Page 64 of Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde #3)

It had not been spared the queen’s poison.

The mist was gone, but the trees were blackened, as if from wildfire, and yet their leaves remained, dark and tattered, so that the grove seemed to have more shadow in it than it had before.

The towering oak whose roots made up our thrones had not been touched, however. It was whole and quite healthy.

Wendell was seated upon his throne, one hand resting on the arm as he leaned forward with a frown, doubtless having heard the approaching tide of Folk.

Razkarden perched on the back of his throne, hideous legs unfurled, watching me with his unfathomable gaze.

Orga was in Wendell’s lap, and he had his other hand on her back, which was arched slightly, as if she were prepared to pounce on whatever threats might be drawing nigh.

Snowbell gave a little start at the sight of her and leapt to the ground to hide behind my ankle, though he bared his teeth all the while.

As I do not generally prefer the beast to be within close range of my extremities, I found this behaviour distracting, and only just restrained myself from kicking him away.

Behind Wendell stood Niamh and several guards, and before him knelt a courtier, who must have been in the middle of seeking some favour, and who now stared in our direction with a terrified expression.

Other courtiers crowded together at the opposite side of the grove, and I caught flashes of green disappearing into the forest—brownies fleeing from the tumult, I assume.

Wendell wore his possessed cloak, which gave a grumble into the silence that had fallen, and a crown of silvered rhododendrons in his hair. Against the backdrop of greenery and blasted stumps, he was as arresting as ever, but very pale—Icould tell at a glance that he had not been sleeping.

As the eyes of the assembled Folk fell upon me, I realized that I had forgotten to change back into my queenly attire.

I still had on my old shift and winter wellies, as if I were returned from fieldwork in the countryside.

I was even more dishevelled than usual from my adventure, for I had lost a bootlace somewhere along the way, and I did not even want to imagine what my hair looked like.

My journal poked out of one pocket, my notebook another, and my fingertips were smudged with ink.

I looked every inch a scholar, a none-too-reputable one at that, and not one millimetre a queen.

And yet, somehow, this seemed barely to register on my audience.

The Folk stared at me as much as Arna, with an avidity they had never displayed before.

Perhaps it was the contrast I made with themselves, perhaps something else.

The Folk respect power above most things, after all, and perhaps there was power in abandoning my fumbling attempts to please them, as if I were above it all, even if I did not feel that way.

In any case, I was not used to commanding their attention, and on the whole was not certain I preferred it.

Nevertheless, I pretended as if none of these thoughts existed, and drew my shoulders back.

I had prepared my speech, and practiced it mentally several times.

“Forgive me,” I said to Wendell. “I have gone against your wishes. I do not believe I had the right to do so in this case, as she is your stepmother and it was your family she took from you—not to mention your kingdom. Yet I cannot abide the thought of losing you, either now or in future. I know you will wish to send her back to the Veil. But I can only ask that you listen first to—”

He closed the distance between us and wrapped me in his arms, and I could not speak.

“I was terrified you would not return,” he mumbled into my hair. “Will you go away again? Please say no.”

I touched his face, which I realized was wet. I drew back to look at him.

“I will not,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

He only pulled me to him again, gripping me so tightly I suspected he did not believe me.

Someone started strumming a harp, some romantic ballad, but was almost immediately shushed by at least a dozen voices.

I wanted to suggest we continue the conversation in private, but naturally, none of the other protagonists in our impromptu stage drama paid any heed to the innumerable eyes upon them.

Arna, at my side, fidgeted with impatience.

“Your wife is not the only one come with apologies, Your Highness.” She went down on one knee, bowing her head low.

“I surrender myself to your judgment. I am cured of my desire for a throne—indeed, for anything that is not the humblest mode of existence, as nothing could please me more than the sunlight upon my skin or the birdsong in these trees.”

Wendell drew back, swiping his sleeve over his eyes, and squinted at her irritably, as if she were another self-important musician inserting herself where she wasn’t needed.

“How in God’s name did you get her out?” he said, looking at me with such bafflement that it teetered on the edge of amusement.

“You don’t wish to know why first?” I said, unable to stop smiling.

It seemed highly inappropriate, given the circumstances.

Yet Wendell was gazing at me with such an expression of delight, awe, and relief, and showing not the slightest indication of flying into one of his fits of temper, nor any evidence that such a tendency could exist in one so light of heart, that I almost wished to laugh.

“Oh, I know why,” he said. “Some scholarly tome told you that you must rescue her, did it not? And so you have trusted in that, rather than the evidence of your own eyes, which proved my stepmother deserving of every punishment a mind could invent.”

“You accuse me of illogic!” I said. “I expected to return to find you very angry with me.”

He barely seemed to hear. He looked from me to Arna, and I did see a flash of temper in his gaze then—but only a flash. “You have risked your life for her. Haven’t you?”

“Ah,” I began nervously. “Somewhat, I suppose.”

“Somewhat,” he repeated. “Somewhat, Em!”

“I had every confidence in my abilities!” I protested, and I told him how it had come about: my research, the journey to the mountain, Poe, the Hidden king’s assistance.

When I came to his role Wendell looked so faint it seemed briefly possible that he might pass out.

When I told him how Shadow and I had travelled through the Veil, he stood in complete silence for a long moment, staring at me.

Then, abruptly, he pulled me into his arms again.

“You must allow your stepmother to live,” I said. I was about to launch into my reasoning, for I still had my speech to finish, but he forestalled me.

“Yes, obviously,” he said, pulling back to draw a handkerchief from his pocket and blow his nose.

“Obviously?” I said, puzzled and a little flustered.

He finished blowing and waved a hand, tucking the handkerchief away. “Good Lord, Emily! You think I would risk you doing something like that again? Name your demands and they shall be met.”

“I—” I stopped, feeling oddly put out that I could not deliver my speech as I’d intended. “I have only the one.”

He studied me. “All the time you were away I spent worrying that you were unhappy here.”

“What?” I said.

“Well, I could think of no other reason why you would leave me for so long. Please put my mind at ease. Are you?”

“Am I what?” I was beginning to feel as if the conversation were a wayward wind blowing me off course.

We were supposed to be speaking of his stepmother!

She stood not a yard from me; I could tell that she, too, had expected to occupy the bulk of Wendell’s attention, and was displeased to find that this was not so.

“Are you unhappy here?” he persisted. “I have made a number of improvements, such as hiring additional bookbinders—and I realize that I have neglected that all-important room, the library. Now, I will not use the word theft, as it is entirely inaccurate in this case, but if we were to borrow the contents of the dryadology library at Cambridge and make copies—”

“I am not unhappy!” I interrupted. To my surprise, I found myself laughing a little—he looked so dreadfully earnest.

He seemed relieved and glanced at his stepmother with more contempt than hostility.

I hadn’t thought it would be easy to convince him, and in truth, it hadn’t been, but now that he had given way to me, he seemed almost to have forgotten why he’d been so adamant before about killing her.

Leaves rustled overhead and I glanced up; to my dismay I found the boughs above us crowded with Folk, the largest number being brownies, black eyes glistening, but also some courtly fae less cognizant of their dignity, adolescents in the main.

“You should not forgive me so easily,” I said. “At least not without an explanation.”

I launched back into my speech, offering evidence to support my certainty that his decision to punish his stepmother would come back to haunt him, relying on my extensive knowledge of story patterns, as well as the discoveries regarding the Macan tale I had made at the cottage.

I broke off when I saw that he was regarding me with a look of pure exasperation.

“Em,” he said, “if your aim is to convince me to allow this murderous lunatic to run free through the realm, you need not importune me further; it shall be done. But do not ask me to see the wisdom of it.”

“Your Highness,” Niamh said, looking as if she had been suppressing objections that could not be held back any longer.

“Your stepmother has done great harm. Are we truly to accept her assurances that she will not try for the throne again? I agree she should not be tossed back into the Veil, but surely she should be held in the dungeons at least.”

“How much simpler it would be to kill her,” Lord Taran said from behind me. I had not noticed he was there—he had blended into the nebulous crowd of Folk—and turned to find him regarding us with a droll expression.

“Simpler, perhaps,” I said. “But not necessary. Now that she is caught, surely you can set enchantments upon her that will circumscribe her movements. Her powers may also be bound, though given that she is no longer queen, those must be greatly diminished already.”

Arna only shrugged at this. “What need have I for magic when I can have the smell of trees after rainfall, the melody of water tumbling over moss and stone, the warmth of a summer’s day, and the quickening chill of an autumn twilight upon my skin?”

“Good Lord,” Wendell said.

“And I shall not run free anywhere,” Arna went on.

“My aim is to take up a quiet little cottage somewhere out of the way—you may choose the place, Your Highness, and have me spied upon at all hours if you wish. The Veil has taught me wisdom, where before—I know now—I had only canniness. I wish to pass this wisdom on to other Folk.”

Wendell’s only response to this speech was to turn back to me with a look of aghast disbelief.

“I believe she may be sincere,” I said. “After a fashion.”

“Very well!” he said. “If you wish to make a pet—or, as I suspect is more likely, an object of scientific study—out of the greatest villain our realm has ever known, I shall not stand in the way. I should have known you would appreciate such an opportunity more than any material gift I could give you.”

“Your words are pretty, sister,” Lord Taran said, “even unexpected—I say that as one who knows you better than any other. But I don’t believe you have changed, myself, for you have nothing to gain from it, and everything to gain from pretending.

No doubt in time you shall manage to convince other Folk, enough to make some of them forgive you, perhaps.

As you know, there is a way out of every enchantment, if one looks hard enough—and if one cultivates the right allies.

” He looked at Wendell and me. “She will never stop being a threat if she is allowed to live.”

“Perhaps that is the way it should be,” I said.

I wondered if it was the lack of enemies that drove Macan the Second mad—if it is the cause of other instances of madness among faerie monarchs.

Perhaps being too powerful, too unopposed, is a curse in and of itself, leading to boredom and dissipation, and the invention of imaginary enemies whose powers to torment are less limited than those of flesh and blood. Another paper there, I suppose.

Lord Taran glanced from me to Wendell and shrugged. “You are listening to the whims of your wife, and for that I cannot fault you.”

“Whims!” I exclaimed, but Taran had already turned away, seeming uninterested in pursuing the argument. I knew that I had not convinced him at all, or rather I had not convinced him for the reasons I had intended.

Wendell gave me an anxious look, as if fearing some discord remained between us. “You are certain you are happy here? You have no idea how the question kept me up at night.”

He was so worried that I could not help teasing him. “Only one thing shall make me happier.”

His anxiety seemed to increase. “Oh, yes? Please let it not involve my stepmother this time.”

“You still have not given me a tour of the kingdom,” I said. Despite the continued annoyance presented by our audience, I felt the relief of homecoming, the anticipation of rest and familiar comforts, wash over me like sunlight. “Was I not promised a map to every province and a key to every door?”

“Oh, Em.” A smile broke across his face. “I believe you were.”