He called out again. “Elowin?”
Wait. What if he was weak from injury?
“Coming!” I hurried through the ferns and undergrowth until finally I came to a small thicket. I almost laughed in relief when I saw what had happened. There were no antlers, and as far as I could see, no injuries either. Sparrow had simply gotten his ridiculously long hair tangled in one of the bushes and was caught fast.
“I think if we just cut?—”
“No!” Sparrow turned his wide gaze on me. “I mustn’t cut my hair, Elowin! I’ve been growing it my whole life!”
“I was going to say we could cut the branch,” I said. “And at least that way we could sit down somewhere while we work all the tangles out. But if you’d rather stand…”
He bit his lower lip. “I’m sorry. I panicked, just a little bit.”
“Hmm.” I took my knife from my pack, which Sparrow was wearing. “Just a little bit, sure.”
He gave me a tentative smile.
I sawed away at the little branches Sparrow had somehow gotten his hair tangled around, or that had somehow tangled around his hair. It was impossible to tell the culprit, and it was going to be a painstakingly long job getting them untangled without resorting to cutting his hair. It took a while to get him free, and when he was, I guided him away from the bush and sat him down at the base of a massive spreading oak in a nest of bracken.
I sat behind him, my back resting against the trunk of the oak, and began to work.
It was cool in the woods, shaded and a little damp. The air smelled of loam and life, and the breeze carried the sounds of rustling leaves and birdsong. I carefully worked the first twig out of Sparrow’s hair.
His hair was soft and shining, the strands strong and healthy even though the length was ridiculously impractical. I’d seen enough tapestries and frescoes around the royal palace to know that this had been the style once upon a time—but so had shoes with toes so pointed they needed to be tied to ribbons attached to the knee to avoid tripping over them. There were some fashions best left in the past.
Sparrow twisted his fingers in his lap as I worked, and I could see the tension he was holding in his neck and shoulders. Still worried I’d tell him we needed to cut it, I guessed. His anxiety made me even more determined to save every strand.
It was long, slow work. Insects buzzed and birds warbled, and once, a rabbit loped up to us, close enough to touch. Sparrow’s sharp, delighted intake of breath startled it away again. An hour or more must have passed before I was even close to finishing, and in that time the day had grown coolerand the shadows longer. A shiver passed through Sparrow as my fingers brushed the nape of his neck.
“It almost feels cold,” I said, “sitting here in the shade after walking in the sun for so long.”
He hummed his agreement as I carefully unwound a few strands of his hair from a particularly thorny stick.
A few moments later, I felt warmth on my back, as though a shaft of sunlight had broken through the canopy of the massive oak tree shading us. I glanced up, but there was no break in the leaves.
“Did you feel that?” I asked. “It just got warmer.”
“That’s me,” Sparrow said, a flush rising on the back of his neck where I was currently working a stick loose. “It’s my magic, I mean.”
I was so surprised that I forgot to keep untangling him. “That’s amazing! What else can you do?”
Sparrow turned his head toward me, nose wrinkling. “Oh, um, just that. It’s not very impressive.”
“Oh.” I blinked and began to work at his hair again. “I think it’s… well, it’s very nice, thank you.”
He was right in that it wasn’t very impressive. There were rumored to be elves in Dun Steorra who could change the course of the planets in the heavens with the sheer force of their magic. But what good did that dramatic sort of celestial rearrangement do anyone who just wanted a little patch of sunlight on a cool day?
I liked Sparrow’s magic better.
We sat in the soft warmth as I worked through the rest of the tangles until finally I removed the last twig. I ran my fingers through the long tresses, checking for any hidden snarls or bits of branches. Sparrow tensed, then gave a pleased shudder that reminded me of a cat when a fingertip was dragged down its spine just right. I smiled to myself and took my hands from his hair and reached out for my bag. Itonly took a moment to find what I was looking for. I held the brush in front of him. “May I?”
“What are you planning to do?” he asked, his gaze fixed on the brush.
“I thought I’d brush your hair out, and then perhaps we could put it in a braid or something, to make it easier to manage.”
He half turned to face me, biting his bottom lip. “But how will people know I’m from a noble family if I have a braid?”
I wondered again exactly how sheltered life was in Hillstowe, and whether if I looked in Sparrow’s wardrobe, I’d find a pair of those pointy-toed shoes. “I promise, I know plenty of people of noble birth who tie their hair back or even cut it,” I said. “It’s not something anybody really pays attention to.”
