Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde, #3)(35)
“Have you had any contact with that side of your family?” I said.
“None. It was not—” He sighed. “Well, I suppose I could make excuses and say that I never knew my grandmother. She died long ago. The oíche sidhe are prone to injuries, given the nature of their work, which compound with age and wear away at their health. But the truth is that I never wanted to know them. It is not usual for my kind to mingle our bloodlines with the common fae. The resulting children are aberrations.” He amended, “That is how most Folk see us. Of course, as one in line for the throne, I was insulated from much of this sentiment. Few dared insult me to my face. Generally it was a thing that most at my father’s court went out of their way to ignore.”
“Which is not the same as saying it was accepted,” I noted.
Wendell shrugged, looking moody and unsettled. “It is kind of so many of the common fae to help us.”
“You are their king, too,” I said.
He seemed not to know what to do with this, and I reminded myself that it was uncommon for the courtly fae to bestow any consideration at all upon the small Folk of their realms. Had Wendell, over the course of his life, had additional motivation to avoid giving them much thought? I decided to change the subject.
“Have you been to see Deilah?”
“My sister?” Wendell wrinkled his nose. “What has she to do with this? Yes, I visited her this morning—briefly, but that was long enough. The brat merely spewed insults and laughed in my face when I suggested she renounce her wretched mother and swear fealty to the new king and queen. She’s convinced her mother will have her revenge upon us somehow. My uncle wants to execute her, naturally—that is his solution to everything.”
“In this case, it is sound advice,” I said. “She attempted to have you assassinated, after all. But I am glad you haven’t taken it. In many of the Irish stories, faerie monarchs who murder innocents are punished for it in some way. It would strengthen your stepmother, more likely than not.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that,” Wendell said, frowning at me. “I haven’t killed her because she is a child, Em. Let her stew in the dungeons a fortnight or so, and we shall see if her vindictiveness holds.”
“I have another idea,” I said.
Wendell groaned and put his face in his hands.
SKIP NOTES
*1 Danielle de Grey’s article “A Landscape Model for Classifying Faerie Currency: Case Study of a Highland Market” (British Journal of Dryadology, 1857) argues that this form of faerie trickery varies by country and region. Glamoured leaves, which tend to be favoured in the South, maintain the illusion of coinage for a few days, on average, while the hardier pinecones and pebbles more commonly employed in Scotland and Northern England may hold on to their glamours for years.
*2 Both of these Irish stories recount the gruesome revenge wrought by deposed monarchs. “The Robin Lord’s Reckoning” is perhaps the less disturbing of the two; the Robin Lord, likely the king of the northernmost Irish realm, the Montibus Ventus, is overthrown by his son, and hides himself away for three years. During this time, he abducts his son’s beasts one by one—hunting dogs, horses, and falcons—enchanting them with an insatiable blood lust. He then lets them loose upon his son’s court, where they devour the usurper, his family, and everyone who ever aided him.
3rd January
We assembled at the stables in the early morning, as soon as the dawn light began to spill over the lake—Wendell, Lord Taran, Lord Wherry, and I, together with half a dozen guards and one of Lord Taran’s scouts. I had left Shadow to sleep in, for I sensed he had not yet recovered from our long trek through Wendell’s realm. With us instead—poorer substitutes there never have been—were Razkarden, perched above us in the tree-shadow like a waking nightmare, and Snowbell. Against my better judgment, the little fox-faerie had convinced me to carry him on my shoulder. I suspect he took his inspiration from Razkarden, for whom he has a twisted sort of reverence; Snowbell, though, cut a rather less intimidating figure than the spectral owl, despite his oversized teeth. I thought it likely that Farris Rose would not long be the only one-eared Cambridge scholar on record.
There was also one less willing traveller in our party.
Wendell’s sister sat atop one of the monstrous faerie horses, a guard stationed to either side. She looked to be about fourteen or fifteen, with enormous, jewel-blue eyes rimmed by long brown hairs like moths’ antennae, and golden tresses that were remarkably like Wendell’s, though Deilah’s reached her chin and floated about her face in becoming waves. She was barefoot, and her dress was dirty and ripped—I understood from Wendell that she had torn it herself, and refused to change. She presented a miserable picture with her tear-stained cheeks and downturned face, though she sat up straight in the saddle, as if to prove herself unbowed by her distress.
Wendell did not even spare his sister a glance, but strode into the stables with Lord Wherry, who had been invited as a representative of the Council. I stood there awkwardly for a moment, wondering how on earth I should navigate this particular thicket of brambles, long enough for Snowbell to bore of me; he hopped to the ground to preen in a patch of sun.
“Hello,” I said, my voice sliding up at the end, as if it were a question. I felt unaccountably nervous, addressing this forlorn child. But then, I had never met any of Wendell’s blood relatives before. He had none to meet, apart from Deilah.