I mumbled my way through the goodbyes and thank-yous, but nobody seemed to mind anymore. Lilja and Margret hugged me tight.
“Here,” Lilja said, pressing a basket into my hands. I lifted the cloth covering and found five neatly stacked apple tarts. “Finn says you have a liking for them.”
“Ah,” I began, wincing a little—each tart weighed as much as a brick. “That’s very kind, though I’m not sure I’ll be able to—”
“Please,” Lilja said, a gleam of desperation in her eyes. “That tree, it just—it doesn’t stop. I’ve already got preserves to last a decade. The neighbours are so sick of apples they hide when I knock.”
I shook my head. Naturally, Wendell, in typical faerie fashion, had given Lilja a “gift” that created more problems than it solved. I knew that Lilja would be terrified of wasting a single apple for fear of him taking offence. “Throw the surplus to the pigs,” I suggested, because wouldn’t that just serve him right?
She looked so horrified that I felt guilty. “Or trade them,” I said. “Perhaps to a sailor or wandering merchant. You might be surprised by what you get in return.” Indeed, I knew half a dozen stories of that ilk—poor, long-suffering mortal gives away a troublesome faerie-made gift in exchange for something mundane, but which reveals unexpected uses. Sometimes that is then traded for something even more wondrous, and on and on it goes. I hoped Lilja would end up with a wheel that spun straw to gold.
Aud’s embrace was the longest, and when she drew away, her face was wet with tears. Fortunately, Thora stumped up before I had to work out how to respond. （How does one respond to tears?） “Two things,” she said, taking me by the shoulders. “One, look out for yourself. Wise men make bargains with the Folk. Only idiots make friends with them—or whatever he is to you.”
Lord help me, I went red in the face at that. “You think I’m an idiot?”
“Even the smartest among us are idiots in one way or another,” she said. “Two, I expect you back here in the spring for Lilja and Margret’s wedding. My granddaughter does not like to impose on people, but your being there would make her happy, and so I will say it for her.”
I smiled. “Of course I’ll be there.”
“Good girl.” She patted me. “Run along, then. I will mail you my—what did you call it? Peer review?”
“Thank you,” I said. Thora had promised to read through a draft of the final chapter in my encyclopaedia and provide her thoughts and additions. “And please don’t worry about being polite with your criticism.”
She blinked at me, and then, as a smile crept over my face, she gave me a surprisingly firm shove. “You’ve a mouth on you like one of my grandchildren.”
My gaze drifted to the village, huddled into the night shore, as my hand went to the little trinket Poe had given me as a farewell gift. He had called it a key, though it looked nothing like one, and was in fact a small, impossible coil of bone. In some lights, it seemed to curve counterclockwise; in others clockwise. I had put it on a chain around my neck.
Wendell appeared at my side, having finished giving instructions to the sailors, and twisted his misshapen face into a smile. He’d fixed his uncanny hands and added a few inches to his height, but he was still a long way from his former dazzling self. “Ready?” he said.
The villagers shuffled back a little. They’d all accepted that this strange, grey faerie was the dashing Wendell Bambleby, but that didn’t make them any less frightened of him, even though the face he wore now was far less intimidating than his old, painfully handsome one.
As for myself, I barely noticed the difference. I’d never had any use for his beauty, and he was unchanged in every other respect, including his ability to antagonize—he’d tailored all of my dresses whilst I was trapped in Faerie.
We said our last goodbyes, and then we stepped onto the rocking deck. Wendell took his time waving to the villagers and admiring the sight of Hrafnsvik fading into the night. I turned away as soon as I could and did not wave or look back. If I had, I would have seen Aud and Lilja brushing away their tears. I would also have seen the outline of our little cottage, which ordinarily had a curl of smoke drifting from the chimney, but now sat quiet and dark, dreaming. Shadow gave a huff, looking back at me as if certain there had been some mistake. My eyes were wet, and I had to dab at them with my sleeve, turning so that Wendell wouldn’t see. Damn this wind, I thought.
I hugged Lilja’s apple tarts to my chest as I gazed at the grey-white sea, my hand tight around Poe’s trinket. The ship sailed on as the sun began to tip its light over the horizon.
13th February
In the end, we missed the plenary.
It didn’t much matter, of course. Wendell sat on three panels and charmed his way onto a fourth, and charmed my way onto another. I sat through the interminable dinners without overly hating them; I was on familiar ground with scholars, and I even enjoyed some of my conversations, for they were conversations of the mind with nothing to do with small talk or social conventions.
And then it was time for our presentation. I paced about in the little room behind the stage. Through the half-open door I could see the two podiums, as well as the scholars filing into the room in their dowdy suits and dresses. Many of them wore their coats, for if there is one thing that unites scholars, it is complaining about the temperature of conference rooms.
Wendell swept in at last, looking resplendent, all sharp edges and lean grace in his own black suit, as plain as any other scholar’s but immaculately tailored. His gaze swept over me in polite appraisal, though I could tell he was suppressing his smile. I glowered back. I was wearing one of the dresses he’d fixed up—out of necessity only, for I hadn’t the money to buy new ones in Paris, and we’d had no time to stop in at our apartments at Cambridge.
It had taken him a full two days to return to his former glory, which he had spent mostly in his cabin on the ship, staring into a mirror and muttering to himself as he moved his nose this way and that or stretched his limbs out. It was an appalling process, and I had spent as little time in his company during the homeward voyage as possible.
“The exhibits are prepared,” he said, and I nodded. Awaiting us behind the podium were three trunks, one containing the remnants of the faerie cloak, now badly melted but still recognizable; one a necklace the king had given me, a delicate spiderweb of ice chains that, unlike the cloak, didn’t melt; the last a jagged spire of volcanic rock from one of Krystjan’s fields, in which there was a tiny wooden door that vanished in direct sun. I felt like a magician.
He held out a hand to me. I accepted it, feeling a little shiver as I did, and he smiled. He had seemed especially happy with himself lately; I guessed the source of his pleasure to be his transformation back into his old self.
“We’re about to create quite a stir,” he said, looking misty at the prospect. “And just think—if you’d finished mulling over my proposal by now and said yes, we could have introduced you as Mrs. Wendell Bambleby. They would never stop talking about us.”
I gave him a long, thoughtful look. “What?” he said.