“Can’t she?” he asked.
I hated the way he questioned me, as though you were so much more interesting than I was. I was the good sister, the one who kept faith and stuck to the rules. You were the angry one, the one who didn’t know how far was far enough, the one who courted disaster. It wasn’t fair. “You won’t even go against him. How could she have any chance?”
Locke laughed at that. “There it is. That temper you try to hide. You know what fascinates me about you? You’re a hungry person sitting in front of a banquet, refusing to eat.”
I thought of the banquets of Faerie, of everapple, the fruit that makes mortals give in to abandon. I thought of the banquets I’d only heard of, where the Folk enchant humans and serve up garbage glamoured to look like delicacies, where they crown one of them the Queen of Mirth, a title that comes with robes of filth and horrible mockery.
How could he doubt why I would hesitate to eat at such a banquet?
“Aren’t you ever careless?” he asked.
“Always, with you.”
“I want to show you something,” Locke said, taking my hand. “Come with me.”
“I’m not wearing—” I began, but he led me toward the woods.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “No one will mind.”
I stopped moving, horrified. “Who is going to be there? I don’t think this is a good idea.” I didn’t even have shoes.
“Will you trust me?” Locke asked. There was so much in that question. When I thought back to the time before that first note, my life seemed to have been dry paper waiting for him to kindle it.
No, not him. Love.
“Yes,” I said, taking his hand. “For tonight.”
There was a revel near the Lake of Masks. A few Folk cavorted under the stars and stretched out on carpets. I didn’t recognize any of them; they didn’t attend the palace school, and if I’d seen them before, it had only been in passing. They seemed to know Locke, though, and called out to him. One played a fiddle and when he saw us, he began playing a song I’d heard before in the mortal world.
Locke twirled me in his arms and for those moments, everything was perfect. We danced three dances like that, my body becoming looser, my steps less formal. Then we rested on the grass, sharing a glass of spiced wine from a borrowed wooden cup.
Then Locke pointed to a boy with hair the impossibly bright green of new leaves. “He keeps looking at you.”
“Because I’m in a nightgown,” I said.
“Go speak with him,” Locke said cryptically.
I gave him an incredulous look, but he only raised his brows and smiled. “It will be easy once it’s begun.”