Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde, #3)(82)

His expression was dark, an echo of his former fury, implacable as a storm. I knew, in that moment, that I would never convince him.



* * *



—

I rose early in the morning, long before the sunrise. I watched Wendell sleep for a moment—he had burrowed himself into the blankets as usual, so that only half his face was visible. I brushed the hair out of his eyes—I doubted he would awaken anytime soon, given that he had more than made good on his promise to provide me with a distraction. The clothes we had worn were scattered all about the room, and my mouth felt bruised, but pleasantly so.

I kissed his temple, then I rose, bathed quickly in the ever-full and steaming tub, and packed a bag. I put in it my books, my journal, the draft of my manuscript. An ordinary dress, none of the faerie-made gewgaws.

I motioned to Shadow, and he bestirred himself from the rug at the foot of the bed. Orga, who lay in a nest of quilt beside Wendell’s head, gave a low hiss.

“Ungrateful wretch,” I muttered. The cat only glared at me, as at home in her hostility as ever a cat can be. I had thought we were making progress in our relationship, but losing Wendell seemed only to have cemented his place at the centre of her universe, a dynamic that admitted no interlopers. When it was clear to her that I was merely going to leave, not attempt to drag him along on some new misadventure, she put her head back down, dismissing me from her consideration.

I was not so lucky with Razkarden, however. I had not known he was perched just outside the window, which was open a crack, among the boughs of the weeping rowan, but a flicker of movement alerted me. We regarded each other for a long moment, during which I felt transfixed by his ancient, haunted gaze. I swallowed uncomfortably, for surely he read treachery in my stealth and would give me away, waking Wendell. But he did not, only watched me, and after another moment, I resumed packing. He kept as silent as I, rustling not one feather.

I paused to leave Wendell a note. I wrote only that I needed to spend time with my books—alone.

Then I left the castle, and then I left Faerie.

When I stepped into the mist of Corbann, I let out a sigh. Not precisely a sigh of relief, for I was still greatly troubled in my mind, but one of recognition. The Folk were not of this world, they could only impinge upon it. Here, their ways and perils were not so immediate, and more easily muffled behind layers of scholarly theories.

Many doors to Faerie are surprisingly easy to break. If one is bold and unafraid of the consequences—a foolhardy boldness in many cases—one has only to crush the circle of mushrooms, or cut down the grove of twisted trees, that connects our world to theirs. I did not need to destroy anything, I merely lifted the first of the unnaturally shiny stepping-stones and turned it upside-down. I think this would have been enough, but to be on the safe side, I flipped the other stones too. The bottoms were covered in mud and insects—perfectly mundane. I was satisfied.

I hoisted my bag, and Shadow and I made our way to the cottage door.





6th February




Naturally, I told Lilja and Margret all.

“He will follow you” was Lilja’s first response. “Surely there is more than one door between Faerie and Ireland. He could use another.”

“Of course,” I said. “But he won’t. He will be too afraid of my reaction. More likely he will pester me with letters.” I gave a bark of laughter. “At least there is no post today—it is Sunday, is it not?”

Margret and Lilja exchanged a look. We were sitting in the kitchen this morning as a fire crackled in the next room and a thin, chilly rain tapped against the window. I had arrived at the cottage before they had awakened; it was earlier than it had been in Faerie, near midnight rather than dawn. So, after writing in my journal, I had tried to sleep for another hour or so—tried to. I had mostly just tossed and turned in the narrow bed.

“What?” I said.

Lilja merely shook her head, then rose from the table. She went into the other room and returned with a bundle of letters in her hand.

“We did not open them,” she said. “Though we wished to, as we could not understand why he would think you were here, and we were worried. But we thought they might be under some enchantment.”

I stared at the bundle she pressed into my hand. Wendell’s ridiculously graceful writing stared back at me.

“Of course,” I murmured. “When he died, the enchantment he used to match the flow of time to that of the mortal realm was broken. A fortnight passed here, while he lay dead, so when I left Faerie, I also stepped forward in time. And yet when I did leave, time advanced in Faerie to match the mortal realm—I wonder if he attached the enchantment to me somehow? He must have. Well, hopefully he has repaired things properly, so that I shall not return to find him a century older. Or will I return to find that only ten seconds has passed since he sent his last letter? It could go either way, I suppose; these things are never consistent.”

I felt a pang, that I had been away from him for so long—from his perspective, anyhow. But there was nothing for it. I looked up to find Margret and Lilja staring at me.

“Erm,” Margret said. “I still don’t see— You only just got here. These letters have been arriving for days.”

Lilja put her hand on her wife’s, and Margret trailed off with a sigh. She gave me a rueful look.