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We made good time on the return journey, for I had noted and memorized every direction given to us by the changeling, even the smallest commands he gave to the horse, taking her left around a frozen puddle rather than right, for instance. Ari—the true Ari—had been returned to us in an enchanted daze, and soon slipped into sleep swaddled in blankets against Bambleby’s chest. He was pale and had clearly been underfed, as is common with human children kept by the Folk, for time is not the same in faerie realms, and also the Folk are thought to be irresponsible child minders. But he appeared well otherwise, clad in a dress and cloak of finely woven lambswool and boots stuffed with straw.

Nobody answered our knock at Mord and Aslaug’s door—it was then nearing midnight—but it was unlocked, and so we went inside and laid the child down upon the changeling’s bed, which had also been Ari’s, long ago.

As we were arranging the blankets, Mord came home. He was shivering and unshaven, and he carried a long knife in his belt, and I wondered how many nights of late he’d been given to wandering the fields and cliffs after dark. He didn’t seem to understand what he was seeing, and while he stood blinking at us in the doorframe, Aslaug appeared, still clad in her day clothes. Something in her face shattered, and she threw herself upon the bed, erupting into sobs, which woke Ari, who began to wail in confusion. His crying, though, was a wonderfully mundane sound, unlike anything the changeling had ever uttered. Mord gave a cry and tried to pry them apart, perhaps assuming this was all another horrible faerie trick, but Wendell and I managed to stop him. He sat down heavily on the floor, legs tucked beneath him like a child, and simply stared at his wife and son as Aslaug had stared into the fire. I think he had already decided inside himself that his son was lost, and perhaps his long walks had something to do with the knife he carried with him, ready to be put to a purpose he could never bring himself to actualize.

Wendell gave the room a good sweep with a broom he found somewhere or perhaps conjured up himself, knocking icicles and frost from the walls, which he later explained to me were the remnants of enchantments woven by the changeling, left behind like cobwebs. I had little idea of what to do, so I simply gave Mord an awkward pat on the shoulder and made to leave. At that, he suddenly rose to his feet and wrapped me in a very strange hug (my back was to him, my arm somehow trapped between us—I have no instinct for this sort of thing) and then, still without speaking a word, he released me and went to his son’s bedside.

“Well!” Wendell said after we had returned to the cottage. “What a heartwarming scene! I could get a taste for this philanthropy nonsense.”

I snorted. “You will get a taste for it on rare occasions, when it suits your whims, and if you needn’t exert yourself too greatly.”

He shook his head, smiling. “We are not all alike, Em. You cannot simply compare me against what you know of the Folk.”

“I was comparing you against you.”

He laughed and handed me a glass of wine. I froze, my gaze falling on the mirror behind him.

“You’ve enchanted it!” I exclaimed, stepping forward. The mirror was filled with trees, a twilight forest that bent in the wind, tossing its branches. Leaves flickered across the glass like bright birds, and lights flashed here and there amongst the shadows. I could have been looking through a windowpane, and for a moment my head swam with the dissonance of it.

“There is nothing green in this place,” he said in a complaining tone. “Even the forest is rendered in black-and-white; I feel as if I am in a movie. I must have something to rest my eyes upon.”

I gazed at the forest a little longer, the sway and glimmer of it. It was—well, mesmerizing. It had a powerful resemblance to my favourite wood in the south of Cambridgeshire, where Shadow and I were wont to escape on fine summer days. Beyond the familiar curving oak at the edge of the frame should be a little stream. “Is it a faerie forest?”

“Oh—I don’t know,” he said. “It is leaf and bole and the scent of pine. That’s all I care about.”

Indeed, I did catch the faintest aroma of needles, now that I was thinking about it. Summer needles on a forest floor, warmly fragrant as they snapped underfoot.

I settled beside the fire, even though I was exhausted; in truth, I felt a little giddy. The snowy ride through that wild country; the conversation with the faerie woman—in and of itself a greater triumph than most dryadologists could hope for in their entire career. The things I had learned in a single night would give me material for a year’s worth of papers. I downed the wine and sank back into my chair, my mind already dancing through the additions I would make in my encyclopaedia.

He sat with me, chattering away about our triumphant return to Cambridge and ICODEF, and myriad other things, and not expecting anything substantial in reply, which is one of my favourite qualities about him. It sounds odd to admit that I find the company of such a boisterous person restful, but perhaps it is always restful to be around someone who does not expect anything from you beyond what is in your nature.

After a while, though, I felt an unexpected guilt. “You don’t have to stay with me,” I said. “You can go down to the tavern and regale the villagers with the tale of our success.”

“Why would I do that? I prefer your company, Em.”

He said it as if it were obvious. I snorted again, assuming he was teasing me. “Over the company of a tavern filled with a rapt and grateful audience? I’m sure you do.”

“Over anyone else’s company.” Again, he said it with some amusement, as if wondering what I was doing speculating about something so evident.

“You are drunk,” I said.

“Shall I prove it to you?”

“No, you shan’t,” I said, alarmed, but he was already sweeping to the floor, bending his knee and taking my hand between his.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” I said between my teeth. “And why are you doing it now?”

“Shall I make an appointment?” he said, then laughed. “Yes, I believe you would like that. Well, name the time when it would be convenient for you to receive a declaration of love.”

“Oh, get up,” I said, furious now. “What sort of jest is this, Wendell?”

“You don’t believe me?” He smiled, all mischief, a look I’d seen from other Folk, enough to know not to trust him one inch. “Ask for my true name, and I’ll give it to you.”

“Why on earth would you do that?” I demanded, yanking my hand back.

“Oh, Em,” he said forlornly. “You are the cleverest dolt I have ever met.”