Page 43 of Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde #3)

I’m unsure how much time has elapsed. I came back to myself just now, the pen still in my hand—I had descended into a blank haze, during which I simply stared out the window. Someone is knocking softly on my door—Callum, most likely, or Niamh. Why don’t they leave me be? I don’t wish to see anyone.

Why have no ideas come to me? I refuse to believe that all my studies, my vast knowledge of folklore, could fail me at this moment.

But I must pick up where I left off.

Wendell allowed the wind to carry us across the lake, and then he tacked south, taking us down an arm of Silverlily, which blocked the castle from view.

Tree-shadow fell over us and I breathed in the smell of sedge, and then we sailed out into the open again.

Dragonflies darted past and crickets murmured from sunny patches of grass, for the shadows were lengthening as the world moved towards evening.

Something gurgled intermittently below the water, releasing clouds of bubbles, and occasionally it seemed that a dark shape, too large to be a fish, darted beneath the boat.

Apparently the nobility were not the only ones who sailed upon Silverlily; to our left was a tiny canoe being rowed at a furious pace by a brownie in a grey cloak, and here and there along the bank I saw other miniature watercraft pulled up onshore or moored to overhanging tree limbs.

“Why have you not taken me boating before?” I said, only half in jest. The sun had come out, and with it my mood grew more optimistic.

The view of the tree-lined banks was lovely, the forest darker and even more full of mysteries from this distance, and the wind was pleasantly cool against my skin.

I felt as if I had come to the centre of something.

Wendell smiled. “I understood you’d taken a dislike to lakes after that field study in Sweden a few years ago.”

“That was more a dislike of water elves, as well as unscrupulous fishermen, such as those who rented me that leaky rowboat,” I said, scanning the water. “Where shall we look first? I have one or two theories.”

He gave me an anxious look. “You are not still angry with me?”

“Naturally I am,” I said, glaring. “But it is an illogical anger, for you are only trying to save your realm, and anyway I was the one who found you that bloody Macan story, thus I have as much cause to be angry at myself for thrusting you into this danger. So I have chosen to focus on the challenge at hand rather than indulge such a counterproductive sentiment.”

Wendell began to laugh. He leaned on one hand, his shoulders shaking, as the boat rocked slightly from side to side.

“Anyway,” I said, trying and failing to avoid blushing. Such a look he was giving me! “Perhaps we could start at the tip of that little peninsula and work our way out—”

“Emily,” Wendell said, perching on the seat across from me and taking my hand, “we have other business to attend to first. More important than finding my stepmother.”

I could only blink at him. “What on earth is more important than that?”

He took my hand. His eyes were greener in the dappled sunlight and emerald murk of the lake. “Will you marry me?”

I can’t think of a time when I have been more confused. I believe I stared at him for a full minute, waiting for him to explain himself. “That question has already been answered,” I said at last.

Then I realized what he meant and my pulse spiked with another surge of terror.

“Oh God,” I said. “Now? Here? With—” I waved at nothing in particular. “All this ?”

“It is far from ideal,” Wendell said with a sigh.

“I had been hoping for something lavish. I have always thought that if I was to marry, it would be in the castle gardens, or perhaps upon the shores of the Hanging Pools. But I have found myself wondering: is that what you would prefer? You are not much for public displays, unless they involve notes and lecture halls.”

I drew a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart, but it would not be calmed. “I do not like your timing. You are thinking of the story. Of Macan the Second’s end.”

“Yes,” Wendell said, gazing at me steadily.

“I must think of such things for your sake, for you are first in my thoughts. I have no intention of dying today—please understand that. But if things go awry—as you must allow they may—I will not leave you defenceless. My people recognize you as a queen of Faerie because I have told them that is what you are, but the realm does not recognize it. Not yet.”

“Old-fashioned, is it?” I was trying to joke, but it only came out sounding strangled.

And yet, against all odds, I felt my pulse slowing.

Perhaps it was due to the lulling environment of the lake, or Wendell’s obvious nervousness, something I have observed in him only rarely, but that makes him seem very nearly human.

Wendell answered me seriously. “I suppose so. But then, Faerie does not really recognize marriage . That translation from the Faie is only a clumsy approximation.” He seemed to think.

“Mortals, I’ve observed, sometimes marry for very silly reasons.

The Folk do not, because one cannot marry someone who does not match them.

The word has a connotation of accepting one’s fate. ”

“You are trying to calm me with a linguistics lesson,” I said.

He smiled. “Is it working?”

I let out a breath of laughter. “Then—you propose we marry by the old traditions? A simple declaration?”

“Why not?” he said.

It was a strange thing. I had been viewing the marriage question with such trepidation—the ceremony, the spectacle, all that came after it, in the form of this strange and beautiful kingdom that would thence be half mine.

And yet, as I sat there upon the lake amidst the tree-shadow and reflected light and the dragonflies tussling with the wind, I no longer knew why I had been so afraid.

Likely it was also the threat of Queen Arna hanging over us like a guillotine—well, the prospect of imminent death tends to put things into perspective.

It was not that my worries vanished —no magic could manage that.

I only realized how much smaller they were than the world that lay before me.

A world that I wanted, even after all I had seen, and amidst such a thicket of danger.

I wanted it very much. And I especially wanted to share it with Wendell.

“All right,” I said. “How does this work? Must I stand? I warn you, my balance is unsteady in all forms of watercraft.”

Wendell blinked for a moment. And then his expression flooded with such delight and relief that I was taken aback.

“You thought I would say no!” I exclaimed, batting away his hand in indignation. “Good grief. And you are always boasting about how well you know me.”

He laughed again, a sound that echoed across the lake, and it seemed the trees were stirred by it, raining their leaves down upon the lakeshore.

He rubbed a hand over his face. “I didn’t think that,” he said.

“I didn’t know what you would say. It appears you still have the ability to surprise me, Em. ”

I rolled my eyes. There was an echo of nervousness in his gaze, and I decided I’d had enough of that.

Additionally, he was looking very handsome just then, with the sunlight picking out at least a dozen shades of gold in his hair, so I took hold of his cloak, thumb looping through one of the buttonholes, and drew him towards me.

“Well, come on, what must we do?” I said when at last we broke apart, breathless. I hoped this tradition would not involve lengthy speeches. I have not improved much when it comes to putting feelings into words.

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s done. Look.”

I followed his gaze to the lakeshore. A hundred tiny lights dotted the forest—more than a hundred.

A thousand? They kept appearing among the shadows, different in size and luminance depending on the lantern.

I hadn’t realized the forest was so full of Folk.

And among the trees, the silver faerie stones began to glow.

“All this for a mortal queen?” I muttered, flushed and overwhelmed.

“Too much?” Wendell made a gesture, and the faerie stones dimmed, retaining only a faint luminescence. “That’s as much as I can do. The small Folk will keep to their traditions—they would be greatly offended if I ask them to put their lights out before morning.”

“Very well,” I said. It was easier to bear without the faerie stones, which I’ve always found eerie, the way they hang untethered among the treetops like a strangely shaped mist. I know the curator of Cambridge’s Museum of Dryadology and Ethnofolklore would give her eye teeth for just one of the things—none have ever been smuggled into the mortal world, and their form and size makes them unique among faerie stones.

We drifted for a time, watching more lights flicker to life.

“What is that?” I said.

We had floated towards the southern bank of the lake. Now we were not far from where Ariadne and I had sighted the castle for the first time, mirrored in the glasslike water. The lake was shallower here; I could see the algal hue of the rocks at the bottom. And something else.

I reached into the water and seized the edge of the weed.

It was long and ropelike, with clusters of leaves branching off the main stem that looked like curls of red-brown hair.

I gave it a tug, expecting it to come loose, but it was firmly rooted to the lake bottom.

Pain spiked through my hand. I examined my palm—it was coated in tiny grains of green pollen, and two black thorns were embedded in the skin.

I showed Wendell, and he removed his sword and sliced off a chunk of the weed. He swore as he, too, cut his hand on the thorns.

“Two barbs,” I said.

“Yes.” He dropped the weed back into the lake. “They could easily tangle in one’s hair, if one went for a swim.”