Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde, #3)(56)
Wendell was pale. His hand was bandaged, for he had driven the queen’s curse back from the castle with his own blood. The corruption still lurked within the royal forest, but we were not at present in danger of being devoured by it. His fury had faded, but he was in a state of constant agitation, pacing back and forth and regularly going up to one of the windows to stare out into the forest. I found it very distracting and wished he would sit down.
“Now,” Niamh said, “give us the tale again.”
I had already told them the story of King Macan’s bees, but I respected her wish to be thorough. I repeated the tale, with which I am now so familiar that I could likely recite it backwards. I had to raise my voice a little, for the usual background rustle of the forest was even louder that morning, though it was not windy. I assumed the trees were as agitated as ourselves.
“It’s good,” Niamh said with a nod. “The story has many echoes of our present troubles—the usurper, the vengeful monarch, the curse. There is even a treacherous mortal queen.” She smiled in my direction. “I don’t know why we couldn’t make use of it. So, you propose—what? That we question the servants?”
I nodded. “In the story, the new king has no need to search for the old one, because Macan the First’s hideaway is known, or partly known, by those servants who were closest to him. So it is likely that there are three servants among the castle staff who each know a different clue that will lead us to the queen.”
“The queen holds each card—the deck is mist, and the jesters dance with royalty,” the poet declared, which was to be his sole contribution; thereafter he dozed off again. How he had attained a position on our Council was beyond me, until I remembered that Wendell had merely rounded up a handful of mortals at random, under the misguided assumption that this would please me.
“Let us interrogate the servants immediately,” said the Lady in the Crimson Cloak in her imperious manner. “With threats, if necessary.” She motioned to an attendant standing by the wall, and the faerie darted away, followed by three others, all looking wide-eyed with fear; the lady’s gesture had been vague.
“No, wait—” I said, but the attendants were already gone. I quelled a sigh. Nothing in this court, it seemed, could be accomplished without some amount of chaos.
“We should start with Queen Ar—the old queen’s ladies-in-waiting,” I said. “In the story, the first clue came from a servant who ran the king’s baths.”
“Most of them have fled,” Wendell said from his position by a window. He wandered back to the table and began to pace behind my chair, driving me to distraction.
“Or they’ve been killed,” Lord Taran said. “Oops.”
“We will look for any that remain,” Niamh said, motioning to the spriggan at her side. The little creature grinned wider—she was always grinning, which I found off-putting, but I did not doubt Niamh had reason to trust her—and hurried off.
“Has anything else of note occurred during my absence?” I enquired. “I would particularly appreciate good news, if there’s any to be had.”
“The realm may be slowly disintegrating,” Lord Taran said, “but the invaders have left. My scouts have informed me they have fled back to Where the Ravens Hide. Apparently they do not wish to be cursed along with the rest of us.”
“Thank you,” I snapped. “You consider that good news, do you?”
He gave me an amused look. “Not particularly.”
Callum murmured something to him, and Taran rolled his eyes, slouching in his chair with his hands folded, and went back to examining the walls. Wendell, meanwhile, was still pacing energetically. I was perhaps thirty seconds away from strangling him. Fortunately, an idea occurred, and I pretended to forget about Wendell’s coffee cup as I rearranged my notebook on the table. My elbow struck it, and the cup overturned. As I’d hoped, Wendell stopped pacing, seizing one of the napkins and applying it to the spill.
“Forgive me,” Callum said, “but I feel as if I’ve fallen a few bars behind. I understand that stories are an important part of Faerie, but—”
“Not a part,” Niamh said, pausing at her typing. “They are the very foundations of this world, and all the others. As such, they may be used as compasses. Guiding stars. Choose whatever analogy you like.”
“Yes,” Callum said after a little pause. As if seeking reassurance, he glanced at Lord Taran, who gave him a smile that I had never seen from him before, in that it was entirely devoid of malice. “I suppose what I am wondering is,” Callum continued, “why this story? Are there not others that may be useful to us?”
I bristled instinctively, as I would at a conference when an audience member questions my methods. Part of it was that I had worried over the same question myself; after all, I had spent only a few days at Trinity. Had I truly exhausted all the possibilities? “Other stories may exist,” I said, “but I assure you, ‘King Macan’s Bees’ is the likeliest candidate I could unearth.”
Wendell was still preoccupied with removing the coffee stain from the table, rubbing at a crack in the wood with a napkin and some of the lavender water from the finger bowls. “It is the right story,” he said, and though he did not elaborate, there was something in his voice that swept away my lingering doubts.