Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde, #3)(20)

Shadow and I returned to the bedroom (Wendell had not moved) and went through a different door. We passed through two rooms of uncertain purpose, which were cluttered with trunks and wooden crates and the odd piece of furniture. I assumed that the castle servants were in the middle of furnishing things, and indeed, I heard muffled voices and thumps in an adjoining room, followed by the sound of hammering. I realized I was clutching the coin in my pocket instinctively, as I’d done in the Hidden king’s court, and forced myself to release it. My mind was clear, I reminded myself, my sense of direction also—this in spite of the seemingly impossible configuration of the apartments.

I opened a different door and walked through. And halted midstep.

This room was filled with wooden shelves, as well as a number of stacks, such as one finds in libraries. The ones against the wall were full, while those in the centre of the room were mostly empty, as if awaiting their purpose.

And what did they hold? Journals. Dozens upon dozens of journals.

These were in a variety of shapes and sizes, some bound with wood boards decorated with silver and jewels, others with leather. Many were elaborate; others were plain. The shelves ended at the ceiling, which was several times my height.

I blinked stupidly. Shadow gave a huff.

Perched upon stools at a workbench in the corner were two faeries hunched over piles of leather and blank parchment. One—the more wizened of the two—clutched an awl, with which she was gesticulating as she lectured the younger, smaller one, who sat with tears in his eyes and a pile of tangled thread in his lap.

“Flakes, flakes, flakes!” the older faerie was snarling. “You pay no mind to allowing the glue to set, do you? Look at this! We cannot present it to Her Highness in this state. It will sully her hands whenever she writes in it—and your thread is far too large; look how the spine bulges. This is the last time I hire family, mark my words. You are every bit as incompetent as my daughter and—”

I must have made some noise, for they both turned to gawp at me. The elder one sprang to the floor and bowed low, crying “Your Highness!” in a voice that creaked like an old hinge.

The faerie had the look of a book goblin, which I have encountered only once before. She was small—the top of her head just reached my waist—with a hunchback and a severe, squinting look, black eyes nearly obscured by heavy wrinkles and the curtains of bristly hair that fell over her face. Dangling from a chain on her neck was an odd glass sphere that I took for a monocle.

“Please allow us to give you a tour, O Exalted One,” the faerie said, clasping her ink-stained hands together in excitement.

“I— Thank you,” I said, blankly staring. “But I will be late for breakfast.”

And I hurried out, pulling the door closed behind me and leaning against it, as if the little faeries might give chase.

Good Lord! How had this room come to be? Wendell had ordered it, because of course he had—but when?

I blundered off, too discombobulated to pay much heed to where I was going. My thoughts kept returning to O Exalted One, as if it were a sharp seed caught in my throat, driving me to distraction. I thought I had chosen the door that led back to the bedroom, but instead I found myself in a narrow hallway ending in a closed door, sunlight streaming through a row of windows. Orga—I hadn’t realized she had followed us—gave a trill of satisfaction and flopped onto her side in the sunbeam.

Naturally, the view out the windows was of the lake, painted with tree reflections and morning sunlight, even though, according to my senses, this should be an interior section of the castle. I paused and tried to catch my breath. As I did, I became aware of a breeze.

The breeze came not from the windows, which were shut—it meandered out from the crack below the door at the end of the hall, smelling of rain.

It was not raining outside.

Now, I knew full well that the wiser course would be to wake Wendell and investigate this together. But how often have I thrown wisdom aside in the face of faerie mysteries? I was flummoxed and full of half-formed anxieties, but I also felt like a hungry child who, presented with a cake, cannot stop herself from devouring it whole.

I went to the door and pushed it open.

Morning light spilled into the hall at an angle that contradicted the light of Faerie. I was presented with a view of a green hillock at the edge of a forest. A little whitewashed cottage perched atop the hillock, which was strewn with mossy rocks and purple with heather. Behind the cottage, a fine waterfall tumbled down a rise in the wooded landscape, and this gave off a mist that, coupled with the drizzling rain, gave the scene a spectral atmosphere.

Impossible as it was, what I saw relaxed me a little. Here at least was a simple faerie door to an otherland—it was, of course, madness that an otherland should be found just off my bedchamber, and I would certainly be speaking with Wendell about it—but at least it did not contain hordes of Folk desperate to oblige my whims.

I closed the door—after grabbing Shadow by the scruff and hauling him back, for he had shoved his snout into the otherworld and was sniffing voraciously—and went back the way I had come. But I’d become turned around once more, not by enchantment but my own blundering, and while I was correct in intuiting the direction of the bedchamber, I ended up—to my dismay—in the dining room once more.

I could not stop myself from swearing. At least the servants had left, and for a blessed moment I thought I was alone with the platters of lightly steaming food. But then I heard the creak of a chair against the wall behind me.