Page 63 of Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde #3)

I woke before Arna this morning to fine weather, the sky clear and the winter’s chill dulled at the edge, hinting at the coming spring.

Ideal for camping, I suppose, but I was eager to reach the end of my arduous trek across three worlds and back, and woke Arna shortly after I finished jotting down the previous journal entry.

I doubt I need describe the storm of feeling that greeted my return to the cottage, not to mention the arrival of the woman who had murdered Wendell’s family, ravaged his kingdom, and brought about his death.

Still, I’d explained the necessity of this circumstance, and never has there been a greater sign of Lilja and Margret’s trust in me than their acceptance—grudging and antipathetic, it’s true—of Wendell’s stepmother as their guest.

Lilja was blunt. “Do we need to bind her?” she said, examining the forlorn figure before her, still dressed in a bathrobe.

I could see from her face that she had no complicated feelings about this particular faerie, that Arna perfectly accorded with her opinion of the courtly fae.

“We could send for metal wire from the local shop.”

“That won’t be necessary,” I said, guiding the old queen towards one of the kitchen chairs.

“I respect the old laws of hospitality,” Arna said.

“Unlike some.” Here she gave me a cutting look that I found too absurd to be galling, which isn’t to say she was not getting on my nerves by this point.

I occupied myself with fussing over Shadow, helping him settle himself by the fire upon his familiar blankets.

“Would you like to take tea?” Margret said with more warmth. Margret, I have noted, appreciates having novel company to test her baking on—even, it seems, if they are murderous relations. She puts me in mind of Poe in that respect.

Arna shrugged. She looked around the cottage, seeming amused by what she saw, or simply by her situation. “Why not?”

“Oh good!” Margret said. “I made local fare this time—apple cake. I had the recipe from one of the shopkeepers. I thought the queen might appreciate it more than our foreign baking.”

“I am no queen, my dear,” Arna said, looking pleased to have the opportunity to display her humility, as a child would a new toy.

Unfortunately, she seemed inspired to take this even further, and rose to help Margret prepare our tea.

Margret seemed to wish to stop her, but the former queen has an innate imperiousness that I doubt will ever fade.

The results were as one would expect from someone who has drunk a lot of tea but never made it: the former queen added so many leaves to the pot that it took on the colour and taste of tar.

I had been looking forward to hot tea more than any other thing after such a gruelling quest and found myself so unreasonably piqued that one would think tea represented the greatest of the old queen’s misdeeds.

Leaving the three of them to make small talk, I ventured outside and turned the stepping-stones back over.

I knew we should return at once, to spare Wendell any additional fretting, though a part of me wished to tarry.

I could not fathom his precise reaction to what I had done, but it was difficult to imagine it being positive.

When I returned, I found that Arna had cast some form of glamour upon one of the paintings on the wall. What had been a portrait of a woman in an antiquated dress smiling faintly at the artist was now an intricate pattern of wildflowers and seashells, with a naked couple cavorting in the centre.

“Already there is a difference,” Arna was saying, gazing appraisingly about the cottage. “Mortals give so little attention to the beauty of their environments. The effect upon one’s well-being is significant, which they would realize if only they opened their eyes.”

I could see from Lilja’s face that she did not appreciate the change one bit—I believe the painting had some sentimental value. I gave her a look of silent appeal, and she let out her breath and said nothing.

“We must go,” I said.

“Yes,” Arna said, pushing her chair back. “I must face my son sometime. I would prefer not to lengthen the anticipation.”

I realized she was trembling lightly, which quelled a great deal of my annoyance. I had not expected her to be frightened.

We took our leave of Lilja and Margret, who for once did not seem sorry to say goodbye, though both folded me into a tight embrace at the door.

We ventured across the garden and down the stepping-stone path. I expected to emerge in the forest of Wendell’s realm—that was where the door had led most recently. Instead, I found myself in the castle, where the door used to lead. Specifically, Wendell’s and my apartments.

I blinked, staring at the now-familiar hallway. Shadow gave a huff and kept walking, glancing over his shoulder in puzzlement when I did not follow.

“He put it back,” I said blankly.

Arna looked about. “This is unexpected. Why would he put a door to the mortal realm here? It’s dreadfully unsafe to have a door opening onto one’s private chambers. What if assassins learn of it?”

Good Lord. “Let us find Wendell,” I said through my teeth.

“One moment.” Arna pressed a hand to the bathrobe, and a glamour unfolded over it.

Now she was dressed in a midnight gown as loose and silky as the robe had been, but embellished with pearls and a silver-embroidered pattern of songbirds and vines.

She did not alter the tangle of her hair, but it had silvered vines in it now to match those on her dress.

Her feet she left bare. Perhaps she thought the overall picture was one of humility, because she was nowhere near as elaborately clothed as she once had been, though she had sacrificed neither taste nor elegance at this altar.

Two servants appeared at the threshold of the corridor, perhaps having heard our voices. There they froze as if struck by some enchantment.

“Where is the king?” I asked.

They stared at me, mouths agape. Then, “The Grove,” one said in a tremulous voice. The other fled.

“Oh dear,” Arna said, though she did not look displeased.

“Shall—shall I send for him?” said the remaining servant.

“No,” Arna answered in her calm, imperious manner. “We shall seek him there. It is fitting that I should abdicate power at the foot of my old throne.”

Now, the fact that I refrained from pointing out that power would not be abdicated on her say-so, for she had been thoroughly overthrown already, or that, as the present queen of the realm, it was my opinion of the situation that mattered, represented a remarkable display of high-mindedness on my part, I believe.

I was mollified somewhat by the hesitation of the servant, whose gaze darted in my direction. I nodded.

My first priority, of course, was Shadow, and so after summoning a servant to fetch him his favourite victuals, I took him to our bedroom and helped him hop up on the bed, which ordinarily he can manage without assistance.

He was asleep almost immediately, but I stayed at his side another moment, gently rubbing faerie salve into his joints—it is a new concoction made by one of the castle brownies, and has proven remarkably effective.

He twitched with pleasure when I did his knees.

Arna and I continued through the castle.

Many Folk fled at the first sight of her, including the poor tailors in the dressing room, who launched their handiwork and needles into the air with a flurry of squeaks and pushed and shoved at one another in their haste to be gone.

Yet just as many mastered themselves enough to return, following behind us at a safe distance and muttering amongst themselves.

We accumulated Folk as we went, both servants and courtiers, courtly and common fae.

In fact, once we alighted at the foot of the staircase, it seemed as if everyone in the castle were trailing after us.

The stairs were clogged with a long river of Folk, some elbowing others aside to achieve the best vantage.

“Good grief,” I murmured. I’d had more than enough of feeling like the heroine in a stage performance. Yet perhaps it was better this way—the more onlookers, the greater the likelihood the events of the day would be accurately remembered and retold.

Once we gained the forest path, our audience had swelled to such an extent that Folk began clambering into the trees to keep us in sight.

Two young women in elaborate court dresses giggled and shoved at each other from the canopy, their skirts hiked to their thighs.

Another man slipped and fell to the ground, landing on the path before us, where he screamed and scrambled aside as if we might blast him to cinders where he lay.

I had never seen so many Folk assembled in one place, and was so unnerved I only barely kept my countenance; they seemed to tangle together like a forest within the forest, a vast conglomeration of leaf and moss and fine silk, beauty and monstrousness.

Snowbell materialized out of the chaos, snapping his teeth at one of his brethren who had attempted to follow him.

“What an adventure!” he crowed, leaping onto my shoulder and preening, as if he too had returned from a perilous quest in a haunted otherland. Well, at least somebody was enjoying the attention, I suppose.

One would think Arna noticed none of them, for her stride remained purposeful and unhurried, her gaze never straying from the path.

And perhaps she did not, for she had served as sole monarch for more than a decade, and as queen longer than that, and was doubtless used to the ridiculous habits of her subjects.

And then we had come to the Monarchs’ Grove.