Before descending from the Matchbox, Mouse had pored over her reflection. Even in the light of day, the finger was gone. There was no scar or gore. It was as though the tip of her finger had simply been erased, leaving behind a blurred end.
She experimented by rolling a coin between her fingers and running them through the still water in her vanity washbasin. She could feel everything, but in the mirror, the coin flowed seamlessly through the air before returning to her ring finger. When she dipped her pinky into the water bowl, she could feel the liquid against her skin, but there was no sign of its presence on the surface. No ripples, no dent, just water, still as glass, reflecting her confused expression.
She thought of running to tell John, but the image of hisdisappointed and shocked face kept the urge at bay. She was the fool who made a deal with a Faerie; she would be the one to bear it.
Mouse knew thatBlakeney’shad no stories about Faeries who bargained for body parts, but she studied it anyway, desperate for guidance. The book was silent on the matter, but plenty of her childhood heroes judged her for making a deal with a Faerie from their safety behind the ink. Her mother’s handwriting glared at her from the margins.
Mouse groaned and stopped pacing between the boar statues, glancing at her watch for the twentieth time that morning. A flash of black caught Mouse’s eye, and she looked up to see a car rolling down the drive. She knew next to nothing about cars, but even she could recognize a Rolls-Royce from the magazines.
A fuzziness surrounded the vehicle; the longer she watched, the less it looked like a motorcar and the more it looked like a tangle of leafy branches, tightly fashioned into an automobile-esque shape. Her eyes stung, and she had to look away as it pulled into the drive. Thornwood emerged, dressed head to toe in a cream suit. According to any rule of fashion, the color should have washed him out, but instead, his hair took on a new life, and his eyes sparkled with mischief. Mouse decided she did not like it at all.
“Something is wrong with your car,” she said.
The Faerie frowned and looked back at it. The outline of the car straightened.
“You can see the spellwork,” Thornwood said. He tilted his head as though it was a question rather than a statement of fact.
“I don’t know. I had never seen a spell before I met you.”
“Can you still see it now?” he asked. Mouse squinted.
“Just snippets of it. It looks like it’s trying to escape out of itself.”
His lips tightened, and the motorcar went completely solid.
“Are you working magic?” Mouse asked.
“Just strengthening the spell. You should not be able to see it at its loosest, let alone when I have tightened it. I am more out of practice than I thought.”
“I did not realize that Faeries needed to practice their magic.”
Thornwood did not respond, but his jaw twitched.
So, the question bothered him, Mouse thought.Interesting.
A vision of Thistlemarsh with bursts of magic coming off it like sunbeams sprang to mind. “Could something like that happen to Thistlemarsh as you are fixing it?”
“No. Your price will be enough to set the magic in place. Besides, the Rolls is an illusion. I will properly transform the house.”
“Speaking of my price, a warning would have been appreciated.”
“What are you talking about?” Thornwood asked, brushing past her and through the open doors. Mouse followed close behind. She shoved her hand before his face.
“Oh, only it would have been nice to know my finger disappeared in mirrors or water before I found out for myself through a horrifying ordeal in the middle of the night.”
“You’re lucky I did not take the entire digit away, girl,” the Faerie snapped.
“I am not complaining about the price,” Mouse said. “I’ve made my bed. I just would have liked a warning!”
“You should not be able to see that the finger is missing at all, even in your reflection. I will remedy the issue,” Thornwood said. He held his hand out toward her.
Mouse flung her hand behind her back. “No.”
His brows furrowed. “Well, what would you like me to do?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Mouse said. It was pointless to argue with him about the terms of what he’d taken. After all, she was not planning to give him anything else. “It was frightening, that’s all.”
He sighed. “It is hard for me to remember that humans are so unused to magic now. It has only been a hundred years, but the very sight of it frightens you.”