“Please, I would not deprive you of your celebration.”
The children of the Arden were apparently used to such altercations, because, at Oberon’s behest, they quickly resumed their dancing and drinking and merry chatting. Hippolyta let out a low growl and exchanged a brief, heated conversation with Oberon in the fay language before storming away through the back of the stone circle. Primrose and the four other tiny faerie attendants buzzed after her.
“Come,” Oberon said in a heavy voice, beckoning to us.
“May…” said Devil, putting his hands on my upper arms. “Are you alright?”
