Page 26

Bambleby collapsed into one of the armchairs, looking faint.

There was no water left for the washing up after breakfast, so I donned my boots and tramped outside to the stream. The snow had ceased, and the sky was a soft eggshell colour, the mountains dreaming under their woollen blankets. There was a loveliness in the forest’s absence of colour, its haunted dark framed by grey-white boughs, as if the snowfall had winnowed it down to the essence of what a forest is.

My sense of peace was short-lived. The stream was covered in ice too thick to pierce. I slipped trying, covering myself in snow. In a burst of inspiration, I filled the pot with snow, then set it over the fire. Bambleby was outside by the woodshed, looking like he was trying to solve a mathematical equation. For some reason, he had pushed away the snow with his boot so that he could stand upon the frosty grass. I actually felt a little sorry for him, shivering despite the weight of his cloak, for he reminded me of some temperate tree or bush, transplanted and forced to grow in some northerner’s garden against its will. I hefted the axe and placed a log upon the stump.

“Perhaps we should send for Finn,” Bambleby said.

“I’m perfectly capable,” I replied, though the axe was of an unnerving Ljoslander design and nearly came up to my shoulder.

I swung. The dull blade glanced off the log, which went careening into a tree, dislodging a small avalanche of snow. My axe buried itself in the stump; unbalanced, I fell over.

He looked appalled. “Good God, what a violent process.”

I dragged myself to my feet, cheeks flaming as I brushed the snow from my backside. “It’s not supposed to go like that.”

“I won’t be helping.” He backed up a step, raising his elegant hands. “I’ll cut off my foot. Or you will.”

“Oh, come on.” I wasn’t looking forward to trying a second time, and in my anger, I couldn’t help baiting him. Baiting a faerie prince! An unfortunate habit I have fallen into, that. “Do you not heat your houses with wood,” I said, all innocence, “in the place you come from?”

He gave me a withering look. “I’m quite happy to say that, in Dublin, we have servants to deal with these things.”

“Well, this is not Dublin, and I’m not getting anywhere. You have to help.”

“I do not. Give it one of your scowls; it will split itself in two.”

“God!” I went to impale the axe in the ground in frustration. Unfortunately, Bambleby, contrary creature that he is, had just stepped forward to remove it from my possession. I redirected my swing just in time to avoid relieving him of his arm, but not fast enough to save his sleeve.

“Dammit!” He pressed his hand to his arm, and at first I thought it melodrama, but then the snow beneath him began to turn pink.

“I knew it,” he snapped as blood leaked through his fingers. “I knew you would be the death of me. I wish you had chosen my foot. This is my favourite cloak.”

“Hang your cloak!” I shoved him towards the cottage. “Get inside! You’re bleeding!”

“I will not bleed any less indoors, you utter madwoman.”

But he allowed me to shove him inside, leaving behind him a trail of blood like tiny red footprints. To my horror, the pot of snow I had set over the fire had unbalanced itself during the melting, falling onto its side and extinguishing all but a few embers. Shadow, having been roused from his nap by the fireside, sat sneezing in the smoke.

When we peeled away Bambleby’s cloak, we found that the iron of the axe had bit deep, down to the bone. A scrap of flesh hung loose like a ghastly piece of cloth. As there was no water to wash the wound, I settled for a temporary dressing using scraps of my scarf. By the time I finished, Bambleby’s arm was blood-soaked, and his face was white.

“Just stay there,” I said.

“Oh, must I? Let’s head up to the fells again.”

“Quiet.” I was a storm of anxiety—the missing students, the rapidly cooling cottage, the water pot, the blood everywhere. It took me twice as long as it normally did to light the fire again, and I was forced to use the last of our logs. Then there was the business of heating more snow in the pot, which I was now in terror of overturning. I was equally concerned by the dearth of quips from Wendell’s direction. I went to examine the wound again and was alarmed to find a puddle of blood on the floor.

“Why are you still bleeding?” I demanded, absurdly offended.

He let out a breath of laughter. He was resting his head upon his uninjured arm. “Em. You nearly severed my hand.”

I shook him. “Tell me what to do!”

“I have no idea.” His voice was faint. “I have never been injured before. I don’t much care for it.”

I let out a string of curses. My mind ran through everything I knew about the Irish Folk, flipping through stories like the pages of a book. There was the tale of a faerie lord injured in battle who had been tended by a mortal girl, after which he turned her hair to gold and she lived as a queen, buying herself a new house with every new inch of hair she grew. Another story of a faerie maiden turned into a tree which a woodcutter half cut down, only to realize his mistake when the tree began to sob. There were plenty of stories of Folk nursed back to health by mortals, but none ever explained how; they were told because people loved hearing that the Folk ever needed mortal aid and about the lavish rewards they granted after.

“I need stitches, I think,” he said.

“Can you do it yourself?”