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

5th February

Time shifted when Wendell died, falling out of tune with the mortal realm. What felt like two days to me was about a fortnight for Lilja and Margret, judging by the calendar on the wall of the cottage. I wish I could work out a way to explain this fear—it would greatly unburden me, but I suspect they will only look at me as if I am a puzzle they cannot solve, and can they be blamed for this? I should feel only happiness now that Wendell is returned to me—as happy as they felt when Wendell and I retrieved them from the Hidden Ones, restoring them to themselves and each other.

But I am getting ahead of myself again. Before I speak of the cottage, let me return to where I left off.

—

Wendell’s first inclination upon waking from the dead was, naturally, to throw a party. At this he failed, for a party was already unfolding. A troupe of musicians had established themselves on the lakeshore below the gardens, where there is a large pavilion; another was set up in the banquet hall, which, when Wendell and I arrived, we found already bursting with a chaotic array of food. There were oysters from the southern coast, whole roasted trout, a bubbling vat of caramel for dipping apples, and bread loaves positioned randomly about the room, as well as the queer blue sandwich cakes that were a court favourite—the blue came from blueberry preserves and a sharp cheese, which were layered with a sweet cloudlike batter. From the look and smell of the things, they should have been dreadful, but I had already acquired a taste for them.

Naturally, everyone wanted to talk to Wendell, who was ever in his element in such a circumstance. Few among the courtly fae were interested in hearing from either myself or the oíche sidhe who had restored Wendell to life, which was no great surprise, and I did not mind standing silently at Wendell’s side like a shadow. But he kept bringing the conversation back to me, declaring that he would still be dead, and the kingdom in tatters, if not for his queen. He was convincing enough that this had the effect of transforming the disdain of the courtly fae into amazement when they looked at me—aquestionable improvement; I never had the sense that there was much warmth in it. I was a puzzle to them now, where before I had been a triviality.

It had all happened so quickly that I found myself swept along with the festivities and Wendell’s pure delight, which I could not very well begrudge him. After all, his beloved home was whole again, and his stepmother properly out of the way. It felt very much like an ending, and my trepidation was still a formless thing; I did not know how to name it.

“I must speak with you,” I said, stumbling a little over my words—I was inexpressibly weary by that point.

Wendell stopped midsentence, gazing at me with surprise that shifted almost instantly into guilt. He waved the courtiers away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, leading me out of the room. “I should have known you would find all that tedious.”

“You need not apologize,” I said, smiling at the earnestness in his expression. A lightness overcame me; I felt as if I would never stop smiling. “I would have preferred not to drag you away from the party. I know you wish to celebrate your stepmother’s defeat, but—”

“What?” Wendell said, staring at me. The butterflies and other crawling things had abandoned his hair, thankfully, though several spiderwebs remained, which made an odd contrast with the silvered roses two of the servants had added to the golden waves. “Do you think that is why I am in such a good mood? Oh, Em.”

“Your brush with death, then,” I said. “I don’t wish to imply that I was little affected by it, that I was confident all along that it was impermanent. I was not. I have never felt—” I was unable to finish the sentence, and I realized abruptly that I was shivering again, despite the warmth of the castle. “But Wendell, there is something not right in all this—”

“My brush with death!” Wendell said, with nothing more than exasperation in his voice, as if he were resurrected at least once a season. “Emily, Emily. Do you not know the main reason I am so happy? We were married not long ago—a mere hour or two, to my recollection . Or did you forget?”

I stared at him for a long moment.

“I’m afraid I did,” I said at last.

He began to laugh. It went on so long that he had to lean against the wall, wiping at his eyes.

“There was rather a lot to distract me!” I said hotly.

He eventually recovered, though his face was still red, and the roses had become tangled in his hair. “Might I suggest a different form of distraction?”

I gave a soft laugh. My thoughts were in disarray. I wanted to argue with him; I wanted to touch him again, to assure myself once more that he was real. I needed to think. But then he smiled at me in such a way that I found myself saying, “I have no objection.”

I allowed him to lead me away from the party and halfway up the stairs before the nagging voice grew too insistent and I pulled him to a stop. He turned to look at me with a question in his eyes.

“You must pull your stepmother out,” I said. “What you did to her—it is all wrong.”

“Wrong?” Wendell looked baffled. “Em, she would have torn the realm to pieces. She nearly killed you on that island!”

“I don’t mean that,” I said. “She deserves the fate you have given her. But the story is wrong.”

The words sounded hollow—I knew they were true, but I did not know why yet, and how could I explain it to him, when I could not explain it to myself? Still, though, he waited patiently for me to finish.

“Don’t you trust me?” I demanded at last, frustrated.

At that, his expression grew solemn. “Naturally I do. If you believe some misfortune will befall me because I was too harsh with my stepmother, then I will expect it. But Em, I cannot—I will not—watch her poison these lands again. Nor will I watch her threaten you, which she has done now on two occasions. I will suffer whatever fate awaits me to avoid putting you in danger again, and when that fate arrives, my only regret will be that I did not savour her defeat longer. I wish I could watch her now, stumbling about in that accursed place.”

His expression was dark, an echo of his former fury, implacable as a storm. I knew, in that moment, that I would never convince him.

—

I rose early in the morning, long before the sunrise. I watched Wendell sleep for a moment—he had burrowed himself into the blankets as usual, so that only half his face was visible. I brushed the hair out of his eyes—I doubted he would awaken anytime soon, given that he had more than made good on his promise to provide me with a distraction . The clothes we had worn were scattered all about the room, and my mouth felt bruised, but pleasantly so.

I kissed his temple, then I rose, bathed quickly in the ever-full and steaming tub, and packed a bag. I put in it my books, my journal, the draft of my manuscript. An ordinary dress, none of the faerie-made gewgaws.

I motioned to Shadow, and he bestirred himself from the rug at the foot of the bed. Orga, who lay in a nest of quilt beside Wendell’s head, gave a low hiss.

“Ungrateful wretch,” I muttered. The cat only glared at me, as at home in her hostility as ever a cat can be. I had thought we were making progress in our relationship, but losing Wendell seemed only to have cemented his place at the centre of her universe, a dynamic that admitted no interlopers. When it was clear to her that I was merely going to leave, not attempt to drag him along on some new misadventure, she put her head back down, dismissing me from her consideration.

I was not so lucky with Razkarden, however. I had not known he was perched just outside the window, which was open a crack, among the boughs of the weeping rowan, but a flicker of movement alerted me. We regarded each other for a long moment, during which I felt transfixed by his ancient, haunted gaze. I swallowed uncomfortably, for surely he read treachery in my stealth and would give me away, waking Wendell. But he did not, only watched me, and after another moment, I resumed packing. He kept as silent as I, rustling not one feather.

I paused to leave Wendell a note. I wrote only that I needed to spend time with my books—alone.

Then I left the castle, and then I left Faerie.

When I stepped into the mist of Corbann, I let out a sigh. Not precisely a sigh of relief, for I was still greatly troubled in my mind, but one of recognition. The Folk were not of this world, they could only impinge upon it. Here, their ways and perils were not so immediate, and more easily muffled behind layers of scholarly theories.

Many doors to Faerie are surprisingly easy to break. If one is bold and unafraid of the consequences—a foolhardy boldness in many cases—one has only to crush the circle of mushrooms, or cut down the grove of twisted trees, that connects our world to theirs. I did not need to destroy anything, I merely lifted the first of the unnaturally shiny stepping-stones and turned it upside-down. I think this would have been enough, but to be on the safe side, I flipped the other stones too. The bottoms were covered in mud and insects—perfectly mundane. I was satisfied.

I hoisted my bag, and Shadow and I made our way to the cottage door.