Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde, #3)(26)
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.