Page 65 of Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde #3)
Tonight we dined at Lilja and Margret’s—overdue by several days, for I knew they had been anxious for news.
Wendell tells me I should stop thinking of the cottage as Lilja and Margret’s—they will be leaving soon, after all, and though they have already promised to return in the summer at my insistence, the cottage will soon be my domain alone.
I do not know how much time I will spend in the mortal world, but I can’t deny that having the option of escaping the absurdity of Faerie is comforting; it is one of the best gifts Wendell has given me.
On the subject of gifts, Wendell informed me as we made our way down the hall to the faerie door that he had a surprise for me that evening.
“Is that necessary?” I said with a sigh. “You know I prefer not to be surprised, as a general rule.”
Wendell paused to speak to the small brownie who had run up to him clutching a mug of coffee—these days, Wendell is rarely without a retinue of common fae, who trail after him bearing delicacies and gifts they have made.
I am unconvinced that all this fawning is good for his ego, but it is a remarkable thing nevertheless; the small Folk are more accustomed to hiding from the courtly fae, particularly in this realm.
Wendell is kind to them at least, and if this kindness remains mixed with some amount of condescension, this is still more improvement than I expected from him.
“You must allow me a little fun once in a while,” he said, following me through the door to Corbann. “I have been so looking forward to this.”
“Well, if you must.” We walked to the cottage gate, and I paused to wait for Shadow to catch up. He has been doing a little better since our grim quest, but I still worried about him. When at last he doddered up to the gate, I knelt to rub his neck.
“Come, dear,” I murmured, my chest filling with a familiar ache. “You shall have your usual blankets by the fire, and first choice of all the courses.”
He licked my hand and his tail gave a solitary thump against the grass.
I turned to find Wendell gazing about the garden with a distracted frown that I recognized well. “You are not thinking of apple trees, I hope,” I said. “Lilja and Margret seem happy to have escaped that unnatural thing you gave them in Ljosland.”
“But it is such a drab little place,” he complained. “Even as cottages go. I could add a pear tree, at least.”
“No,” I said.
“A strawberry patch.”
We spent the next few minutes bickering about it until at last I suggested that he summon a wisteria.
He beamed in a way that aroused my instantaneous regret, but it was too late; he placed his hand on the cottage and tapped his fingers against the stone.
A vine erupted from the ground and clambered up the wall with an unpleasant, excited sort of energy, splitting itself as it bent around the windows and door until it looked like a many-fingered hand itself, crooked possessively about the cottage.
Flowers dangled like fat purple lanterns, dewed petals limned by the hearthlight of the windows.
“Much better,” Wendell said.
I gazed at the place in silent awe. After wrestling with myself for a moment, I said, “You could add one or two more.”
He looked delighted. “That was exactly my own thought!”
I watched as he summoned more vines, taking his time withthe placement. It was not so much the flowers themselves I appreciated, but the magic trick. I do not think I shall ever grow tired of that.
Lilja threw the door open at our knock and welcomed us with hugs, followed by Margret, and took our cloaks to hang on the rack.
The cottage was filled with the scent of roasted pheasant and more of Margret’s baking—which, I can say without prejudice, has only improved with time, and is not far from rivalling Poe’s.
Naturally the evening began with everyone talking at once, Lilja and Margret full of questions and Wendell full of compliments regarding their improvements to the cottage and the aromas emanating from the kitchen.
Shadow, meanwhile, was so happy to see his friends again that he overturned the tray of toasted cheese Margret had prepared for hors d’oeuvres.
Somehow I managed to interpose a summary of recent events amidst the chaos.
“Then the queen is—under guard?” Margret asked. We had settled ourselves at the table, apart from Lilja, who was stirring the pot of soup. “But free to roam about?”
I could guess the source of her anxiety. “She is unable to leave Faerie,” I said. “Wendell has bound her to the realm. So you need not worry about her showing up in your garden again.”
“She has not left her new home, nor tried to,” Wendell said—I could see this still surprised him.
The old queen had acquiesced to her humble living arrangements—a small house on the other side of the lake, tucked between two hills well-endowed with pretty meadows—without a single complaint, and, indeed, with a great deal of smiles and admiring little speeches.
She had a garden, which she spent most of her days tending, a well, her own cow, and not one servant—though she had several guards and innumerable spies among the common fae, Snowbell among them.
Ever delighted to be useful, he visited me daily with updates on Arna’s activities, also voicing his anticipation of the day she would attempt to flee, at which time he intended to gnaw the flesh from her ankles.
Wendell believes it is only a matter of years, if not months, before she takes up scheming once more, but I maintain my opinion that the old queen has reformed.
He did not see her in the Veil. And perhaps Arna, being half mortal, can escape the patterns her faerie ancestors have been powerless to resist. To which Wendell only replies that mortals can be just as prone to cycles of foolishness and self-destructive villainy as the Folk.
Well, time will tell whose argument carries the day.
“Then Ariadne and Farris are not here?” I enquired. “I wondered if they might be delayed; there are so many connections to make from Cambridge, and the ferry is not always reliable.”
“Actually, they arrived early,” Lilja said. “More than an hour ago. They just popped down to the village—”
As if we had summoned them, the door opened and Farris Rose stepped in, bearing a bottle of cider.
In his wake trailed Ariadne, who had been walking with one of the village youths—for naturally she had already made a friend.
I was embraced by both the new arrivals, after which Ariadne also gave Wendell an impulsive hug.
Farris, not making eye contact, greeted him with a curt “Hello” before stalking past, which was the politest he’d been to Wendell in months.
“Was your journey a pleasant one?” I enquired.
“Oh, yes!” Ariadne exclaimed, before launching into a list of the research questions she wished to tackle during her stay.
The two would spend a week in Faerie as our guests, to which Farris had acquiesced with a sort of grudging excitement.
I could tell he did not wish to be any guest of Wendell’s, and yet he could not resist such an immense scientific gift, and thus his annoyance was partly with himself, in his betrayal of his principles.
“Hello there!” The door opened, and Callum pushed his head in. “May we come in?”
Lilja hurried to the door, greeting him and Niamh with smiles and thanks—Lilja and Margret had asked that no faerie food or drink be brought, but Callum had offered to play for us and had his harp with him.
Meanwhile Niamh had brought several sketches of Wendell’s realm drawn by one of the dozen or so mortal artists who dwelt in the castle, so that Lilja and Margret might gain some sense of the place without having to set foot there themselves.
Dinner was a merry affair. The conversation was rather scattered, which does not ordinarily suit my preferences, but among those I knew so well I did not mind it.
Farris and Niamh had much catching up to do, for though I had told him she was alive and well in the Silva Lupi, they had not yet reconnected, and were immediately nattering away like the old friends they were, Farris occasionally forgetting his dignity enough to have to wipe his eyes with his sleeve.
Ariadne was full of questions as always, but she also formed an instantaneous accord with Lilja and Margret, who were not much older than she.
Within the space of five minutes, it seemed, they were inviting her to their house in Ljosland, to which Ariadne—I note with some melancholy—may travel freely without fear of the Hidden king.
Even Callum, who is ordinarily of a quiet nature, was comfortable enough to tell several stories of his youth in the coastal village of Kilmoney, and of his early years in Faerie with Lord Taran.
I did not regret our decision not to invite Taran—who in any event had professed himself wholly uninterested in attending—in deference to Lilja and Margret’s discomfort with the Folk, and particularly such Folk as he.
Margret, after all, still bears the mark of the Hidden Ones on her forehead, and in odd moments I have noticed her gaze grow distant, until Lilja brings her back to herself with a gentle word or touch.
Yet I could see they were fascinated by Callum and Niamh, mortals who had not only ventured into Faerie and lived, but remained themselves and unbroken.
“I still cannot imagine the likes of our wee ones as royal councillors,” Lilja said. “Do the small Folk truly have an aptitude for it?”