“No,” I said. “We have to go. The king is probably already riding out. If we have any chance of stopping the harvest, we need to be quick.”
“Very well,” she said. “Let me make a few preparations, and I will pack you some victuals for the road.”
She sent us on our way with a basket of fresh rolls, ham, cheese, and hard-boiled eggs, a skin of ale, and the little seal, which she slipped into my pocket without Sylvester noticing. It might have been my imagination, but it felt heavier and warm to the touch.
We said our farewells and started out toward the edge of the forest again. I imagined Cornelius curled up at the base of a tree, waiting for us, and resolved to save him some of the ham.
“Let us stop for a while,” said Sylvester when we were perhaps halfway back. He had perked up considerably at the Weftwitch’s cottage after the tea and the sugar, but now he looked very green about the gills again.
“All right. Maybe getting some food into you will help,” I said.
We found a clearing and gathered some sticks for a small fire. Sylvester couldn’t light one with magic, of course, but we managed all the same.
It was an oddly convivial little meal that we had there as the sun set and our little fire burned. We talked. I laughed, and so did he. I was surprised to find that I enjoyed his company, even without the spell, and that he seemed to enjoy mine.
“Are you feeling better?” I asked.
“Yes. I think food helps,” he said. “It is like your meals, back home. Perhaps eating proper human food is what turned me into a proper human.”
“Oh, so you’re a proper human now?” I said, laughing.
“I feel like one, at least.”
He stayed smiling and held my eyes, and his smile did not waver. I felt a spreading warmth, starting in what was left of my heart and moving through me and sinking into me like butter into hot toast.
I wondered if it was the spell descending again—but that was impossible. We were still in the Weftwitch’s forest. I found that I wanted to reach over and touch the sharp lines of his cheekbone and jaw, see how his black curls would look against the pale skin of my breast.
Did Iactuallylove him now, even without the magic?
That was a startling thought. I glared internally at the butterflies in my stomach and my quickening heartbeat, searching them for any sign of enchantment. I scoured them with my most clinical gaze, daring them to show any kind of magical sparkle. I doused them with my most wet-blanket, cold-water-pouring cynicism.
They were still there.
And what’s more, he was still smiling at me. Even wrapped up in my comically too-small petticoat, he was inhumanly beautiful, and he had not dropped his gaze from mine. The moment stretched itself out like a yawning cat, long and luxurious, and the flattering firelight softened any chance of embarrassment or awkwardness.
Well, almost. I twisted my hands in my skirt. I wished I could forget myself even for a moment, and just enjoy the night and the firelight, without being painfully aware of how I looked from the outside.
“I remember the first time I saw you,” he said, unexpectedly. “When you turned up at the House, out of nowhere, telling me you had come to be my housekeeper.”
I felt myself cringe a little. “I was a fool,” I said. “I didn’t want to tell you I had been snagged.”
“You were so sure of yourself.”
“No, I wasn’t!”
“Well, you seemed so,” he insisted. “You spoke with such certainty. You seemed so strong. I wouldn’t have dared turn you down. You are always so strong.”
I remembered that girl, exhausted and heartsick, standing in front of the handsome sorcerer and trying to find any way possible to stay in his presence.
“Stop,” I blurted. “I know how you see me.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Of course I do!” I gestured at him. “Look at you. Everything about you is perfect.”
“No, it isn’t,” he said, but I wasn’t listening.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” I said wildly. “To feel like you’ve always been wrong. That you shouldn’t be here at all.”
