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“Delightful.” As he showed no evidence of bestirring himself, I grudgingly seated myself on the grass. “Our friend in the village was no wight, but a changeling of the courtly fae. I had to interrogate the creature with iron. Unassisted.”

“I’m sure you held your own, as you always do.” The hat slid back down his forehead. I took it from him, and he blinked in the sudden sunlight.

“Oh dear. What have I done to earn that basilisk stare?”

“We have agreed to work together. Yet now I hear that you have seen fit to trample on my research. The brownie by the spring, whose trust I have spent days in cultivating, would barely speak to me after your visit.”

“What?” He looked genuinely baffled. “I brought the little one peppermints and asked a few questions. Nothing more.”

“He seemed frightened of you.” I added quickly, “Though he would not say why. In any case, you cannot go there again.”

“Your wish is my command, Em.” He regarded me with amusement. “Is that all that has upset you? Surely there are other brownies in this wood for you to pester if that one has soured on you.”

I thought quickly, hiding it behind a frown. It had become clear to me, in a way that it never had before, that it would be wise for me to be frightened of Bambleby. And if I could not muster fear—a dubious proposition, to be sure—I should at least attempt wariness, if for no reason other than that he is Folk. My suspicion is suspicion no more, but fact.

“You have done nothing since your arrival but laze about,” I told him. “As well as jeopardize the only meaningful connection I have established with the Hidden Ones. You don’t realize how hard I have been working, Wendell, or how important this is to me.”

“I do, though,” he said, and I was alarmed by how earnest he became. “And I’m sorry, Em, if I’ve given you reason to think otherwise. I assure you that I have been working quite hard today.” He looked down at his sprawled self. “More or less. I walked a great deal of the Karrðarskogur. I even discovered a small lake high upon the mountain with evidence of kelpie habitation. Well, whatever they call such creatures in this blasted cold country.”

“Kelpie?” My mouth fell open. “What lake? I saw no lakes.”

He looked far too pleased with himself. “That’s because you missed it, my dear. It was about half a mile beyond the extent of your map.”

“Show me.”

He groaned. “But I just came from there. You are far too vigorous for a scholar. Another day, please. Why don’t you tell me about your interview with our new changeling friend?”

He was changing the subject, but I admit I had little energy for climbing up into the peaks after the day I’d had, and so gave him a summary of my interrogation at the farmhouse.

“He is terrorizing them, Wendell,” I concluded.

“So it seems,” he said, though he did not appear particularly interested. “And he would tell you nothing of his parents?”

I shook my head. “The motives of the courtly fae in stealing children have never left the realm of academic speculation. If only we could ask one of them.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” he said blandly.

I gritted my teeth. “Otherwise, I don’t know how we’ll ever figure out their purpose in this instance.”

“Purpose? Or purposes? The Folk are diverse in many ways; no doubt this is one of them.”

I could detect no hidden meaning in his words, and so decided to take them at face value. Perhaps he truly had no idea why the Folk of Ljosland stole children. Indeed, he was so detached about the whole thing that I felt a sliver of doubt enter me. Yet what reason would Poe have had to lie about Bambleby’s identity?

“I would like to at least try to help.”

“Help whom?”

I wanted to shake him. “Mord and Aslaug!”

“Ah. How do you propose to do that? Their son will die if the changeling is killed. If we somehow chase it from its abode, it will die, and thus the outcome is the same.” He leaned back against the tree, his eyes drifting shut again. “Besides, it would hardly be professional. We’re here to observe, not interfere.”

I watched him carefully. “Perhaps you could visit them.”

His eyes opened to slits. “And what will that accomplish?”

His voice was as bored as ever, but there was an undercurrent of something that made me feel as if I was edging onto dangerous ground. Only I didn’t care. I knew that if I left Mord and Aslaug with the changeling without making every effort to free them from its poisons, I would regret it until the end of my days.

“I don’t know,” I said, meeting his gaze levelly. It was true enough. I don’t know what powers he has or what he is capable of. “Perhaps you can get more information out of the creature than I could. The Folk of Ljosland clearly find you disagreeable company, for reasons unimaginable to myself.”