Page 35 of Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde #3)

“That I’m—they can sense—” He ran a hand over his face, and then he closed his eyes. “If I can calm myself, I think they will stop.”

He kept his eyes closed for a moment while we stared at him like jittery attendees at a seance. Gradually, the rustle of the oaks lessened, and then, finally, the noise sank to little more than a whisper.

Wendell opened his eyes. “My apologies,” he said, then poured himself a fresh cup of coffee as if nothing had happened.

We continued to stare at him. Even Lord Taran looked a touch unnerved, though he paired it with a smirk. “That’s a sinister trick, Your Highness,” he said. “Not since your great-grandmother’s day have I seen a monarch rile the oaks with a thought. I am not overfond of those trees.”

“Thank God,” I muttered. “I thought I was the only one.”

“Oh, no!” Lord Taran made a face. “You have not experienced all their delights until you have ventured out for a walk on a crisp autumn morning, and come home to find one of their leaves in your hair.”

Niamh’s attendant returned and muttered something in her ear. Niamh nodded.

“We have located one of the old queen’s personal servants,” she said. “This one did not draw her baths, like Macan’s, but she helped make her breakfast every day.”

I was already standing. “She has information about the queen’s refuge?”

“She did not say this,” Niamh said. “But as soon as she heard we were questioning the servants, she fled.”

“That’s an encouraging sign,” I said.

“You go,” Lord Taran said, knitting his fingers together and stretching his arms. “Thank you, but my talents are wasted interrogating servants. Let me know when the bloodshed starts.”

—

The faerie had not gone far. It seemed she had triedto flee into the woods, but the guardians had got wind of her importance, and chased her into a tree.

We stood below the tree—an alder, thankfully—as the faerie shivered above us, alternately muttering to herself and wringing her hands.

She was perched on one of the higher branches, and could easily have been dragged out by one of the guardians, but I did not wish to take this step unless necessary.

She was only a little larger than Poe, and though her appearance did not match his in any other respect, I felt an instinctive desire to avoid harming her.

She was clad in a tea-coloured dress and white apron, and on her head was an enormous buttercup worn like a kerchief, two of the petals pinned together beneath her hair.

Her face was very red, very shiny, and very plump.

She looked, I thought, a little like a lost doll, though not one mortal children would enjoy playing with; her eyes were the usual all black, and she appeared to be a type of faun, with large and intimidatingly sharp black horns that curved backwards out of her head, and legs that ended in hairy hooves.

“A butter faerie,” Niamh said. “The queen had several in her service—this one, I am told, had the queen’s particular affections due to the quality of her product.”

“Fascinating,” I said, wishing I had time to make a sketch. My encyclopaedia’s entry on butter faeries had been sorely lacking in detail. “I have never encountered one before.”

“They’re quite rare,” Niamh said. “A good thing, I’ve always thought. They are peevish, half-mad little things, particularly if you remove them from their creameries.”

“I did not know they were found in Ireland,” I said. “Most of the tales of butter faeries are from Somerset, are they not?”

“Ah!” Niamh said, her face alight with scholarly enthusiasm.

“Indeed they are. But once upon a time, as you know, Where the Trees Have Eyes had several doors leading to British faerie realms. One of these, I’m told, led to a pretty corner of Somerset.

I theorize that the creatures used to go to and fro before the door collapsed, trapping several of them in this realm. ”

“Somerset,” I repeated. The word tugged at me like a half-forgotten memory, a sense of some missed connection. But what did Somerset have to do with any of this? I did not have time to puzzle it out.

The creature continued to mutter and wring her hands above us.

I could not make out what she was saying, apart from the odd my lady and the milk, the latter of which she repeated over and over.

How on earth were we to get her down? I cannot climb trees—not that the skill set hasn’t come in handy for some dryadologists, but I simply haven’t the dexterity.

Razkarden, who had been circling overhead, alighted on a nearby branch and fixed his ancient gaze upon me.

I had the distinct impression he was waiting for orders, which Ipretended not to notice.

A crowd of miscellaneous Folkhad followed us from the banquet hall, accumulating more Folk as they went, and stood watching us from the edge of the clearing—some even spreading blankets over the grass to lounge upon, as if we were putting on a play.

I could not help thinking again that this was a very silly way to conduct vital court business, the outcome of which could either preserve or destroy an entire world, but as before, no one else seemed to think much of it.

At least nobody was selling nuts this time.

Wendell had been standing a little back from myself and Niamh, conversing with the Lady in the Crimson Cloak, Callum, and a small group of servants. Now he came forward.

“They think they’ve found another servant,” he told us. “Apparently my stepmother’s favourite hairdresser is still alive. That has a nice symmetry with Macan, does it not? Perhaps he also found dead bees in the queen’s hair.”

“Yes,” I said. “Only I do not know how we will convince this one to cooperate. Can we lure her to us somehow?”

Wendell looked up at the tree, and his face darkened.

He spoke but one word—“Down”—and suddenly the little faerie was clambering towards us, muttering even more feverishly.

Well, so much for my concerns. She was moving so quickly that she fell part of the way and landed on the forest floor in a heap, where she remained, crouched like a wounded bird, panting and muttering.

I now heard several Your Highness es and please s mixed in with the babble.

“Where is she?” Wendell said. His voice was calm, but he suddenly looked so cold and remote that even I found him unnerving. The faerie’s muttering grew higher in pitch, almost a whine.

“That won’t do,” I said. “She is absolutely terrified of you.”

“Naturally,” said the Lady in the Crimson Cloak. She came forward, and the world seemed to redden, the forest shadows spreading like pools of blood. “If she will not speak, we will dash her head against a stone and see if the truth spills out.”

“Stop that,” I snapped. “Whatever you are doing. You are only making things worse.”

Wendell lifted a hand, and the Lady fell back. “Very well, Em,” he said. “What would you have us do?”

“Take her home, of course,” I said.

—

The little faerie’s “home” was located deep beneath the castle.

I had not known there was much belowground, apart from the dungeons Wendell had spoken of, but in fact there was a warren of common fae workshops and hovels, some of which seemed connected to the castle, such as the room full of spindles where three brownies laboured, repairing tapestries and rugs, others which seemed to be inhabited by Folk who had simply decided to dwell there, at the very heart of the realm.

Did proximity to the monarch give them access to magics they would lack otherwise?

Yet another question to add to the pile.

At first we descended into the earth via a stone staircase, but gradually the stairs became rougher until we were clambering down the sloping and uneven floor of a vast cavern, the dimensions of which I could not make out due to the darkness.

Wendell summoned several lights that bobbed above us, which helped, for the lantern posts scattered here and there were few in number.

Many doors had been carved into the cavern walls at various heights, accessed via rough-hewn stairs or silver bridges, and the air was haunted with innumerable voices, clanks and thumps, harp song, and echoes.

The air was damp, and in the distance I heard the whoosh of some subterranean river.

I thought of the queen’s curse descending on this teeming little city, a jewel box of scientific curiosities, and experienced a moment of dizziness.

The servant leading our procession found another stair, this one narrower than the last, and we ascended a series of hills and bulges in the wall until we came to something that was almost a hallway, but clearly natural, with a great stalagmite jutting out of it, at the end of which was a door.

The butter faerie bowed low in Wendell’s direction and hurried through the door, moving with the graceful, gliding trot all fauns seem to possess. We followed.

The faerie’s creamery was not too deep, happily, or at least it did not feel so; a chimneylike skylight cut into the stone roof admitted the warm gold-green light of the forest. Given the faerie’s size, the workspace was expansive—even Wendell, the tallest among us, did not need to duck—with a hard-packed earthen floor and an array of shelves, some of which held blocks of butter wrapped in paper and twine.

In the middle of the workshop was the butter churn, beside which was a tin bucket of milk with condensation forming on the side—which I think is what the faerie had been worrying about, for she immediately rushed over to it and carried it into her cellar.

The air was cool, on the edge of cold, and the smell of the place made my mouth water.

Not only of butter, but thyme and lavender, strawberries and honey, which the faerie used to flavour some of the blocks.

Those on the nearest shelf had leaves tucked beneath the twine—basil, I think.

“What do you see?” Niamh asked eagerly.