Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde #3)

17th January

I’ve not had much time for journalling these past few days. Now it is dark, and I am alone here by the fire in our bedroom; Wendell has once again gone to the royal forest to do what he can to stop the spread of the curse. The area is too big to burn without the entire hill going up in flames, and the gardens with it. We have abandoned any attempt to locate or burn other corrupted groves, though we know they continue to appear throughout the realm like diseased sores. Refugees have begun to arrive at the palace by the dozens, Folk of all descriptions from brownies to solitary courtly fae, many of whom, intriguingly, have the look of brownies in all but height, often being clad in woven moss and other flora. They are encamped in the gardens, the pavilion, wherever there is space for them. If I look out the window, I can see the flicker of their lanterns and campfires like tiny stars.

All our energies remain focused on finding Queen Arna.

The old queen’s hairdresser turned out to be my hairdresser, the wrinkled faerie who daily—and often painfully—twists my hair into plaits and chignons. He was a dour, scowling creature who—I had convinced myself—was voicing innumerable insults about my lifeless hair behind my back, but he did exceptional work, which I assumed was why the queen had favoured him so. Perhaps, being half mortal, she had been similarly deficient when it came to cosmetology, and relied on him to help her blend into the sea of beauty that is a Faerie court.

The hairdresser was not as averse to divulging the queen’s secrets as the butter faerie. In fact, he looked coldly pleased to be brought before Wendell, and not at all surprised.

“My pay is low for the quality of services I provide, Your Highness,” he said, and I realized he had been planning for this moment.

“Is it!” Wendell said, sharing an exasperated look with me. “And in what coin did my stepmother pay you?”

“Tarry seeds,” the brownie said, an odd sort of hunger in his eyes. “And a silver melon at midsummer.”

“Naturally,” Wendell muttered under his breath, looking put out for some reason. Were tarry seeds or silver melons difficult to acquire? I meant to ask him, but I forgot. I have not been getting much sleep these days.

“Very well,” Wendell said. “Your pay shall be doubled.”

The faerie drew himself up to his full height—a little higher than my waist. I could not help admiring his confidence. But then, I suppose, when one possesses a singular mastery of a trade, one is less worried about losing one’s employment—or one’s life. “Tripled,” he said.

“Tripled,” Wendell agreed, looking half amused and half irritated. “But if you persist in wasting my time while my realm comes apart, you shall receive not one seed between now and the day you die, which may arrive much sooner than you were imagining.”

The hairdresser frowned at this, some of his confidence ebbing. It was clear that he was considered a lord in his particular domain, and unaccustomed to mundane worries about his physical safety. However, he also seemed pleased with the outcome of his haggling, though in a self-righteous sort of way, as if he had only been given his due. I found his triumph annoying, given how frequently he jabbed me with pins or yanked my hair so hard he pulled out strands. But then I am not the easiest of clients to make over into a queen.

The faerie bowed low. “Your Highness, I know not where the old queen has gone. However, I can tell you there was one problem with which we struggled, the two of us, which remains a mystery to myself. You see, the old queen’s hair was sometimes tangled with thorns.”

Wendell’s eyes narrowed, and I felt that ghost-chill down my back again. “Thorns,” he repeated.

“Yes. It did not happen often, but I remember each occasion well, for the thorns were devilishly tricky to remove—one less skillful than myself would have had to cut them out, I’m certain.” He paused, as if to give us adequate time to process this triumph. “The queen would sometimes spend a day or two away from court, taking with her no servants, and none knew whither she went. But always upon her return, she would summon me, and I would spend an hour or more picking thorns from her hair. They were curious little things. Double-barbed, like horns.”

“Nothing sinister in that at all,” Niamh muttered from the table beside us, where she was taking notes. Wendell dismissed the creature, and we gazed at each other.

“That makes two,” he said, and I nodded. Orga, perched on the table in her tucked-away posture, paws hidden beneath her umbral frame, gave me a look that seemed to have more disapproval in it than is customary with cats. I affected not to notice.