“Back?” said Knife.
“To the House. To him-that Paul.” She clasped her hands against her heart. “I can feel it’s important, this connection you have with him. And if you wait much longer, you might lose it completely-Knife, we can’t let that happen.”
“We?” said Knife. “Wink, I already told you, the Queen-”
“The Queen is wrong!” Wink burst out, with a passion that startled them both. She flushed and glanced nervously at the door before continuing in a lower voice, “Wrong about this, I mean. And you’re wrong, too, to try to protect me from her. I know I’m not strong like you, or clever like Thorn, but I want to help-so for the Gardener’s sake, let me do what I can!”
“You do help,” said Knife, and all at once it seemed natural to put her hand on Wink’s shoulder. “You’ve done so much already, I didn’t dare to ask for more. Are you really sure about this?”
Wink sniffed, then nodded. “I’ll look after Linden whenever you need me to, day or night, and I won’t tell the Queen or anybody.”
“Then I’ll go,” said Knife quietly. “Tonight.”
“Knife!”
Paul slid up the window so quickly that Knife nearly fell off the ledge. Recovering her balance, she hurried forward, into the House’s warm embrace.
“I was beginning to think you were out,” she said, shaking the sleet from her cloak. “I knocked and knocked-”
“I thought it was hail,” Paul said. “God knows I didn’t think there was a chance of it being anything else.” His mouth flattened. “Where have you been?”
He had missed her, too, Knife realized with a flare of happiness. “I’m sorry,” she said. “The Queen gave me a…new responsibility, so I couldn’t leave the Oak at night. I’ve only just been able to get away.”
“You could have left a note,” said Paul.
“You thought I’d forgotten you?” She spoke lightly, hoping to wipe the shadows from his face, but they only deepened.
“I thought you were dead,” he said.
Knife sat down hard on the windowsill. “Oh,” she said.
Paul passed a hand over his eyes. When he took it away, the anger had vanished, leaving only weariness. “Well, never mind that. You’re here now. So…how have you been?”
Confused. Frustrated. Lonely. “I’m all right,” she said. “But-” She looked up into his face. “I need your help.”
Quickly she explained about Heather’s diaries, and what she had learned about the Oakenfolk’s past interest in humans. “I know it sounds strange,” she finished, “but it’s important. There’s a connection between your people and mine-and that diary may be the only way to find out what it is.”
“And you think this could help you get your magic back?” said Paul.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“So where do I fit in?”
Knife bit her lip. “I have to get to a place called Waverley Hall. And this morning, I saw you driving a car…”
“You want me to take you there?” He looked surprised, but not displeased. “Well, I probably could-just not right away. I’ve still got six lessons left, and then I have to pass the road test.”
Relief washed over Knife. “I can wait that long,” she said.
Sixteen
“He’s really going to take you there?” exclaimed Wink. “Knife, that’s wonderful! When do you leave?”
“It’ll be a few weeks yet,” Knife said, pulling off her cloak and hanging it up to dry. “Paul needs time to prepare, but he’s promised to give me a signal when he’s ready.”
“You mean…you’re not going to see him until then? But-”
“It’s all right,” Knife reassured her. “We talked about it, and we both understand that it’s for the best.” Tempting as it was to take full advantage of Wink’s offer to help, she knew it would be unwise to try and see Paul any more than necessary. The Queen had already caught her sneaking out at night once; she might easily do so again, and then their whole plan would be ruined.
“I know,” said Wink dolefully. “But if you don’t see him, then you won’t be able to draw-and I really wanted to see that picture.”
Knife let out a disbelieving laugh. “Is that all?” she said. “Well, give me some paper and I’ll see what I can do.”
This time the lines flowed smoothly, and soon she had completed three sketches: not only the skirt she had failed to draw before, but a blouse and tailored jacket to go with it. “Here,” she said, handing them to Wink.
The Seamstress gazed at the drawings, oblivious to Linden’s attempt to climb up her skirts. Then her eyes welled up and she let the pages fall back to the table. “They’re so beautiful,” she said in a quavering voice. “And I would love to sew them, if I could only figure out how…but then I couldn’t wear them, or everyone would want to know where I’d got the ideas from. And what’s the good of making something beautiful that nobody else will ever see?”
“I know,” said Knife. “It’s hard. But I promise you, Wink, it won’t be this way forever. Once I get Heather’s second diary, and once we know the truth-” She clenched her fist around the charcoal, feeling it crumble against her palm. “Things in the Oak are going to change.”
“This is your request?” asked Amaryllis incredulously, looking down at Knife from the height of her carved throne. “Three days away from your duties, nothing more?”
It had been Thorn’s idea that Knife should ask the Queen for three full days, to make the claim that she was going out to look for other faeries more plausible. “I’d like to do some more exploring,” Knife said, trying to keep her voice casual. “Not now, of course, but once the ground’s thawed and the crows stop flocking…”
The Queen’s brows rose. “Exploring, you say. What do you hope to find?”
Here it comes, thought Knife. Please the Gardener she doesn’t use the Sight on me-and that I’m not as obvious a liar as Paul thinks. Aloud she said, “When I was gone for those two days last summer, I came across a place that reminded me of a Wyld. I didn’t see any faeries there, but it made me think that if I looked around a little more, I might find some-or at least a clue to help us figure out where they went.”
Amaryllis’s lips parted, but she did not reply, and as the silence deepened, Knife’s temptation to fidget became an even stronger impulse to bolt. Had the Queen seen through her request? But finally, Amaryllis spoke:
“I have long yearned to send out an emissary to search for other Wylds,” she said. “Yet in a hundred years and more I have found no one fit for such a task, let alone willing. That you have come to this of your own free will, and would ask it of me as a boon-it is more than I dared hope.”
She spoke quietly, without a trace of her usual imperious manner, and Knife’s stomach twisted with guilt. “It’s not too much,” she said. “I’d be glad to help.” After all, she told herself, just because she was going to find Heather’s second diary didn’t mean she couldn’t keep her eyes open for other Wylds on the way. And there would always be time to make a proper survey later.
“Then I would be pleased to grant your petition,” said the Queen, and for the first time Knife saw her smile. “But you need not spend your Midwinter Gift on this. Save your request until you have thought of something that you, and you alone, desire. Whatever you ask, I swear it shall be yours.”
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll ask for half the kingdom?” Knife said, shaken.
“I know you do not want it. And that is well, for I would not wish such a burden on anyone.” She smiled again, but thinly. “You may go. Come again when you are ready to leave-or when you know what you truly want.”
“I will,” said Knife.
As she walked back down the Spiral Stair, the Queen’s words reverberated in her mind: Whatever you ask, I
