1st January—Late
1st January—late
The place once known as the King’s Grove is located in the forested hillside behind the castle, accessed by a lantern-lined path, one of many that winds through the royal forest. It comprises a half-dozen massive oaks, including one taller than any tree I’ve seen, with great spreading branches that form a little clearing around its circumference. Between roots that rise from the earth like the ribs of a terrible giant are two thrones, both relatively unadorned and made from strange, twisted bundles of wood, which I eventually realized were more roots that had forced themselves up through the earth from unknown depths. I did not enjoy sitting upon my throne, though it was made comfortable with several cushions, in part because I could not help envisioning those roots eventually growing tired of bearing a tedious mortal like me and dragging me into the earth. The throne smelled of deep, dank caverns and icy springs that have never known sunlight.
I had wondered if Wendell might feel strange issuing commands to his subjects; at Cambridge, he generally relied on charm and deception, rather than his position of authority, to get what he wanted. But I need not have worried. He delivered his judgments with an offhand and good-natured sort of imperiousness, seeming to have accepted his new role—which, I suppose, was not entirely new, as before his exile he’d held the throne for a brief period—as easily as he accepted any other luxury that came into his life, whether it was a sumptuous feast or fine garment. Namely, as if it were as natural as the earth beneath his feet.
Yet while Wendell’s mood started off cheerful, as the day wore on, and the queue of supplicants seemed barely to diminish at all, he began to indulge in a great deal of sighing and rubbing at his hair.
And there were all manner of supplicants.
These included courtiers, of course, who mostly came to bow and congratulate Wendell on ridding the realm of Queen Arna, whom, the courtiers assured us through simpering smiles, they had always abhorred. I did not trust a single one of them, though Wendell accepted their allegiance carelessly. And there were also brownies and trooping fae with complaints, many revolving around the invaders who trampled their homes and disturbed their industry, though some had other concerns that I could not understand—one seemed to be involved in a dispute with the morning dew?—because of their thick dialects. One of these was a dishevelled little clap-can who seemed to have lost all but one of his bells. [*1] His feet were covered in a sticky grey substance like the webbing of some oversized spider. Upon his skin were several weeping scabs that made Wendell swear and leap up from his throne. He healed the faerie with a single touch, but the creature would answer no questions after, merely muttering in a desperate voice, “Must keep going,” before fleeing into the forest.
“Bloody invaders,” Wendell said to me, rearranging himself on his throne in a slouch.
“You think they were the cause of his injuries?” I said.
“I’ve never seen a wound like that in my realm.” Wendell shook his head. “They have strange magics in Where the Ravens Hide.”
I opened my mouth to question him further, thinking of Queen Arna’s curse—and yet, hadn’t Callum said the poisoned groves had been burned? But then the next faerie was coming forward, and I was forced to redirect my thoughts.
Several Folk, including one bedraggled member of the queen’s guard, who looked as if he had not stopped drinking since Wendell’s return, challenged him to duels. Wendell won each of these handily, though he refused to fight the drunken guard, and merely lifted his hand and turned the man’s sword into a stick, at which point the guard broke down sobbing and had to be led away by two servants.
I wished to take notes, but restrained myself. It was not required of me, of course, for Niamh sat to Wendell’s left, tapping away on a braille typewriter. The matter-of-fact clack-clacking of the keys was calming, but on the whole I felt awkward and uncomfortable for the entire afternoon. I wore the simplest of the dresses the servants had offered me, deep green with small yellow flowers embroidered into the bodice, beneath my star-strewn cloak, but naturally this did not make me feel any more a queen of Faerie. I sat up straight, feigning equanimity, trying to behave as mortals in such circumstances do in the stories—they are generally portrayed as plucky, down-to-earth creatures unimpressed by the glitter and elegance of Faerie. I do not believe I had much success. Most Folk, if they looked my way at all, eyed me with disdain or suspicion.
Wendell, on the other hand, could not have looked more like a monarch of Faerie. He was luxuriously but simply attired in all black, a row of small silver buttons the only adornment on his tunic, which naturally he had tailored to perfection himself, and a pair of sharp-toed riding boots. In place of a crown, leaves and flowers had been woven into his hair, plucked fresh that morning and then glazed by the royal silversmith, a particularly extravagant tradition, as the process needed to be repeated each day with fresh flora. (I had refused a similar headpiece, knowing my hair would resemble a bird’s nest by day’s end.) He had on his terrifying cloak, of course, the hem draped over the arm of the throne and onto the forest floor. Occasionally, it would stir and grumble to itself, or slither towards a terrified courtier, growling, before Wendell yanked it back.
Completing the picture was Razkarden, who perched upon the back of Wendell’s throne, his many legs digging into the wood as he fixed his ancient, malevolent gaze upon the assembled Folk. He attempted to settle on my throne once, but Wendell, with a quick glance at me, called him back.
I could not stop my gaze from sliding to Wendell throughout the day. I am used to him in mortal clothes, against mortal backdrops, and while he was even more beautiful in his native context, I also at times had the impression that he had faded into the wonders around me, becoming part of them, as if something about him had lost its definition when seen through my mortal eyes. At one point I realized I was fantasizing about seizing his hand and dragging us both back to the mortal world. It was partly homesickness for Cambridge, I believe. It kept jabbing at me like a knife. Particularly the memory of my office: the snug proportions and neatly organized papers and bookshelves; the morning light streaming over the desk and the tidy greenery of lawn and pond beyond the window.
As I was contemplating this, he met my gaze, then waved the courtier before us away.
“I’m all right,” I said.
“Em,” he said, leaning close, “even the most fire-breathing of dragons is allowed to tire of its occupation sometimes. I’ve had enough of this. Haven’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, sighing with relief. To my astonishment, the sky was beginning to take on a lavender hue, the afternoon blurring into twilight, and the lanterns along the path were flickering to life against the dark trees.
“Where have the fauns got to?” I asked. The fuchszwerge I caught glimpses of here and there, watching us from the trees, while the trolls, I understood, were building themselves a series of workshops somewhere down by the lake, but the fauns had disappeared the previous evening.
“Oh, I have given them a new assignment,” he said.
I frowned, suspicious. “What new assignment?”
He laughed. “Nothing terrible, I promise. Not that they wouldn’t deserve it, the little beasts. Now, shall we—” He stopped, his gaze drifting back to the Grove.
A woman of the courtly fae had stepped out of the trees, ignoring the still-lengthy queue, the foremost members of which grumbled and glared at her. Her eyes were much too wide-set and her nose too large for her face, but she was beautiful, the unusual, arresting variety of beauty that many of the Folk possess. Her hair was a spill of dark feathers, her dress a dozen shades of black. I remembered her immediately—she had been one of the more disturbing members of our audience last night.
“Your Highnesses,” she said, bowing at us both, before rising with a malicious smile. She carried a sword at her side.
“You again,” Wendell said, frowning. “You will have no luck here, Lady. I advise you to put your sword down and return to the trees uninjured.”
“But I have waited an age,” the woman replied in a voice much older than her face. “My hunger for vengeance grows like ivy, strangling my heart with each passing season. I thought your stepmother had denied me my chance.”
“Very well,” Wendell said. “I would lift your curse, if I could—but I can see no way through my father’s magics.”
“I want nothing from you,” she spat. “Only your blood on my sword.”
I had no idea what was going on, but this faerie looked every bit as unhinged and dangerous as she sounded. “Please tell me you are not going to fight her,” I said in disbelief.
“Don’t worry, Em,” he said, for naturally this was exactly what he was about to do. “This poor wretch will not trouble us long.”
Sighing, he stood and picked up his sword. He and the raven-haired faerie circled each other for a few moments—Wendell did not seem enthusiastic about another swordfight. Eventually, she charged, sword flashing. The Folk in the queue, as well as the various courtiers who had gathered in the forest shadows to watch the proceedings, cheered and clapped.
The woman was more skilled than any other Wendell had fought that day—she ducked and wove like a dancer, her midnight skirts twirling about her. There was a pause in the fight, and Wendell heaved another sigh. I realized he had been hoping to win without exerting himself particularly. When the woman charged him again, he met her with an impossible series of parries, and then—I did not perceive the moment he disarmed her—her sword was sailing over our heads and into the forest. Two courtiers ran after it, giggling. Wendell put his hand on the raven-haired faerie’s shoulder as if in commiseration. Then, with his other hand, he drove his sword into her chest.
A strangled sound escaped me. Wendell had angled the sword slightly upwards, the motion calculated and precise, and I realized with a shudder that it must have been to ensure that the woman did not linger. He murmured briefly in her ear and stepped back.
The woman’s face was twisted in a peevish sort of scowl, as if he had done nothing worse than beat her at a hand of cards. She collapsed against the moss, and her body began to contort, bones snapping and shrinking and feathers bursting through her fine silks. A heartbeat later, a crow hunched in her place, and then it launched itself into the air, flapping at Wendell’s head before Razkarden chased it into the forest.
As I stared in mute silence at the place where the woman had lain, Wendell plucked a feather from his hair and fell back into his throne.
“She will remain that way for as long as my reign lasts,” he said, twirling the feather idly between his fingers. “It is her curse, placed upon her by my father long before I was born. The magic releases her from her crow form only briefly to challenge each of my father’s descendants when they ascend the throne. To break the curse, she must slay one of us, else she is returned to the treetops.”
Good Lord . It was nonsensical even by the standards of Faerie. “And what was her crime, that your father doomed herthus?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Wendell said. “It was so long ago that most Folk have forgotten. I suppose her fate must have made sense to him; he enjoyed constructing elaborate punishments for those who angered him. I remember him of an evening, chuckling to himself by the fire. Poor thing!”
“I see,” I said noncommittally—the fate of the vengeful faerie woman was appalling, but I could summon little sympathy for her. I found I had trouble focusing my thoughts. It was as if I had been holding my composure in place by a thread, and this final bizarre incident had snapped it.
“What a wearying day!” Wendell exclaimed, though he’d spent most of it lounging upon his throne, sipping an array of coffees supplied by the eager red-faced servants, who seemed to be having a private competition over which blend he would prefer. He waved away the next petitioner, a faerie woman who pouted prettily at him. “I’d almost rather be in a lecture hall,” he said. “Well, I refuse to exert myself further. I look forward to having all of this”—he waved a hand vaguely—“sorted out, so that I can spend most of my days at leisure, as one should.”
“Your stepmother kept herself busy starting wars,” I pointed out.
“Ah, but that was merely her way of amusing herself. My father enjoyed receiving supplicants, but that was because he always liked holding court. He very rarely resolved anything, and often made the situation worse.”
I mulled this over. Kaur has theorized that most faerie monarchs rule through a sort of capricious neglect, and that their true role is as an animus for the magics of their realm, rather than a head of state in the human sense. [*2]
He stood and offered me his hand. “Let’s go home.”
“You wanted a picnic.”
“That can wait. Come—the servants will see the rest of these Folk off.”
As soon as we left the Grove, Wendell led me off the path and through a screen of tall ferns, which thickened behind us, growing so tall they blocked even the lantern light.
“Where on earth are we going?” I groused.
Wendell turned and clasped my hands between his. He looked so anxious and dejected that it brought me up short—I’m not certain I’ve ever seen such an expression on his face before.
“Do you wish to return to Cambridge, Em?” he said. “Because if that is the case, you need only say the word. I suppose I could return to teaching—perhaps I could do both, or install a regent here, to rule in my stead. If there is one thing I will not stand for, it is for you to be unhappy—”
“No, indeed!” I exclaimed. He appeared to have worked himself up into a proper speech, so I put my hand over his mouth. And then—my initial thought was that this would be more efficient than arguing with him—I pulled his face to mine and kissed him.
As I had guessed, he forgot all about what he had been saying, and pulled me closer. His lips tasted like the salt the servants had sprinkled onto the coffee—quite agreeable. I stopped thinking, something I rarely do, and for a moment there was only the hum of crickets and rustling of night creatures in the trees.
He drew back and touched my cheek, his dark eyes searching mine. A flickering, moon-coloured glow had appeared above us—he had summoned a light.
“I mean it,” he murmured. So not quite so forgetful, then. The light caught on the silvered flowers in his hair and made him look even more inconveniently otherworldly than he already did, but I found that when I focused on small, familiar things, like the way his mouth came up slightly higher on the left side, and how his green eyes leaned more yellow than blue, I was able to disregard this.
“I know,” I replied. “I have brought myself here, Wendell—Iam not some poor maiden who stumbled unawares through a ring of mushrooms. You can trust me to tell you if I change my mind.”
“All right.” He swept his gaze over me, then pulled me into his arms almost matter-of-factly. “That’s enough of that.”
“Enough of what?”
“You’re shaking.”
To my astonishment, I realized that I was, and had been for some time. He held me until I was still, gently combing through my hair, and I leaned my forehead against the curve of his neck. I could smell the wildflowers in his hair.
“I don’t know what I should call you,” I mumbled into his shoulder.
He gave a breath of laughter and drew back. “You haven’t been worrying about that, have you? It doesn’t matter what you call me, Em. You may choose whichever name you like. You said you didn’t want my true name.”
“I still don’t,” I said. The idea of having that sort of power over him filled me with disquiet. In the stories, whenever a mortal is granted such power over the Folk, she will always be forced to use it. “I would prefer to call you Wendell.”
“Good!” He kissed me again. “Do you know? That name is more comfortable to me now, after all these years, than Liathis.”
I felt suddenly worried that I hadn’t been understood. “It’s not that I dislike your name. I don’t dislike your realm, either—quite the contrary. But even after all my studies, after all I’ve learned over the years, this is so much— What I mean is, even to compare it to the Hidden king’s realm, it is, well—”
“So much,” he finished.
I let my breath out. “So much.”
“I thought it might be,” he said. “Let me show you something.”
He seemed so pleased with himself that I was instantly apprehensive. “Please let it not be a dress that mutters to itself, or contains anything other than fabric.”
He laughed. “Far better than that.”
We returned to the castle, where we were met by servants who trailed unobtrusively behind us. I found that I had a firm grasp of the layout, as if I carried a map in my head, despite my also knowing, somehow, that it was likely to shift at the whims of its occupants. The main level was a series of large galleries, some empty and moss-floored, others elaborately furnished sitting rooms or displays of art and statuary. In one gallery, a group of ladies sat at tea, twilight streaming through the windows as tiny brownies serenaded them with reed pipes. They beamed at us when we passed and waved us over, but Wendell merely called out a merry greeting and swept me along. In another room, several mortals admired paintings of village scenes that seemed human-made, beautiful but mundane. Throughout the place, the light shifted oddly, and shadows of leaves and wind-tossed branches scattered the floor, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of the trees that had stood there before the castle was built.
We mounted the largest of the five staircases to the uppermost floor, where we found Shadow sprawled across the landing, keeping a woebegone eye on all who passed. As soon as he saw us, he leapt upon me, then Wendell, tail lashing so hard he generated a breeze.
Lord Taran awaited us in Wendell’s reception room, perched upon one of the window seats and looking resentful. “It has been a very long day, Your Highnesses,” he said in a complaining tone, gesturing towards the small crowd of courtly fae gathered at the other end of the room, who eyed us nervously. At the centre of these was a woman with brown skin and tangled white tresses that trailed upon the floor, woven with bits of grass and leaves.
“I have no doubt of that,” I said, before Wendell could speak. Recalling what Callum had said that morning, I added, “Thank you, Lord Taran. For everything you have done forus.”
This seemed to bring him up short, and he blinked at me for a moment. “Yes, it is a great deal of work, keeping you two alive,” he said. “I wonder if it is worth the effort.”
“I shall not presume to try to influence your opinion on that score,” I said. “I wish only to express my gratitude—and Wendell’s—and to say that I am aware of how fortunate we are to be assisted by the most venerated person in the realm. You could easily have chosen otherwise.”
“And I may yet, if I am forced to endure your childish attempts at flattery,” he said, and yet some of the irritation drained from his eyes, replaced by the familiar glint of amusement. I was reminded, unaccountably, of Snowbell, and I had to press my lips together to suppress my smile.
“I have summoned a Council for you, my king,” Taran said, nodding to the other courtly fae. “Most of these served your father, or your grandparents before him. Choose who you like, or discard the lot; it’s all one to me.”
“Oh, good,” Wendell said blithely. “I’ll speak with them momentarily. Emily, this is the Lady East Wind—she is the only one I like. Well, Lord Wherry is all right, I suppose; or so I thought before I heard it was he who murdered one of my brothers.”
I thought I could guess who Lord Wherry was from the greyish pallor his already pale face took on. The Lady East Wind—she of the radiant white tresses—stood and offered me her hand. When I placed my palm against hers, she bowed her head and kissed my fingertips. “Your Highness,” she said gravely.
“Emily,” I corrected her inanely, my surprise getting the better of me.
“Queen Emily,” she said, gazing at me with a hungry sort of interest that made me wish to run away. I found myself longing for the dismissive looks of the courtiers in the Grove. Fortunately, Wendell took my hand and drew me away.
“I shall await you in the garden, Your Highnesses,” the Lady East Wind said. “I grow more weary of confinement with each passing year.”
“As you wish,” Wendell said, flashing her a charming smile. She smiled back, and then abruptly vanished. A heartbeat later, a wind stirred our hair and blasted the window open, rustling the branches beyond as it went.
“Wait a moment,” I said, staring at the window, which swayed gently on its hinges. “Is that—is she really the East Wind?”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Wendell replied, as if he had never given the matter much thought.
Another prospective councillor stepped forward and inclined her head. She, too, seemed to take more interest in me than I was used to, which I disliked even more than the Lady East Wind’s attention. Because I had noticed this immensely intimidating faerie before—at the banquet last night, and this morning, watching Wendell and me in the Grove. According to Wendell, she was an exile from another court, and her name was unknown to him, even in part; she was referred to by her usual attire, a crimson cloak. This cloak left a trail of what looked like blood behind it wherever the Lady went, as if she had recently come from a gruesome murder scene. Her skin was the variegated colour of birch bark, her hair waves of burnt gold, and she was as beautiful as a summer’s twilight, though she would have been more so, in my opinion, if she did not also have blood in her hair, and upon her hands.
“It would be an honour to serve you both, Your Highnesses,” the Lady in the Crimson Cloak told us, her gaze lingering upon me.
I nodded in reply, silently willing her to turn back to Wendell. He meanwhile smiled at the Lady as if she were not at present leaving ghastly stains upon the carpeting and said, “It is dull work, but you have our gratitude. Excuse us.”
He led me from the room. I muttered, “I doubt I will ever associate the feeling of gratitude with that horror. Must we put her on the Council?”
“Not if you object,” Wendell said. “Do you?”
“No,” I said, after a pause. There were a great many monsters in Wendell’s court—I was going to have to get used to them at some point. “Only you know so little about her. What court is she exiled from? What was her crime? And what about this Lady East Wind—why did she stare at me so?”
“I know little about most of them,” Wendell replied with a sigh. “As I said, I did not spend my youth in the most productive manner. Those old and venerable enough to serve on our Council were not exactly part of my social circle.”
I opened my mouth again, but before I could get another word out, Wendell continued in a warning tone, “It was thoughtful of you to praise my uncle, Em. But if you believe him to possess a kindly nature beneath all that spite, you are much mistaken. As general, he took great pleasure in torturing my grandparents’ enemies—not for reasons of loyalty, but because he relished the opportunity to invent creative forms of pain. I may not be well acquainted with many of the respectable Folk of my realm, but he at least I can warn you against befriending.”
A little chill went through me. “Noted,” I said.
Wendell pulled me on, through a room filled with crates and a jumble of furniture, and down a corridor that ended at a door I recognized.
“The bookbinders!” I said. This was not the bookbinders’ door, but it made me remember my ill-fated exploration that morning. “Wendell, all those journals—did you—”
“Ah, you found them!” He turned to smile at me. “You needn’t thank me, Em. That was but a small wedding gift.”
“Small!” I exclaimed, remembering the dozens of journals, all beautiful beyond measure—so beautiful, in fact, that I could scarcely imagine despoiling them with my inelegant handwriting.
“I mean for you to have everything you could ever want,” he said. “While we’re on the subject.”
He gave me a smile that filled me with foreboding, it was so mischievous. But he was already opening the door and pulling me through, Shadow at my heels.
The view was as I remembered—the misty waterfall, the treed hillside, the little stone cottage. But I had only had a quick glance that morning, and I realized that I made an incorrect assumption on one rather key point.
“This isn’t Faerie,” I murmured. “It’s—”
“Corbann,” Wendell said. “Well, the edge of Corbann, in County Leane. It’s a pretty village, as mortal villages go. This door was once located in the woods beyond Silverlily Lake. I used it myself once or twice when I was a teenager. I couldn’t have opened it from this side, for my stepmother had used an enchantment to seal it against me, but that was easy to undo last night, from the Faerie side. And then I simply moved the door into the castle.”
“Yes, that all sounds perfectly straightforward,” I murmured.
The last vestiges of daylight filtered through the mist that drifted off the waterfall—it was a chilly winter twilight, but welcome nevertheless. Welcome, because it was somehow distinctly mortal. For a long moment, I simply stared. Wendell waited, looking pleased but anxious, as does one who gives a gift that involved a great deal of guesswork as to the recipient’s desires. Shadow, meanwhile, snuffled happily at a patch of clover, either unaware or uncaring that we had been abruptly returned to the mortal world; but then, to him, all the worlds are merely one vast canvas of smells.
“Why have you brought me here?” I said at last.
“I thought it might be helpful. For most mortals it takes time to become accustomed to living in Faerie—even those under royal protection. It can be very wearying. Niamh seems comfortable now, but I know those first years were a trial for her. I felt it would be additionally trying for you, perhaps, given your previous sojourn in a Faerie court. So! I decided to offer you a bolt-hole of sorts. Here you may come to escape from courtiers and common fae alike, or simply to have a quiet place to scowl at your books. Do you like it? I would have preferred something more grand for a queen of Faerie, but then I know your preference for rustic accommodation.”
There was another moment during which I could not speak. “But when did you do all this?” I finally demanded weakly. “The bookbinders—this portal? I cannot imagine you accomplishing all this last night.”
“You needn’t look so astonished,” he said, unfolding his collar against the damp. “As I told you before, Em, being disinclined to exert oneself overmuch is not the same as being incapable. Now: I must tell you how it works.”
He spun me around, facing the direction whence we came. I didn’t need to ask what he was indicating, for the faerie door was as clear as day to my trained eye. Within the grasses, half covered in moss, was a scatter of flat stones. Most mortals would have taken them for a natural formation, as that sort of speckled stone was everywhere. But I could see that they formed a rough little path that bent towards a grove of oaks.
“Any mortal could stumble into the private chambers of faerie royalty,” I said, an absurd laugh rising in my throat.
“I doubt it,” he said. “Few villagers come this way. They believe that waterfall there to be faerie-haunted—which is only a little inaccurate, for certainly a great many Folk from my realm have made use of this door over the generations. And one must tread upon each of the stones to pass through, which is difficult to do by chance.”
As I stuttered and fumbled my words—I think I was trying to thank him, but another part of me wished to protest all these indulgences—he leaned forward and kissed me.
“Don’t tarry here too long,” he murmured against my lips. “I shall miss you too much, and come to regret this.” He turned and stepped from stone to stone as if they were little islands in a rushing stream. And then, as he moved from one stone to the next, he vanished.
I turned back to the cottage, feeling as if I were in a dream. It was winter, but this was Ireland, and one of the southernmost counties at that, so everything was still very green. I was not cold in my cloak, though a scarf would have been nice, for the damp breeze had a chill. My initial thought was that the countryside reminded me a great deal of Wendell’s realm, but with fewer trees and a welcome sense of the mundane about it. Oh, it was beautiful, but the trees here were trees, not leering monstrosities, and none of the landscape features seemed inclined to change position on a whim. It was coherent, unambiguous, and immensely restful to my eyes.
Moving slowly, I made my way up the path to the cottage. A dry stone wall enclosed a little garden—a vegetable patch and a few clay pots of flowers, leafless and slumbering in the January evening. A mountain range loomed in the distance, snow adorning a few of the higher peaks. Far gentler than the towering heights of Austria, of course, but pretty in its own way.
The door was unlocked, but as I turned the knob, I had a moment of misgiving. Someone was moving about within— Iheard a clanking sound, then a series of thumps, as if they were in the process of preparing a meal. Had Wendell installed a fleet of servants in the place to cater to my whims? It seemed likely, and I wondered if it would be possible to send them away; cooking my own supper would be preferable to being waited on and having to work out their expectations of me, where I would no doubt fall short.
I looked over my shoulder, and for a moment I considered simply going back. It was not only the idea of servants; I did not like that there was now a world between Wendell and me. It filled me with a foreboding that I did not care for, though I could not guess what it signified. In addition to that, Wendell’s realm was still a threat to him, with enemies everywhere, and I had little faith in his sense of caution.
The faerie door glimmered faintly—with damp, a mortal would assume, but I knew better. I turned from it with a sigh. I did not want to spurn Wendell’s gift, particularly given the thoughtfulness behind it. I would remain in the mortal realm for an hour or two, then return to Faerie.
I pushed the door open. Warmth and light spilled over me, together with the smell of stew and baking bread. The main room of the cottage was low-ceilinged and cosy, a fire burning merrily in the hearth, before which were several comfortable armchairs. On the other side of the cottage was the kitchen, and through the open door I saw a pretty, dark-haired woman with a curious scar upon her forehead. She was chopping carrots at the table, pausing occasionally to tuck her hair behind her ear or toss a comment over her shoulder at her companion, whom I could not see. The cottage was full of their voices and laughter.
I removed my cloak and boots, my hands trembling slightly, and hung the cloak on the hanger by the door. Then I stepped into the kitchen.
Margret looked up from the carrots and gave a cry. Lilja, who was peering into the oven at a tray of buns, let the door swing shut with a bang.
“Emily!” she exclaimed, springing upon me with a delighted laugh. Margret circled around the two of us, alternately patting me on the back and crying, “Let her breathe, dear, let her breathe!”
I drew back, half convinced I had stumbled through yet another faerie door. “What” was all I could get out.
“Oh, dear.” Lilja guided me over to a chair. “Wendell said he wanted to surprise you—I see he went through with it.”
“Here, drink this,” Margret said, pouring me a cup of tea, then adding a liberal splash of something from a bottle. “You look like you need it!”
I took a sip. The something turned out to be rum. I downed the lot and set the cup back down.
“There we are,” Margret said with a laugh. I laughed along with her. Now that my shock was fading, I realized how happy I was to see them.
“You’d best explain yourselves,” I said. “After the day I’ve had, I’m afraid I’m ill-equipped to deal with surprises, even agreeable ones.”
“Wendell wrote to us, of course,” Lilja said. “When was it? November, I think. He wished to know if we would like a little holiday—how did he put it? Oh, yes: ‘Where winter is a peaceable, rainy season, and one need not insulate oneself with dead animals to venture out of doors.’ You know, I don’t think he will ever take to Ljosland.”
“He might also have mentioned that you would be visiting us from time to time,” Margret said, poking the silver-threaded lace on my gown playfully. “When you desire a reprieve from running a faerie kingdom. We arrived last week, and I believe we shall remain for another month or two.”
“We never had a proper honeymoon,” Lilja said. “We’ve simply been too busy—it’s a great deal of work, running one’s own house! So we couldn’t possibly have said no, particularly when we heard we would see you again.”
“And—” I glanced about me, taking in the shelves of neatly stacked pots and pans, the brushed stone floor and the vases of flowers on the windowsills. “And this place is—?”
“It’s a mortal cottage, not something faerie-conjured,” Lilja said. “Wendell told us it was abandoned long ago, and that Folk would stay here sometimes when they visited the mortal world. It was in decent shape when we arrived, just a little musty. We’ve done some cleaning and minor repairs—the villagers lent a hand there. And Wendell came by last night and did—well, I’m not sure what. He only swept the floor and did a bit of tidying up, but afterwards it seemed a new place.” She pointed to a vase of lilies. “He also brought these—they’ve not lost a single petal. In fact, I think they’ve grown bigger.”
“I quite like it here,” Margret said. “It’s ever so peaceful not having relatives knocking on your door at all hours, and the village is only a short stroll away. And there’s a lovely path up to the waterfall; you must join us for a walk in the morning. Lilja was chopping wood in her shirtsleeves yesterday—not once have we needed to shovel any snow.”
They chattered on about their stay thus far—evidently, it was the first time either of them had ventured beyond Ljosland, and they were almost as awed by the experience as I had been by my first visit to Faerie. I had the sense that they had a great many questions they wished to ask, but also that they were holding back, allowing me the respite of sitting quietly and listening, voicing only murmurs of interest or agreement.
“Well, what do you think?” Lilja said, flashing me a smile as she rose to remove the buns from the oven. “Do you like what you’ve seen of the place so far? Wendell seemed anxious that you should be happy here. He asked me to make note of anything I thought could be improved.”
“Yes,” I said, mostly succeeding in hiding the wobble in my voice. “I like it quite well.” And we tucked in to our supper.
Skip Notes
*1 This I found more concerning than anything else, for clap-cans carry their bells wherever they go, and are said to protect them with their lives.
*2 Naya Kaur, “Towards a Less Anthropocentric View of Faerie Governance: Examples from Wallonia,” Journal of Social Dryadology, 1905.