“My wedding breakfast,” Mouse joked, and he shot her a dark look. If he had been Catholic, Mouse was sure he would have crossed himself.
“I’m sure that ceremony holds as much water as a sieve,” he said.
“It felt real to me,” Mouse said. Her memories were sliding into order now, as though speaking was enough to ground them, allowing her to stack the timeline together like bricks. “He knew he was doing something wrong; I could see it in his eyes. But I think he told himself that his plan benefited both of us. He asked the Faerie King not to hurt me, after all.”
His chair creaked as John leaned back.
“Was that too generous?” Mouse asked.
“Much too generous! He tricked you into marrying him, Mouse.”
“He did not trick me into saying yes. He barred me from changing my mind.”
“Which is the same thing, isn’t it?”
Mouse took a long sip of her tea. It bit into her tongue, piping hot. She thought of the spell breaking and their kiss.
True love breaks all enchantments, the foolish girlish part of herself whispered. She kicked the thought away.
“It is,” she admitted.
“Finish your drink,” John said. “We need to prepare you for the next train to the city.”
Mouse blinked at him, uncomprehending. “What do you mean? I can’t leave.”
“Please, enlighten me why you think you stand a chance against magic that makes walls turn to forests and men turn to stone, and I will happily listen.”
Mouse’s mind stuttered like a faulty motorcar engine.
“Right, that is my thought as well. There isn’t anything to be done. You can’t stay here, so it is best for you to get as far away from the village as possible.” He pushed away from the table and mounted the stairs.
Mouse trailed behind him, unsure how things were moving so quickly without her input. Was she still under the spell, somehow?
“You’ll need to borrow some clothes.”
John opened the closet door in his bedroom. Swaths of black cloth met them. Pushed to the side were patterned shirts and a few tweed jackets. Mouse recognized Bertie’s signature colors.
John blushed scarlet as he pulled them out, hands hovering over a robin’s-egg blue shirt and a tweed jacket with hues of dark green and brown.
“You would make an unconvincing vicar, atheism aside,” said John in a rush. “Bertie’s taste in fine-cut clothes will make you look more like an eccentric than a madwoman on the train. Although, we will be safest with a large overcoat and a cap to hide your hair.”
John scooped a scuffed leather bag from the back of the closet floor and proceeded to stuff clothes inside. He went to the drawers, pulled out a slim wallet, and threw that inside as well. Coins jingledwithin, but he didn’t blink, instead turning back and pulling an armful of scarves from a wooden box.
“I can’t take all these things,” Mouse said at last.
“You can hardly wear your clothes. You look like you ran through a field of thorns with them. And besides, it’s better if you leave in disguise.”
“There is no need for subterfuge. No one will come after me.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“This is—” Mouse cut off abruptly as a blast of golden light flooded through the windows. She grabbed hold of John and dove for the floor. Her heart pounded as memories of shells and broken soldiers danced in her mind, paired now with bursts of Faerie magic turning all it touched into beasts. Her shoulder dug into John’s hip while his shoe caught her shin.
John groaned. “Jesus, Mouse.”
The light did not fade. Mouse crawled to the window, forcing herself to move in centimeters until her eyes cleared the windowsill.
Blinding gold shone through the woods from the direction of Thistlemarsh Hall. The color swirled, growing brighter by the second. It was so overwhelming that it took Mouse a few seconds to realize that the light was not the only change. When the light touched the trees, the plants thickened and bubbled, shot through with magic. They sprouted limbs covered in thorns, razor-sharp leaves, and teeth that snapped at the light. Indifferent, the wave of gold coasted over the side of the hill.