Ash (11 page)

“Watch what you’re doing, Aisling. I won’t have you destroying my dishes.”

“I am sorry, Stepmother,” Ash said, gritting her teeth. “I slipped.”

“Take care that you don’t slip again,” Lady Isobel said. “Particularly when we go to Yule you’l be coming with us as Ana’s lady’s maid.”

Ash paused, stil holding the soup tureen, and stared at her stepmother in surprise. “But you’ve never taken me with you when you visit the City,” she said.

“Then be thankful,” Lady Isobel said curtly. “Goodness knows what you’re up to when we leave you here. You need to see something of society if you’re ever going to work in any other household. Just be sure to hold your tongue.” When Ash continued to stare at her, dumbfounded, Lady Isobel said,

“What are you standing there for? Get on with your work.”

Ash spent the week before their trip to the City preparing Ana’s newest gowns, packing and unpacking the trunks as Ana changed her mind about what to bring, and listening to Ana’s and Clara’s excited chatter about the possibility of meeting 89

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Prince Aidan.

“Perhaps we’l have an audience with him,” Clara said as she sorted through a pile of laces while Ash and Lady Isobel orga-nized Ana’s gowns.

“Lady Margaret knows the prince’s chancel or,” Ana said,

“and she told me I should be prepared for the opportunity at the Yule ball.”

Lady Isobel said, “Yes, you must be prepared you wil only have an instant to make him notice you.”

“Of course I shal be ready, Mother,” Ana said, tossing her head as if the task was no more difficult than selecting which dress to wear on the appointed evening. But Ash detected an undercurrent of anxiety in her stepsister, and she could not help it she began to feel sorry for her. Even Ana was not im-mune from Lady Isobel’s demands, and Ash was glad that she only had to keep the house clean, not find a husband.

When the day of their departure final y arrived, Ash rose early to drag the trunks out to the hired carriage, only to have to repack Ana’s one last time when her stepsister decided to take her black fur stole after all. By the time the carriage was ful y packed and her stepmother and stepsisters were sitting within, Ash was tired and wished she were being left behind after al . She was not sure if she could endure another week of Ana’s nervous pursuit of a husband. Her mood showed plainly on her face, for when she climbed up next to the driver, Jonas, he gave her a wry grin and said, “Cheer up, Aisling. At least you won’t be alone for Yule.”

“I’d rather be alone,” Ash snapped.

He laughed at her. “Would you really?” He picked up the 90

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reins and urged the horses forward, their bridles jangling. She crossed her arms and huddled into her cloak, refusing to answer, watching her breath steaming out into the cold winter air.

As they drove away from Quinn House, the morning cloud cover began to clear, and by the time they left the vil age behind, the sun shone brightly down on the road. The most recent snowfal was churned up in clumps beneath the horses’

hooves, but it lay along the fields in a pristine, sparkling white blanket. Ash shifted uncomfortably on the hard wooden seat, and as she pul ed back the hood of her cloak to look up at the blue sky, she heard hunting horns in the distance. She couldn’t see the hunting party, though, until they turned onto the hard-packed King’s Highway, and then at first she could only see flashes of color in the distance that might be the red and blue of the King’s pennant. When at last she could pick out the individual riders, she saw bay and black and chestnut hunting horses, and when she could see the face of the pennant-bearer a sandy-haired boy in blue livery Jonas pul ed their carriage to the side of the road to let the hunt pass.

Behind the pennant-bearer a woman rode a bay mare with a black forelock, one hand resting on the pommel of her saddle and the other holding the reins; the hood of her deep blue cloak was flung back and she was laughing with the rider next to her. Ash realized with a jolt of surprise that this was the woman she had seen in the Wood that autumn afternoon. Ash twisted around in her seat to watch her ride past, and asked Jonas, “Is that the King’s Huntress?”

“I believe so,” he answered.

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“She is young,” Ash said, remembering the story of Eilis and the Changeling.

“Yes. I believe she was only recently an apprentice herself.”

The dozen or so riders of the hunt passed them, with the sight hounds running lightly alongside. “What happened to the previous huntress?” Ash asked.

Jonas shrugged. “She may simply have moved on. They do, those women.”

After the last of the hunt’s wagons passed, Jonas pul ed the carriage back onto the road, but Ash clung to the edge of the seat, looking back at them until they disappeared around the bend.

They reached the City gates just before noon and joined a line of carriages jostling their way up the hill into the Royal City for the Yule celebrations. Inside the City wal s the merchants had decorated their shops with pine boughs and winterberries, and the bright sunlight reflected off freshly polished shop windows. They drove past a great square dotted with market stal s, and then Jonas turned down a quieter street lined with townhouses, driving slightly uphil . In the distance between the buildings she could sometimes see the white stone towers of the palace. Just as the sun came directly overhead, Jonas pul ed onto a street flanked on both sides by houses grander than any that Ash had seen so far, and they stopped in front of a three-story brick building hung with a huge wreath of holly and 92

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white winterberries.

“Here we are,” Jonas said, nodding at the house. “Page Street.”

The front door was opened by a young woman in a maid’s uniform, and then another woman the mistress of the house came outside behind her, dressed in a blue velvet gown with a white lace cap over her dark hair. Jonas climbed down and opened the carriage door, helping Lady Isobel out onto the cobblestones. Ash clambered down off the high driver’s seat and started to untie the trunks from the rear of the carriage as Lady Isobel greeted her sister. The maid came to help Ash while Ana and Clara followed their mother and aunt indoors.

“You’l be staying in my room,” the maid said to her, grasping one handle of Ana’s trunk and helping Ash to lift it off the footboard. “My name is Gwen.”

“Thank you,” Ash said as they struggled with the heavy trunk. “I’m Ash.”

“Welcome,” Gwen said with a quick smile, and they carried the trunk into the house and hefted it up the grand staircase.

When they reached the room where Ana was to stay, it was so much grander than Ana’s room in Quinn House that Ash simply stared for a moment, looking around, to catch her breath. The two tal windows were hung with dark gold bro-cade, and the dressing table in the corner was carved out of rosewood, the slender legs ending in feet that looked like the talons of a gryphon. A porcelain vase etched in gold was placed on the bedside table and fil ed with a spray of fragrant evergreen.

“Ash, are you coming?” Gwen asked, and Ash saw the girl 93

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standing expectantly in the doorway. “I think there are more trunks to bring up.”

Embarrassed at her wide-eyed gawking, Ash answered, “Yes, I’m sorry.” But the afternoon passed too quickly for Ash to dwel on the differences between Quinn House and this one.

She had to unpack for Ana and Clara and Lady Isobel, press their gowns for the evening ahead, and brush off their traveling cloaks. That afternoon she spent a tedious hour assisting Ana in dressing for dinner, and that evening the house was ful of ladies in rich satin gowns and gentlemen wearing plush velvet and shining boots. The sight of them in al their finery reminded her of Yule in Rook Hil . One year her mother had made her a fairy costume to wear, and Ash still remembered the smile on her mother’s face as she brushed silver paint onto Ash’s cheeks.

“You’l be the prettiest fairy there,” her mother had told her, and Ash grinned as her mother tucked a cloak of white rabbit fur around her chin.

“Do you think we’ll see any real fairies?” Ash had asked excitedly.

“Perhaps,” her mother had answered, dipping her brush back into the pot of silver paint.

“How wil I recognize them?”

“Sometimes they dress as ordinary humans,” her mother replied, trailing the tip of the brush over her daughter’s skin.

“Why?”

“At Yule we al dress as someone we are not,” her mother explained. “It is tradition.”

“And the fairies follow our traditions?” Ash asked.

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Her mother laughed. “Perhaps it is we who fol ow theirs.”

“But how will I know if I see a fairy?” Ash asked again. “If they look like ordinary people, I won’t be able to tel .”

“You’l be able to tell,” her mother told her, “because wherever they touch, they’l leave a bit of gold dust behind.” She put down the brush and turned her daughter to face the mirror. “Now look—there’s the prettiest fairy I’ve ever seen.” Ash stared at herself, spel bound. Her eyes had been outlined in silver paint, and the color trailed down her cheeks in wondrous curls of gleaming light.

“It is like magic,” Ash whispered.

Her mother smiled at her, her hand touching her hair. “Yes, my love, it is.”

That night, after al the guests had gone and al the remains of the party were cleared away, Ash was exhausted. But lying beside Gwen in her small attic chamber, she could not find a comfortable position on the straw ticking. She was afraid to move and disturb Gwen’s rest, but she couldn’t keep stil and ended up pressing herself as close to the edge of the bed as possible.

She wondered whether Sidhean and his kind marked Yule in the same way that humans did. In al the stories she had read or heard, the fairies seemed to do nothing more than drink and dance, enjoying a life of leisure and frivolity. But Sidhean had always seemed, to Ash, to harbor an unexplained sadness.

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Why, if he and his kind were so content—if they celebrated Yule, so to speak, al year—why did he spend those nights walking with her? When they had first begun their unusual companionship, she had expected that he would soon do as al his kind were believed to do, and take her away with him. She was not sure what would await her on the other side, but she had wanted to know. Even an eternity serving him especial y him seemed like no worse, and possibly much better, than a mere human lifetime serving Lady Isobel. Now, she no longer knew what he was planning to do. Why had he not claimed her already? What was he waiting for?

Lying awake in the City, Ash could hear Gwen’s steady breathing in the dark, and she felt the distance between her and Sidhean for the first time, and it made her long for him.

She turned over onto her side and closed her eyes, trying to force herself to sleep. But in her mind’s eye al she could see was him, and she wanted to be with him, al of his cold strangeness. She wanted to take his hand, and she wanted him to pul her onto his horse, and they would go through the dark Wood at midnight, the moon a pale crescent above. They would ride to that crystal city where it is said that the fairies have their grandest palace, and she would know, at last, what Kathleen had known.

When Ash woke up, Gwen was stil asleep, and the early dawn light was sliding through the gaps in the shutters over the dormer window. She gingerly eased herself out of bed to avoid waking Gwen, and dressed as quietly as possible. Tiptoeing down the stairs to the kitchen, she saw that the embers had burned low in the hearth and none of the servants was yet 96

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awake. She sat down on the warm hearthstones and put her head in her hands, feeling tired and disoriented. When the cook came into the kitchen an hour later, she found Ash asleep on the hearth, her head pil owed on her arms and her knees drawn close to her body, soot clinging to her dress.

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Chapter IX

he Yule celebrations that week
were grander than anything Ash had ever experienced. Every night, Ash helped T Ana dress for a different banquet or bal, and when her stepsister final y departed, she had to prepare the next night’s gown. Her stepmother had spared no expense for her eldest daughter that year; there was a different gown for each night, and each one was more magnificent than the one before. It was disorienting for Ash, who was accustomed to the quiet of Quinn House; the bustling kitchen of the Page Street mansion and the number of servants going about their tasks were dizzying. Gwen had appointed herself Ash’s guide for the week, and Gwen herself was like no other girl Ash had ever known. She was sweet, and prone to fits of the giggles, and blushed every time any young man said a word to her. In comparison, Ash felt clumsy and shy, and sometimes she caught herself staring at Gwen as if she were some kind of exotic bird about to take 98