drawing, wasn’t he?
“Anyway,” said Paul, “back to the pictures-”
He stopped, and Knife felt his muscles tense. “What is it?” she asked.
He did not reply. At the bottom of the page a pale-haired boy sat in a narrow rowboat, teeth bared and arms flung skyward in exultation. But she had barely glimpsed the image before Paul’s hand slapped down upon it and ripped it away.
Instinctively Knife flinched back, overbalanced, and toppled off Paul’s shoulder. With a strangled cry she fell through the air, bounced off the corner of the sofa, and crashed to the carpet below.
For one dizzy moment she lay there, too stunned to move. Far above, Paul’s fist closed around the photograph as he stared into the distance. He did not seem to notice that she had fallen, and she gulped a breath like a sob before calling out to him, “Paul!”
His face crumpled into rage. With a swift blow he knocked the book of pictures from his lap, and Knife threw her arms over her head as it crashed onto the floor beside her, scattering pages and photographs everywhere.
By the time she dared to look up, Paul was gone, but she could still feel the weight of the book’s cover against her throbbing ankle. It hit me, she thought numbly, and then with dawning outrage, He hit me.
With or without magic to enforce it, the rules of a faery bargain were clear: If either party struck the other, even by accident, all obligations between them were canceled. Until now Knife had been in Paul’s debt, no matter what he might say about gifts; but now, she owed him nothing.
Anger flooded through her, renewing her strength. Knife crawled out from the wreckage of the photo album and began limping across the carpet toward the hallway.
“There are no scissors!” shouted Paul from the kitchen, as cupboards banged and drawers slammed. “No knives, no matches-nothing!” Then came silence, and at last in a voice soft but deadly: “Oh, look. How sweet. She put all the hurty things up where her little crippled boy couldn’t reach them.”
Knife clenched her teeth and kept walking. All the windows at this end of the house were shut, so she quickened her pace, hurrying down the corridor to the sitting room as the crashing noises resumed. She glanced around, but the din made it impossible to think, and at last she shouted into the kitchen, “Stop it!”
A saucepan belled out as Paul flung it across the tile. “Shut up!” he spat back at her.
Knife ran to the sitting room doors and tugged, then with grim purpose took hold of the sheer curtain and began swinging herself up hand over hand. She had almost reached the latch when she heard Paul’s voice behind her:
“What are you doing?”
Knife kicked herself upward, grabbed the latch with both hands, and hung there. “I’m trying-to open-the door.”
“It’s locked.”
“Fine.” She slid back down the curtain, turned to face him. “Then I’ll find another way to get out.”
Paul looked down at her, his expression bleak but no longer angry. “Look, I’m sorry if I frightened you,” he said. “I’d just…I’d forgotten that picture was in there.”
“I don’t care! I don’t want to hear about it! Just let me go!” She ran past him and jumped into the air, wings fluttering wildly as she tried to reach the window above the kitchen sink. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Vermeer slink into the room and crouch down, watching her; but still she continued leaping and dropping back to the floor, until she was almost sobbing with frustration.
“Knife,” said Paul. “Knife, don’t.”
“I thought I could trust you.” The words burst out of her, and only as she spoke them did she realize that they were true. She had stopped being afraid of Paul, stopped thinking of herself as his prisoner, stopped even trying to escape-what madness had possessed her, to make her think that she could be friends with a human?
Well, she knew better now.
“You can trust me,” Paul was pleading. “I know I frightened you, but I never meant-”
“You nearly killed me!”
His face paled. “But you-you were on my shoulder. You jumped off-”
“I fell off. And then you threw that book on top of me!”
Paul’s face went slack with despair. At last he said, “You’re right. I’ll let you go. Tomorrow.”
She lifted her chin in defiance. “Tonight.”
“No. It’s almost dark, it’s not safe. Just stay until morning. Please.”
“I’m not going to change my mind, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I know.”
“And I’m not going to talk to you either. Not even about art.”
“I know.” His eyes begged hers, and finally she gave in.
“Oh, all right,” she said.
Paul let out his breath. “Thank you.”
“Don’t you dare!” she snapped at him, furious all over again. After what he’d done already-how could he cheapen something so precious, speak those sacred words as though they meant nothing?
“What?”
Too disgusted to answer, Knife stalked past him into the corridor. She could feel his eyes on her, but she refused to look back until she was nearly to the bedroom, and by then he had turned away.
When she did look back, she saw Paul bow his head, then slowly unfold his hand to reveal the photograph he had torn from the album. With surprising gentleness he smoothed it out upon his lap and gazed down at his younger self, while Knife watched, her anger melting into perplexity. Why that picture, she wondered, of all the pictures they had seen?
No. She was not going to think about this-about him-anymore. Tomorrow she would return to the Oak, resign as Hunter, and throw herself into whatever other work the Queen might give her, until she had no energy left to even think about humans.
And maybe then she would stop feeling Paul McCormick’s pain.
Ten
“All right,” said Knife, “I’ve finished breakfast-now will you let me go?”
“Not yet,” said Paul, pulling the curtains aside to let in the dim morning light. “This is my mother’s shopping day. We’ll need to wait until she leaves.”
“I don’t see why. You could just let me out right now.”
“I know, but I’d prefer to go with you a little way at least. Make sure you get back home all right.”
Knife blew out her breath in exasperation; for all his politeness, this human was as stubborn as Thorn. “I don’t want to wait any longer. I have things to do.”
“It won’t be much longer.”
Restless, Knife paced around the breakfast tray, flexing her injured wing. She could still feel its ragged edge, but it no longer hurt every time she moved. Which was a mercy, because it was bad enough being grounded without having to live with constant pain as well…
Then a thought occurred to her: Was Paul in pain? Not that it made a difference-he had struck her, and deserved none of her pity. But his face looked especially drawn this morning, his skin sallow and his forehead beaded with sweat. Perhaps she had judged him too harshly.
“You should lie down,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone, not wanting him to think she was softening.
He wiped his brow on his sleeve, and as his hand fell she saw that it was shaking. “I just need some fresh air,” he said. “I haven’t been outside for two days.”
“Paul!” came Beatrice’s voice from the other side of the door.
Paul opened his mouth to reply, then looked startled and shut it again.
“She almost had you there,” murmured Knife.
“I’m just going into town, dear. I’ll be back by lunch-time.” She paused, waiting for a reply she must have known by now not to expect. “I’ll bring you back something to read. Good-bye,” she said, and the sound of her
