Knife

  Yet even as she lay in the McCormicks’ upstairs tub with the warm water lapping over her skin, Knife could not relax. The feeling of the porcelain against her shoulders reminded her of her missing wings, and all the worries she had tried to suppress bubbled back to the surface of her mind. She might not be the first faery since the Sundering to inadvertently cast a spell, but she was surely the first to turn herself human. What if she ended up stuck this way? Or worse, what if she shrank to her natural size, but her wings never came back?

  Hastily Knife pulled the plug and stood up. Her tunic and breeches were still damp, but she wrung them out as best she could before wrestling herself into them. She might not know what would happen to her next, but when the magic wore off—if it wore off—at least she would not be caught unprepared.

  By the time she made her way down the stairs, Paul was waiting at the bottom. “Sorry about all that,” he said, not quite looking at her. “You can go now.”

  “Back to the Oak? Not at this size,” she replied. “Besides, I’m not going anywhere until you—”

  A tingling chill ran through her body as she spoke, and the room reeled around her. When her dizziness subsided she lifted her head, to see Paul staring down at her from a mountainous distance.

  It’s worn off, she thought, her relief oddly muted by disappointment. She struggled to her feet—and froze as something rustled behind her. Her wings lifted, spreading wide…

  “Great Gardener,” she whispered.

  “Well,” said Paul in a flat voice, “that solves one problem.”

  Excitement rippled through Knife, making her lighter than air. She leaped from the floor and soared toward the ceiling, ducking the light fixture as she swooped past Paul into the corridor. Rolling and twisting, she tested her wings from every angle, then turned a somersault and pulled herself up to a hovering stop, giddy with delight.

  Then she caught sight of herself in the hallway mirror. Her wings might have returned to her whole, but they had also changed. They seemed paler now, more fragile; less like paper, and more like glass. And now that the first thrill of flight had passed, she could feel that her wing muscles were not as strong as they had been. Already her shoulders ached, and keeping herself suspended in the air was an effort.

  But even so, she was flying. And that meant that she was still the Queen’s Hunter, free to return to the Oak and take up her duties. It was more than she had dreamed possible, and as she spiraled down to land on the end of the banister, Knife smiled.

  Paul smiled back, but his eyes remained somber, and Knife’s happiness drained away as she realized how he must feel. What would it be like to be broken beyond hope of healing, and have to watch someone else celebrate being made whole?

  “Tell me,” she said quietly.

  “Tell you what?” He swung the chair around and began rolling back toward his bedroom. Knife sprang into the air and followed.

  “Back there,” she persisted as she landed on the top of the wardrobe, “at the pool. Why did you try to kill yourself?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “No,” said Knife. “And there are a few other things I don’t understand. Why won’t you talk to your parents? Are you angry at—”

  “No!” He spun the chair away from her. Knife launched herself from the wardrobe and bounced onto the corner of his bed.

  “Look at me!” she insisted.

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Maybe not, but you will.” She stalked to the edge of the mattress, as close to Paul as she could get without touching him. “I saved your life today. You owe me.”

  “Fine. What do you want? More knife blades?”

  “No.” Although the offer was tempting. “I want to understand.”

  “Why? What difference does it make to you?”

  “I don’t know!” Now it was her turn to shout, and Paul’s to wince. “I don’t know why I dove into that pool after you, or why I grew big, or why I lost my wings and got them back again. I don’t know why I’m still sitting here talking to you when I should be on my way home—I don’t know why I should even care!” She pressed her knuckles against her forehead in frustration, then added in a lower voice, “All I know is that I do.”

  For a moment Paul sat unmoving, his head bent. Then he said quietly, “All right. I’ll tell you.”

  Eleven

  Knife sat down cross-legged on the mattress, waiting for Paul’s answer. He knotted his hands together, then cleared his throat and began to speak:

  “I already told you that I started drawing when I was just a kid, and that I was good. Better than good, even—there were words like genius and prodigy being tossed around. But after a couple of years, my creativity just…dried up. I could still draw, but everything I did seemed ordinary. Lifeless, even. I wasn’t special anymore.

  “I was pretty unhappy, and my parents could tell, but I couldn’t explain it to them. How could I, when I didn’t even understand it myself? In the end they decided there must be something wrong with the art program at the local school, so they sent me to boarding school instead. Which was actually not bad, once I got used to it. My art didn’t get any better, but I made some friends and they got me interested in something I’d never tried before—rowing.”

  “Rowing?” said Knife, but Paul did not seem to hear her.

  “I’d never been much of an athlete, but once I felt those oars in my hands, I just knew. I dropped everything else and threw myself into training, and by the end of the year I was winning competitions.” His face brightened with the memory. “I don’t know if I can describe it to you—the feeling you get when you’ve just finished a race, when you’re all out of breath and your nerves are shredded and every muscle in your body is screaming, but at the same time you feel so incredibly alive.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Knife. That feeling, at least, she understood perfectly.

  “Once I started winning, I couldn’t get enough of it. I’d failed as an artist, but as a rower I just kept getting better, and after a while sculling was the only thing I cared about anymore. I had so many plans—I was going to qualify for the World Championships, maybe even the Olympic team. But then—”

  He hunched forward, his hands sliding up over his face. “It was a Friday night,” he went on thickly, “and I’d gone out with some friends to watch a football game, but I stayed too late…. I could see the school gates closing ahead of me, so I started to run. The light hadn’t changed, but the road looked clear, and I was halfway across when this car came around the corner, I didn’t even see it until it hit me, and I felt my spine just snap—”

  Knife bit her lips, appalled. There was a long silence.

  “And now,” said Paul in a whisper, “I’m paralyzed from the waist down. I can’t walk, I can’t row, I can’t even—” He gave a humorless laugh. “Believe me, you don’t want to know about some of the things I can’t do. I’ll never qualify for the Olympics, never row properly again. All my dreams—gone. Just like that.”

  “And that’s why…?” asked Knife, still uncertain. She could imagine how devastated Paul had been: She had felt the same helpless misery when she’d thought she would never fly again. But to give up on life completely…that part she couldn’t understand.

  “No,” said Paul, sounding tired. “I mean, yes, but that’s not the only reason. After the accident, none of my friends knew what to say to me anymore. Oh, they came, and they tried, but it was just pathetic all around, and in the end, nobody came to see me except my parents.

  “My parents,” he repeated bitterly, “didn’t give up, but after a while I wished they had. When they told me they’d fixed up the house for me, and that they were taking me home…it was like the last few years had just been erased from my life. As though I’d never gone away to school, never grown up at all. I’d stopped being the son who was going to make them proud, and had become this sad, crippled little boy.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t angry with them,” said Kni
fe.

  “I wasn’t, not exactly. I knew it wasn’t their fault. It was more like—” He rubbed a hand across his brow. “I didn’t want them to make any more sacrifices for me. I didn’t want them to care. I wanted to stop being their son, and become a thing in a chair that they would get tired of. So when I finally got the chance to kill myself, it’d be a relief for them, too.”

  “So,” Knife said slowly, “you stopped talking to everyone. Except me. Why?”

  “You were different.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You should.” He let his hand drop, and Knife flinched at the anguish in his eyes. “I never expected to meet you again,” he said. “After so many years, I’d given up believing you were real. But there you were, standing by the hedge, looking at me. It took me a long time to get my mind around that. And then, just as I’d almost convinced myself I’d been dreaming, you fell out of the sky and landed in my lap.

  “When I saw you lying there, with that ripped wing, I—I wanted you to live. I wanted to see if you could still fly, or what you would do if you couldn’t. But then you woke up, and you talked to me. Without gentleness, without pity. As if I were—whole.”

  Apprehension prickled up Knife’s spine. She opened her mouth to tell him that he’d said enough, but it was too late. Paul squeezed his eyes shut, and an unfamiliar ache grew inside her as she realized that he was crying.

  “Then you let me sketch you, and it turned out—it was perfect. The best thing I’d done in years. And when we were talking about art, you were so interested in everything I said, it made me think that maybe—”

  “Stop,” pleaded Knife. “You don’t have to go on, I understand.” And she did, for the rest of the story was painfully clear. He had come to think of her as a friend, but then he had lost his temper and frightened her away. The one good thing that had happened to him since his accident, spoiled—and it was his fault. No wonder he had decided to give up.

  Paul gave a shaky laugh and wiped his face on his sleeve. “Spreading it a bit thick, I know. Sorry.”

  “No,” said Knife, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked, I was being…” She hesitated. Had she ever used this word before in her life? But it was the truth. “Selfish.”

  “You’re a faery,” said Paul. “Of course you don’t think like a human would. I don’t blame you.”

  Knife looked down at her feet. “I should go. My people—they’ll be wondering where I am.”

  Paul reached up, unlocking the window and sliding it open. “I know it’s not much, considering you saved my life,” he said. “But if you ever want to come and talk about art, or look at my books, or anything…I’ll be here. All right?”

  “All right,” said Knife, a little dazed by the generous offer. With a flick of her wings she leaped to the sill, then paused and looked back at him. “I’ll come,” she said. “I’m not sure when, but—I’ll try.”

  He smiled. “Good.”

  Knife turned and stepped straight out into the air. Wings thrumming, she dropped lightly to land on the old stone path, half buried in mosses and grass. Sunlight warmed her back, and she heard lark song in the distance. She was free.

  “Good-bye, Knife,” said Paul’s voice from above, and she heard his chair creak as he rolled away. Knife stood still, looking up at the empty window. Then she shook herself, squared her shoulders, and set off down the path into the Oakenwyld.

  Skirting the edge of the garden, Knife slipped from shadow to shadow as she made her way back toward the Oak. Halfway through the journey she paused by one of the flower beds, plunged her hands deep into the moist earth, and rubbed them over her face and arms, leaving muddy streaks everywhere. With her fingers she raked her hair into a tangle, crumbling in bits of bark and dead leaves for good measure. Then she wiped her palms on her breeches and continued on.

  She had barely set foot inside the Oak before she ran into one of the Gatherers, who turned white and stumbled off down the corridor toward the kitchen, yelling. Within moments Knife found herself at the center of a commotion, goggle-eyed Oakenfolk all quarreling and pushing to get a look at their Hunter, seemingly returned from the grave.

  It was Thorn who finally broke through the crowd and addressed Knife, her scowl doing nothing to hide her obvious relief. “Well,” she said, “you may look like you’ve crawled through a molehill and been worried by a fox, but you seem to be in one piece.”

  Of course she was glad, thought Knife: She must have been dreading the thought of having to become Queen’s Hunter again. “What happened to Linden and Tansy?” she asked. “Did they get back all right?”

  “Linden died soon after she was brought to me.” The quiet response came from above, and Knife looked up to see Valerian rounding the last bend of the Spiral Stair. “But Tansy was unharmed, and we were able to save Linden’s egg. Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” said Knife.

  “But I saw you fall.” The quavering voice was Tansy’s. “I thought the crow had got you for sure, or that human—”

  “If he had, would she be here?” Thorn interrupted scornfully before Knife could reply. “Don’t talk nonsense. She only dove, to throw the crow off her track—it’s an old Hunter’s trick.”

  “That’s as it may be,” said Mallow’s harsh tones from the back of the crowd. “But if there’s nothing wrong with her, where’s she been? We’ve had no meat in two days.”

  “What you mean is, you’ve had no chance to gorge yourself on scraps,” retorted Thorn, “and I don’t see why anyone should shed a tear over that.” She caught Knife by the elbow, steering her through the crowd. “Besides, it’s the Queen’s privilege to talk to Knife before any of you lot, so clear off.”

  Grumbling, the rest of the Oakenfolk dispersed. Thorn let go of Knife and said in a low voice, “But if I were you, I’d have a long soak and a spot of hard scrubbing before you report to the Queen. You stink.”

  “She is certainly dirty,” agreed Valerian mildly from beside them, “although I hadn’t noticed the smell. Come, Knife. I can look you over while you’re having your bath, to save time. We shouldn’t keep Her Majesty waiting.”

  “I believed we had lost you,” said Queen Amaryllis. “For all our sakes, I am glad that I was mistaken. Are you well?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” said Knife.

  “And yet”—the Queen’s eyes narrowed as they swept over Knife—“you appear…changed.”

  My wings, thought Knife with a flash of panic. She’s noticed my wings. What do I tell her?

  “Bluebell, bring our visitor a chair,” ordered the Queen, and her attendant hurried to obey. Knife did not feel much like sitting, especially with the Queen looking down at her, but when Bluebell nudged the chair against the backs of her knees, she had no choice.

  “Tell me, then,” continued Amaryllis when Knife was seated. “What became of you, after you fought the crow? I sent Thorn out to search for you, but she could find no trace.”

  Was this a trap, or genuine concern? It was impossible to tell. Knife decided to keep her story as close to the truth as she could. “I was flying ahead of Old Wormwood, trying to lead him away from Linden and Tansy,” she began, “when he struck at me and ripped my wing. I fell to the ground unconscious, and when I woke I found myself lying in a dark place, where the crow couldn’t reach me.

  “At first I was weak, and needed to rest. After a while I found food and water, and my strength began to return, but I was still a long way from the Oak. I couldn’t fly, so I started out on foot, but then I met a cat. It could have killed me, but…”

  This was it, the giant leap. She could only pray that the Queen didn’t guess how much of the story she was leaving out. “At the last moment I managed to make myself bigger—even bigger than the cat. I didn’t know how I’d done it, but I knew it had to be magic.” Forcing herself to be bold, she looked straight up at the Queen. “How could that be?”

  “It has happened before,” said Amaryllis. “But rarely, and only
at times of great need. The Great Gardener was merciful.”

  Knife nodded. “Anyway, it saved me. When the spell wore off I tried my injured wing again, and it worked—the magic had healed it somehow. So I flew back to the Oak, and here I am.”

  The Queen regarded Knife, one finger crooked thoughtfully against her chin. Then she said, “I confess I am relieved to hear your story. Tansy’s report led me to believe that you had fallen into the garden, not far from the Oak. When Thorn could not find you, I feared that you had been taken by the humans, and that we might all be in danger.”

  An icy hand closed around Knife’s throat. The Queen’s guess had come so perilously close to the truth—did she sense, even now, that Knife was deceiving her? Perhaps it was a test, and this was Knife’s last chance to prove herself a loyal subject. Perhaps she should throw herself on the Queen’s mercy, and tell her everything.

  And yet Knife was no longer sure she could trust Amaryllis. If the Queen had been willing to burn a shelf’s worth of precious books just to keep her people from taking too much interest in humans, what would she do if she found out her Hunter had actually befriended one? Of course she could hardly execute Knife for treason, not with so few faeries left in the Oak. But she might harm Paul, if her magic could reach him—and Knife didn’t like that thought at all.

  “In any case,” the Queen went on in a brisker tone, “you showed great courage in rescuing Linden from the crow, especially at such risk to yourself. It is evident that you have been through a grave ordeal, and it is to your credit that you returned to the Oak as quickly as you did. Valerian, you have examined her and found her well?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” came a quiet voice from the back of the room, and Knife started. She had forgotten the Healer was there. “All she needs is a chance to rest.”

  “Then I relieve you of your duties until tomorrow,” said the Queen to Knife. “You are dismissed.”