“No, I—” I paused. Had Wendell healed me? I felt perfectly myself, apart from the chill. “It’s not that. I can’t think what I should say.”
“Why must you say anything?”
“Well—” I hadn’t been expecting this. “Because you rescued me. All of you, but especially Finn and Aslaug—”
“What?” Aslaug had come up behind me without my realizing. “Did you call me?”
“Emily feels bad because she wishes to thank us, but doesn’t know how,” Lilja said, and I went red and began to sputter, to hear it all spelled out so bluntly.
“Oh! Don’t be silly,” Aslaug said simply, and gave me a hug. “We are as good as family now.” Then she went back to bustling about as if nothing had changed. As if it was nothing, what she’d said.
Lilja smiled and squeezed my arm. “Some cake?”
I nodded dumbly. Lilja pushed me into a chair and passed me a plate of cake, and I ate it. It was very good.
The bottle of wine was polished off by Mord, who had spent most of the evening quietly beaming at everyone, particularly when they asked after his son, and telling the same story over and over, about how Ari had taken to putting unexpected objects into his mouth, including the tail of their long-suffering cat. No one seemed to mind.
By the time all the hvitkag was gone, I was quite weary, and the clamour of so much company was not helping matters. To my relief, Wendell chose that moment to begin herding everyone out of the cottage, and one by one they went, donning cloaks and boots and wading out cheerfully into the blowy weather, curls of snowflakes spinning through the cottage in their wakes. Wendell glared at the snow and pressed the door closed with a grimace.
“One more,” he said grimly, and I didn’t have to ask what he meant. Though I was not as relieved to be leaving Ljosland as he was—what I felt was a complicated tangle of things, topmost of which was melancholy. I would miss Lilja and Margret and the others. When had that ever happened before? I was beginning to wonder if the faerie king had changed me somehow.
“Wendell,” I said as he neurotically adjusted the doormat, “I believe I know why the king’s spell—why it took when it did.”
He raised his eyebrows. It was interesting—he was not exactly unattractive in this form, when you actually stopped to parse his appearance. It was mostly that he was muted, yet this did nothing to affect his natural grace, or indeed his ego.
“Well.” I fumbled the words as I thought back to that night. “I was going to— After you asked me about—well—”
“After I asked you to marry me,” he said in a tone I thought louder than necessary.
“Yes,” I said, trying my hardest to keep my voice ordinary, as if we were talking about our research. I felt ridiculous. Any sane person would have already turned down his proposal. If there is one thing about which the stories, regardless of origin, agree, it is that marrying the Folk is a very bad idea. Romance generally is a bad idea where they are concerned; it hardly ever ends well. And what about my scientific objectivity? It is looking very tattered of late.
“I—that night—I was thinking about it. And I suppose that’s my answer. That I would like to—well, continue thinking about it.”
He gazed at me with an unreadable expression. Then, to my astonishment, he smiled.
“What?” I said suspiciously.
“I was just thinking that the fact that you have neither roasted me alive for my presumption nor rejected me outright is something to marvel at.”
“Well, if you’re just going to tease me about it,” I muttered, turning away. I was surprised to feel his hand brush against mine—he’d crossed the room without a whisper of sound—his grip feather-light.
I froze, realizing that he was about to kiss me only a second after I knew I was going to kiss him. I leaned forward, but he put a hand on the side of my face, very gently, his fingers brushing the edge of my hair. A little shiver went through me. His thumb was by the corner of my mouth, and it made me think of the time when I had touched him there, when I’d thought he was dying from loss of blood. For a heartbeat, all the other moments we’d shared faded away, leaving behind only the small handful of times we’d been close like this, connected somehow like a bright constellation. He brushed his lips against my cheek, and I felt the warmth sink all the way to my bones, chasing out the ice of the snow king’s court.
“Good night, Em,” he murmured, his breath fluttering against my ear and sending a river of goosebumps down my neck.
And then he went into his room and closed the door.
I stared at it for a moment as if it were going to explain itself to me. I came back to myself with a start and picked up the blankets on the floor, then wandered in a daze to my own bedroom.
Naturally, I found it ridiculously clean.
* * *
—
Wendell and I stood shivering by the dock the next morning, watching the fishing boat captained by one of Thora’s innumerable grandsons pull against its tether as the two sailors readied it for our journey to Loab?r. Shadow was flopped at my side, yawning big doggish yawns and looking none too pleased to have been roused from his warm bed at such an hour. The world was a blur of shadow and ice, from the heaving sea to the scowling mountains framing the village. Aud had told us that the weather was fair enough to make the journey safely, and that the winds would drop on the other side of the headland, an assessment I could accept intellectually while all my instincts assured me that we would be drowned.
Aud, who had returned as planned the previous evening, called out instructions to the sailors in Ljoslander, looking cheerful. As well she should, for Aud had saved her village—indeed, her entire country. The king, who had only just finished glorying in the vengeance we had left for him like a wedding gift, and was in an exceptionally pleasant mood, had immediately granted her request for an end to the vicious winter and an early spring.
As to my whereabouts, Aud had given the king few clues, apart from offering that she had seen me fleeing the palace in the direction of the valley, in a panic at the thought of pursuit by the queen’s minions. Shaking her head, she had remarked that if I had succumbed to the elements or tumbled off a cliff, poor witless waif that I was, it was yet another crime to be lain at the doorstep of the queen’s treasonous ambition. The king had seemed barely able to hide his glee at this notion, and had immediately taken up my death as justification for another round of executions, which had no doubt sent even more nobles—those still in possession of their heads—into hiding in the wilderness. As for myself, I was more than happy for my death to be accepted as a boon by my fiancé, particularly as it gave him ample incentive to give up the search for me. Nevertheless, it was well that we were leaving quickly—I wished to prevent any hint of my survival from reaching his court.
Despite the early hour, the entire village came to see us off as we boarded the ship, even little Ari, who buried his head in Mord’s shoulder when I said goodbye, as shy as he would be with any stranger.
“Here you are,” Aslaug said, handing me a basket of the sheep cheese I’d come to favour. “It’s a silly gift, isn’t it? After all you’ve done.”