Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde, #3)(33)

I cast a longing look at the simple brown dresses I had brought with me, which I had hung in the wardrobe alongside the finery. They pressed together like poor relations at a lavish ball, who on the whole would have preferred not to have been invited.

“Right,” I said, eyeing my appearance in the mirror apprehensively. Then I set to work.



* * *



—

My first task, I had decided during my ponderings that morning, would be to speak to the oíche sidhe. I knew the creatures did not like to be seen, even by other Folk, and also that they preferred to work at night, and thus were most likely at rest now. But there was nothing for it.

I found several servants in the dressing room. They were tailors, hard at work assembling garment after garment from the rich silks and linens—mostly black, naturally—that were scattered everywhere, though two were presently adorning headless mannequins with tunics. I glanced about for a moment, overwhelmed.

When I asked if the faerie woman in charge, who was of the courtly fae, might escort me to the oíche sidhe, she gave me a horrified look and darted from the room. Before I could decide if I had offended her or if my request had been so strange that she had panicked and fled, she was back, and behind her was another faerie.

“The head housekeeper,” the faerie woman said, and then she and the other tailors departed, leaving us alone in a room full of expensive fabrics and scattered measuring tapes and thimbles.

I almost didn’t see the new arrival at first, strange as that may sound, because he was so grey and unexceptional that he blended into the flagstones of the dressing room. He was small, but not so small as most of the common fae, the top of his head reaching my shoulder. His fingers were many-jointed and far too spindly, his eyes black, and his hair fell to his chin in dust-coloured wisps. He wore a belt with a single grey rag dangling from it, which his hand went to frequently, twisting it about his fingers in an absent-minded way. He was, unsurprisingly, painfully neat in every respect.

“Hello,” I said hesitantly. “I apologize if I disturbed you.”

The faerie sank to his knees and lowered his head. “Your Highness,” he said in a rough voice that made me picture the bristles of a brush.

“Oh, no,” I said. “No, please stand up.”

The faerie rose gracefully to his feet, pausing only to smooth the wrinkles from his trousers. “As Your Highness desires.”

I gazed at him, feeling oddly tongue-tied. Wendell’s grandmother had been of the oíche sidhe, and he had taken their form briefly, when he and Aud had rescued me from the Hidden king’s court. He had looked a great deal like this creature—nearly identical, in fact, and I guessed that the vagueness of these faeries’ appearance also applied to the degree of difference between them. It was unsettling.

“I would like to ask a favour,” I said. “Somewhat unusual, perhaps, given your occupation.”

I half expected the creature to make some wry remark, as Wendell would have done, but naturally he did not. “As Your Highness desires,” he said again.

“You see,” I began, not knowing how to phrase my request in a politic manner. In the end, I simply allowed myself to be blunt. “I am in need of spies. Information. Mortals often overlook their housekeepers, who come to learn a great many of their secrets. I doubt the Folk are any different.”

“Worse,” the faerie said quickly. I had the sense that he was pleased by the direction the conversation had taken, and even eager to speak on the subject. But this was merely a guess; discerning any emotion in the creature’s subdued expression was difficult.

“Then you have served both mortals and Folk?” I said.

“I have served,” he agreed in his sparse manner.

I nodded. Here was a creature with as little use for small talk as I. “Do you know of anyone who might wish harm to either Wendell—the king, I mean—or myself?”

“Yes,” the creature said. And then he began to provide names and specifics.

When he came to the end of the list I found myself standing very still and staring at him. I shook myself and said, “I—thank you. That was—” More illuminating than I guessed it would be, I thought. “Thorough.”

“Your Highness.” The faerie bowed.

I pressed my lips together, uncertain. “You have placed yourself in danger by helping me. Do you desire compensation? I mean—of course I shall compensate you. Only tell me—”

“I have helped His Highness,” the creature replied. “I am compensated.”

The faerie had spoken softly and flatly throughout our exchange, but this remark seemed to have real emotion behind it.

“I see.” I considered him for a moment as I ran through what I knew of the oíche sidhe, which was a great deal, or at least more than most dryadologists, for I had made them a priority in my studies since I’d learned of Wendell’s lineage. “And I suppose it was you who ensured his rooms were ready upon his arrival. Quite speedy work you made of it, for you could not have known he would prefer his old wing.”

“He is one of ours,” the creature said.

I gave a slight nod, and the faerie seemed to take this as a dismissal and bowed himself out.



* * *



—

Wendell was not difficult to locate. I simply followed the swirls and eddies of servants and courtiers flitting through the galleries on the castle’s main level. Most of the nobility seemed to be availing themselves of the gardens, and of the sunny portico that gave onto them, and thus the servants hastened between there and the kitchens, bearing cups and trays piled with delicacies. I stopped one and took a cup of coffee and a biscuit for myself. It looked plain but tasted of sugared almonds and impossibly tart strawberries.