Wendell laughed. “I’d sooner freeze to death than write my true name in ink, even if my wife hurled a dozen brats at me. These things are not as easy as they are in stories.”
I got up and paced. “We could threaten him.”
“Threats must be buttressed with deeds. I’m not interested in tormenting children, no matter how much their parents deserve it.”
He frowned at me as he said it, which I ignored, as I was not about to be lectured by Bambleby on matters of morality. I felt little regret over my initial interrogation of the changeling, given the anguish he had inflicted upon his foster parents.
I stopped at the table, playing absently with one of the parcels Aud had delivered. “These are for you, by the way.”
He only sighed again. “I told you, I can’t accept their gratitude.”
“I chose them,” I said. “Not Aud. You may think of them as gifts from me.”
He looked intrigued and a little alarmed. “From you? Are they covered in thorns?”
He unwrapped the mirrors first, exclaiming over them. They were indeed handsome, as I had requested, with frames made from sun-bleached driftwood carved with intricate patterns of leaves complete with pearl dewdrops. Aud had been clever in her selections, I thought. Wendell spent nearly an hour working out where to hang them, first setting them in one location, then moving them elsewhere. Naturally, they looked beautiful everywhere, and when he was finally finished, the room was even cosier than it had been before.
“Oh, Em,” he said, gazing into the mirror he’d hung behind the fireplace, which trapped the flickering light and turned it into something golden and summery—doubtless not an effect mortal hands could have achieved. “You do have a heart after all, somewhere buried deep. Very deep.”
“There are also these,” I said grudgingly, hoping to head off any mistiness. Unfortunately it was not to be, for Wendell was no sooner gazing at the silver sewing needles than he was brushing away a tear.
“They are like my father’s,” he said wonderingly. “I remember the flicker of them in the darkness as we all sat together by the ghealach fire, with the trees surrounding us. He would bring them everywhere, even the Hunt of the Frostveiling—that is the first hunt of autumn, the largest of the year, when even the queen and her children roam through the wilds with spears and swords, riding our best—oh, I don’t know what you would call them in your language. They are a kind of faerie fox, black and golden together, which grow larger than horses. My brothers and sisters and I would crowd round the fire to watch him weave nets from brambles and spidersilk. And all the moorbeasts and hag-headed deer would cower at the sight of those nets, though they barely blinked at the whistle of our arrows.” He fell silent, gazing at them with his eyes gone very green.
“Well,” I said, predictably at a loss for an answer to this, “I hope they are of use to you. Only keep them away from any garments of mine.”
He took my hand, and then, before I knew what he was doing, lifted it to his mouth. I felt the briefest brush of his lips against my skin, and then he had released me and was back to exclaiming over his gifts. I turned and went into the kitchen in an aimless haste, looking for something to do, anything that might distract me from the warmth that had trailed up my arm like an errant summer breeze, and settled for preparing a light repast from the remains of our provisions.
After we ate, I watched him play with the mirrors. When he touched them, strange things appeared—for an instant, I saw a green forest reflected back at me, boughs swaying. I blinked and it was gone, but some of its greenness lingered around the edges of the glass, as if a forest still lurked somewhere beyond the frame.
“Are those the trees you would see in your kingdom?” I asked.
He let out his breath and drew his hand away. “No,” he said quietly. “That was merely a shadow of my world.”
I gazed at him a moment longer. His mourning was a tangible thing that hung in the air. I have never loved a place like he has, and felt its absence as I would a friend’s. But for a moment, I wished I had, and felt this as its own loss.
A strange surety flowed through me like a swallow of cold water. “Of course.”
He turned. “What?”
But I was already moving. I fetched the faerie cloak from outside with trembling hands. The fire was high, as Bambleby liked it that way, and the cloak began its steady drip drip drip on the floorboards. I dug around in the pockets, fingers brushing against the edges of things that clanked or rustled.
Focus. I drew a breath, plunged my hand inside again, putting every ounce of will and thought into imagining what I needed. And finally, my hand closed on something.
I withdrew it. I was holding a doll. It was carved from whalebone and had hair of willow boughs. Its dress was of dirty, undyed wool the colour of snow, the old snow that is left behind in springtime. And yet the doll was clearly Folk, for it changed—just a little—from one moment to another, and in different lights. When I turned it to the firelight, it seemed to wash the pale dress with gold.
Wendell took it from me and turned it over and over in his hand, frowning.
“It’s a token of Ari’s home,” I said. “The changeling’s home, I mean. Something he will recognize.”[*]
Wendell blinked at it a moment longer. “Ah. I see. But I don’t think—”
“We shall have to find out,” I said in a cool voice, while my heart hammered madly.
* * *
—
Aslaug opened the door for us. Mord was out walking by the sea, she said, something that struck me as strange, for not only was it dark, but Mord does not like to leave his wife alone in the house. She did not admit us, only stood in the doorway, frowning as the winter wind gusted inside and ruffled her thin dress—far too thin for the time of year.
“May we come in, Aslaug?” Wendell said, wrinkling his eyes in a charming smile. He must have put magic into it, for she blinked as if hit with a gust of summer rain, and stepped back.
The house was so cold I could see my breath. Aslaug went back to lighting the fire. The floor before the fireplace was scattered with at least a hundred spent matches and kindling, and the fireplace itself was filled with snow. Despite this, Aslaug had piled firewood in it, as if she could not see the snow or expected it to light regardless.
“How long has she been at that?” Wendell wondered. “Aslaug, dear, come away from there. Let’s get you warm again.”
He bustled around, sweeping the snow into a pot, building the fire, and grimacing at the mess—for the place was a warren of unwashed dishes, ash, and bits of the outdoors scattering the unswept floor. Though he did little that I could see besides shake off a rug and straighten the jumble of plates and cups, the room seemed to brighten. Aslaug remained on her knees by the fire, gazing into the flames and taking no further notice of our presence. At least her shivering had stopped.
Meanwhile, I took up one of the cast iron pots and filled it with embers and kindling—I had been inspired, you see, by the bogles and their cookpots.
Poe had said that the tall ones feared only fire. Well, we would see how deep that fear ran.
I made my way to the staircase, from which a cold wind funnelled, somehow conspiring to bring darkness with it that fought against the new light in the sitting room.