Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde, #3)(89)

I staggered back and nearly fell into the hot spring, my hands slamming painfully against the warm, wet stones that lined the perimeter. The creature swayed in the boughs as if gathering itself to pounce, and I drew in my breath to shout the Word—the one that granted a temporary invisibility, that is, not the one for lost buttons. I did not know if it would save me, but it would confuse the thing, and perhaps that would give me time to come up with something else. Shadow placed himself in front of me, growling—I’m not sure he could make out the beast in the tree, nearsighted as he is, but he readied himself nevertheless to challenge whatever had alarmed me.

Into this charged tableau came Poe, emerging from his tree-home with a teetering basket of iced cakes in his arms. He gave me a wide grin of welcome, looking pleased and not at all surprised by my arrival.

“I saw you from the window,” he said, taking no notice of the hissing monstrosity above us. “Fortunately, I just finished the day’s baking, so everything is still warm.”

“There,” I said, unable to be more articulate as I pointed with a shaking hand.

He glanced up. “Oh, yes!” he exclaimed happily. “Mother is visiting!”

“Good God” was all I could say in response.

Hsssssshaaaa, said the thing in the tree.

“That,” I said, when at last my heart had slowed somewhat, “is your mother?”

Poe handed me the basket of cakes and tugged at the hem of my cloak, his small face alight with happiness. “How wonderful! All my family is here together. Almost all. Where is the golden prince? He is not ill again?”

It was just like the little brownie to accept my sudden appearance as perfectly expected; it has been some months since we have seen each other, and yet to him it is ever as if a mere day has passed. The cakes smelled of apple and peppery spices, and I took one without eating it; my stomach was still unsettled from my fright.

“Wendell is quite well,” I said unsteadily. “But he is busy with his kingdom. He sends his regrets that he could not be here.”

Poe looked simultaneously relieved and astonished. “Really? Oh, but he does not need to visit—though of course I would be honoured,” he added hastily. “As would Mother! She could hardly believe it when I told her that we could count a lord of Faerie among our fjolskylda.”

What Poe’s mother truly thought of her royal family member, I never knew, for the only reply from the tree was a tetchy sort of growl. I looked up, and found that she had vanished.

“She likes to stand guard over my home,” Poe said contentedly. “For she agrees that my tree is the finest in the forest, even finer than the lovely willow in whose bole I was born and raised, and she fears that some jealous enemy may vandalize it. I do not think this likely, do you? For even if I had enemies—and I hope I do not, for I always go away and hide when someone wants to argue with me—they would only fall in love with my tree straightaway, and be unable to put even one scratch on it.”

I suppressed an urge to look about to determine where exactly his mother had got to. “She has—very long fingers.”

“Oh, yes,” Poe said. He glanced down at his own needle-fingers, which were also lengthy, though nowhere near the size of his dam’s. “Mother is old. I hope one day that mine will be as bountiful as hers, but Mother says I should not wish for things that may never come to pass, but be content with what I have today. She can spear a seal with one thumb, which would be useful, wouldn’t it?”

I could not begin to formulate a reply to this, so instead I said, “I have come on an errand for Wendell. An urgent one. I would appreciate your assistance, as would he.”

Poe looked suddenly terrified. “Yes—yes. Oh, is he wondering about my tree? I watered it all summer, and I have collected any leaves that fell—I keep them in a very safe place!”

“Wendell is confident in your skills as the tree’s custodian,” I assured him. “I have come—” I could not get it out at first. “I have come to speak with the king.”

Poe’s eyes had gone perfectly round. “Oh, but—” He fell back a step, vanishing abruptly into the snow, then reappearing closer to his tree. “But you must not,” he said in a low, desperate voice. “He is worse, far worse than the golden prince. I mean—” Terror filled his face again. “I did not mean that! The prince is so very noble and kind, and his attentions to my tree have—”

“Shh, it’s all right,” I said soothingly. “It’s all right. You need not worry about Wendell. And as for the snow king, I will go alone to beg an audience; you need not accompany me. I only wish to learn his whereabouts.”

Poe was shivering. “I don’t know,” he said in an unhappy voice. “The high ones travel hither and thither in their carriages, and at night I have heard their voices singing from the deep places of the forest and upon the mountain peaks. But the king and his court come only rarely to the coast. They prefer the glaciers and snowfields.”

I felt a stab of disappointment, but tried to conceal it. I should not have expected Poe to know the whereabouts of the Hidden king. Perhaps the villagers of Hrafnsvik could help me—I owed a visit to Aud, in any case.

“They leave offerings at the king’s tree,” Poe said, after a moment’s silence. “The mortals do. They leave them, and someone takes them away.”