Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde, #3)(54)
“Where are we?” This was not the castle; we stood in the forest, possibly near the royal gardens—the grass held a scattering of daisies, whose seeds drifted from their beds into the neighbouring woods.
Wendell grimaced and looked about him. “The door has returned to its original location. A number of enchantments have been going awry like that. My stepmother’s curse is spreading—this way.”
Shadow and I followed him through the trees—it was a deer trail, nothing more, but he widened it with a gesture, opening and then closing his hand. “I must tell you what I’ve discovered,” I said.
“Yes,” he said over his shoulder. “Momentarily, Em.”
I felt a flicker of annoyance that he had so little interest in my research. Did he assume I had failed? “But I’ve found a solution to your stepmother’s curse.”
“I know you have,” he said, a little question in his voice, as if wondering why I’d bother to state something so obvious. “But you will only have to tell the story again for Niamh, and my uncle, I suppose, so let us wait until we can summon them.”
I was mollified.
“Wait,” I said. “You were skeptical before about whether I might find an answer in the old stories.”
“Not really,” he said, sighing. “I only didn’t want you to go away. I never do, but I feel especially guilty in this circumstance. I thought I would be showing you everything my realm has to offer—the lakes, the gardens, the brightest and the darkest parts of the forest. I thought I would be summoning strange and terrible Folk to dance before you, or give you presents, while you scribbled away in your notebook…Instead, we are forced to contend with my stepmother’s treachery. I’m sorry.”
“You say that as if you have dragged me into something,” I said. I regretted the change from his good mood, and added, “I’ll have you know that I find all of this—your stepmother’s treachery included—fascinating. I am making good progress on my book.”
He laughed, and the forest around us seemed to brighten. “Read me some of it later, Em.”
The leaves rustled as some small creature, faerie or otherwise, made its way through the canopy. My attention was caught by a line of flickering lights drifting along the forest floor, parallel to our path—initially I thought they were fireflies, but upon closer inspection I saw that they were trooping fae the size of my thumbnail, each carrying a lantern. Warm hearthlight glimmered from knotholes in the trees, and occasionally I heard distant, rowdy voices, as from a packed tavern. The branches in this part of the forest, near to the castle, where the concentration of common fae was greatest, looked as if they were strung with innumerable glittering spiderwebs, but these were only the small bridges used by brownies and suchlike, which clinked softly like bells whenever one of the creatures dashed across, moving so quickly I saw only the bridge swaying afterwards.
Wendell stopped here and there to examine a tree, pressing a hand to those he thought sickly or dull-looking and unleashing a burst of new growth, while worrying aloud about the state of the cottage in Corbann. It seemed he had been much perturbed by the disarray he had seen—wood shavings from Lilja’s carvings scattered about, rugs left unshaken—and wondered if he should assign a few of the oíche sidhe to put things back in order. At least, I think that’s what he was on about—I was too busy admiring the forest, which at night is such a perfect match for my childhood fantasies of what a faerie forest should look like that it left me breathless.
“What is it?” Wendell said after I again failed to respond to one of his silly complaints with more than a hm!
“What is what?” I said peevishly. My annoyance was not directed at him in particular, only I was wearied from the long day of travel and talk, not to mention worrying. “I’m merely thinking. Why do you assume something is the matter?”
“Em,” he said, “I am quite accustomed to the cadence of your silences by now. I know the difference between thinking and brooding. You may hoard your misgivings in your usual dragonish manner if you wish, but I will work them out eventually, you know. Spare me the trouble?”
I eyed him sidelong. It seemed wrong to confide in him what Lilja had said—and yet, now that I thought about it, I no longer saw why. This was Wendell, not some wicked faerie in a story. So I told him all.
I did not know how he would react, but I certainly wasn’t expecting him to look pleased. “It’s a kindness that she shares her concerns with you,” he said. “Lilja is a good friend.”
“A kindness!” I repeated. “Is that really what you think? She is not much better than Farris, who thinks you will have me strung up in a tree.”
“Naturally she worries about my feelings for you,” Wendell said, passing his hand absently over the tall ferns that bordered the path. “Think of the source. Lilja suffered greatly at the hands of the Hidden Ones—it would be strange for her to trust me.”
I did not find this a satisfying answer, particularly given the disquiet Lilja’s words had aroused in me. “That is all you have to say? You yourself told me that you were worried the throne would change you. And it does seem true that, in many tales, power corrupts those Folk who wield it.” I did not mention my ambivalence regarding this interpretation, for it has always seemed to me more likely that power only draws out the amorality inherent in all Folk, giving it free rein, rather than instilling a preference for wickedness.