then the book’s full weight toppled onto her, crushing the wind from her lungs, and in an instant the whole library spun upside down and she was falling She thumped down between the sofa and the table, the diary clutched in her sweat-slick palm. The vase wobbled dangerously, then began to tip toward her; she flung out a hand and caught it just in time. Oh no, thought Knife as she looked at her human-sized fingers spread out against the porcelain, I’ve done it again.
Her head swam and her muscles felt like bags of wet sand, but Knife dared not stop to rest, or even think: She had to get out of the library at once. Shoving the book down the front of her tunic, she hauled open the window and scrambled through it, landing painfully on the gravel drive. Quickly she leaped up and dragged the window shut again, then crawled behind the shrubbery and crouched there, rigid with fear. Surely Mrs. Waverley had heard her fall and was coming to investigate; any moment she would hear her cry, “Thief!”
But the only noise Knife heard was the song of a distant thrush, and through the branches she glimpsed nothing but an empty stretch of gravel. Awkwardly she rose, one hand clasping the diary against her chest, and slipped out of the cover of the shrubbery. She hurried along the back of the house and around the corner to Paul’s car.
But the door was locked, and Paul had the keys. She would just have to brazen it out, and pretend to be an ordinary visitor-albeit a strangely dressed one-while she waited for Paul to finish the tour.
Knife brushed the gravel from her knees, combed her hair with her fingers, and took Heather’s diary out of the bottom of her tunic. Then with all the casualness she could muster she walked to the nearest bench, sat down, and began to read.
“Knife?”
Paul didn’t just sound surprised; he sounded thunder-struck. Caught off guard, Knife leaped to her feet and blurted the first thing that came into her head: “I’m sorry.”
“But…how did you do it?” he asked. “I thought you’d used up all your magic.”
“So did I. But I was trying to get the diary and it just”-she waved a hand at herself-“happened.”
Paul’s eyes traveled down her body to the book in her hand. “Well, you’ve got what you came for, at least,” he said. “Did you find out anything useful?”
“Not yet,” Knife admitted, watching him unlock the car and begin transferring himself and his wheelchair inside. “So far she’s just been meeting people and going to balls and such. What about you?”
“They had a terrific collection of Dutch masters,” said Paul with enthusiasm as she climbed in beside him. “And a couple more Wrenfield paintings, including a portrait of a woman named Jane Nesmith. The guide was telling us-” He glanced at Knife, who had opened the diary again. “Well, never mind. You want to read.”
“It’s all right,” said Knife, leafing through the pages to find where she had left off. “What were you saying?”
“About this woman Jane. Seems that Wrenfield caught sight of her on the street and decided he had to paint her, and soon she became his favorite model and eventually his mistress. She was with him for three years, and during that time he turned out more and better paintings than ever before. But when she left, he fell apart.”
“Why did she leave?” asked Knife.
“Nobody knows.” He turned the key, and began backing out of the parking space onto the drive. “Some historians believe that Wrenfield was unfaithful, or that Jane herself found another lover. Others think he beat her- his temper was legendary. There’s even a theory that he’d started taking laudanum already, was useless half the time, and that his most successful paintings were actually finished by Jane.” He gave a flickering grin. “I like that one, though I’m not sure I believe it. But there’s no doubt that after she disappeared, Wrenfield was never the same again.”
“I see,” said Knife absently, and turned another page.
“The one thing nobody has been able to figure out, though,” Paul went on as they headed down the tree-lined lane, “is why he started painting faeries-”
“Oh!” said Knife.
“What is it?”
Knife lowered the book, staring out the car’s front window at the distant roadway. “She’s just met Philip Waverley.”
“Really,” said Paul. “What does she say about him?” Everyone speaks well of him; his manner is most pleasant, and he shows not the least inclination to melancholy or ill-temper; I would scarcely have known him for a poet, but in truth he is a very fine one. He gave me a copy of his Sonnets on an English Garden, and I have been carrying it about with me ever since…
“She likes his poetry,” Knife replied in a distracted tone, finding it difficult to read and talk at the same time, “and she hopes they’ll meet again so they can talk about it.” She was silent then, absorbed in her reading, until Paul said, “And did she?”
“What? Oh-yes. Quite a few times, actually.” She read a few more paragraphs, then added slowly, “It looks like they’ve become…friends.”
“You sound surprised,” said Paul.
Knife gave a wan smile. “I suppose I am.” She had thought that her friendship with Paul was something special, perhaps even unique in the Oak’s history. But if Heather had been able to talk to Philip in a similar way, then perhaps humans and faeries were more alike than she had supposed…and she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that. I am overwhelmed with roses-Lily declares that she has never seen such handsome ones, and their fragrance lingers about me as I write. They were brought to my door this morning by a little messenger boy, bright as a robin, who bowed prettily and presented me with a card:
Receive this gift, O gentle Muse,
And Heaven’s poetry peruse;
For mortal tongue can ne’er compose
A sonnet sweeter than a rose. Which is not perhaps quite up to Mr. Waverley’s usual standard, but I am very well pleased, nonetheless.
“So what’s happening now?” prompted Paul.
“She’s…started writing poems,” said Knife, looking at the next page, which was full of crossed-out lines and lists of rhyming words. “Her own, I mean, not his.”
“So you were right,” Paul said, nudging her with an elbow. “About your people borrowing creativity from us, I mean.”
“Yes, but…” Knife edged away from him, unaccountably flustered. “I’m still not sure why she’s there, or how what she’s doing is supposed to help the Oak. I mean, writing poetry is all very well, but what use is it?”
“You could say the same thing about art,” said Paul.
“I know,” said Knife, “but that’s not what I meant, not exactly-” Her eyes traveled down the page as she spoke, and all at once she broke off, fingers clenching around the diary. “No,” she breathed. “No, no, no…”
“What?” asked Paul sharply, but Knife could not bring herself to answer. For all my hopes and ambitions, my eagerness to be of service to the Oak, I never thought it should come to this: Philip Waverley has asked me to become his wife. And I…
This was madness. It was a mistake. It simply couldn’t be. And yet even before she turned the page, Knife knew what she would find there:…I have accepted him.
Eighteen
Knife’s cheeks flamed, and her hands shook beneath the diary’s slight weight. More than anything she wanted to slap the book shut and fling it away from her, but it was too late: Heather’s words had seared into her mind, and nothing could make her forget them.
Was this really how the Oakenfolk of Heather’s day had repaid their human benefactors-by pledging their own bodies and souls to them in marriage? But Philip Waverley had not known himself to be marrying a faery; he thought Heather was a woman of his own kind. Had Heather been prepared to spend a human lifetime keeping up that illusion? Did she really think the gift of poetry that Philip had given her, or even the pleasure of his friendship, was worth so great a sacrifice?
