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“Oh God,” I said faintly.

He studied me. “Is it that bad? You already know more about faerie kingdoms than any mortal.”

“Stories,” I said faintly, drawing my hand back. “I know stories.”

He gave me an odd look. “And have you ever needed anything else? Have you not shaken a kingdom to its foundations, found a door to a distant otherland, overthrown a queen? Hand you the right storybook, and you are capable of anything.”

Well, I doubt I need describe how little comfort I took from his absolute faith in me. I’ve always known Wendell squandered much of his youth, but I assumed he had learned something about his court, about what it meant to wield power. Now I understood the truth: he knew nothing about kingship, and yet, on the eve of claiming his throne, viewed this fact as largely immaterial, if it had even occurred to him before. Small wonder some dryadologists believe all faeries are mad.

“I am a scholar,” I said. “I observe. I record. I don’t—no one will ever see me as a queen.”

“No?” He opened his book again. “More fool them. I suppose I could simply follow my father’s playbook and send Razkarden to pluck out my enemies’ eyes and entrails.”

I could not tell if he was joking or not, which put paid to my desire to pursue the discussion. And that, more or less, is where we left things.

—

Though I did not stop thinking about it.

I thought about it as we walked, the weight of my bag shifting against my back. I had packed four books—two of which I smuggled out of the special collections section of Cambridge’s dryadology library,[*2] which grates at my conscience, but I cannot see what else I could have done; one cannot mind library due dates in a world where time is liable to rearrange itself—all of which deal with the politics of faerie courts, what little is known of them. While it has long been assumed that the lords and ladies of Faerie rule primarily through might, the nobility being more skilled at enchantment than the rest of the courtly fae, recent scholarship has done much to challenge the notion that faerie monarchs are inept at strategizing or other conventional leadership skills.[*3] And, indeed, the rise of Wendell’s stepmother, a halfblood, to the throne offers more evidence to bolster this perspective.

I have not said much to Wendell about this, because the project is at present only a half-formed idea, but I have begun taking notes on the principles of faerie leadership that I have gleaned from my readings. It goes without saying that no dryadologist before me has actually witnessed the ruling of a faerie court from the throne itself, and thus no one has ever been better placed than I to write a book on faerie politics.

Even thinking those words sends a frisson of anticipation through me. If Wendell’s stepmother has us slain before I have a chance to contribute to the scholarly debate, I will be very disappointed.

A great deal of whispering followed Wendell and me as we made our way through the forest. I had the sense of being regarded by many pairs of eyes, but no Folk, either courtly or common, dared to greet us.

“If only we could glean some news,” I said. The frustrating truth is that we know next to nothing about what we will be facing. I have spoken with Poe, who has proven himself an uncommonly good source of gossip due to the volume of visitors he receives from disparate faerie realms, but he knew only that Wendell’s kingdom fell into chaos after I poisoned its queen. Wandering Folk, according to Poe, tend to avoid realms in such states of turmoil.

Wendell looked around. “Why not ask her?”

“Who?”

Wendell just kept on staring at a branch. “You needn’t cower. I am not going to harm you.”

I waited, but no response came from the forest, nor any sign of movement. Wendell made an exasperated sound and plucked the faerie off the branch—the faerie that I had not seen, who wore a cloak of woven moss. With the hood drawn up, crouched as she had been, she was merely a bend in the bough, an inconsequential vagary in the forest’s pattern.

The brownie gave a panicked squawk before going still again. She could not have been more than a foot high, with a cherubic face half covered in moss and the all-black eyes that are commonplace in creatures of her type.

“Your Highness!” the brownie cried in her small voice. “I did not see you! Forgive me!” As soon as Wendell set her down, she threw herself onto her face at his feet, jabbering something I could not make out—more apologies, I believe, only she also mentioned moss a great deal, making or mending it, I think, perhaps to give to Wendell as a present? The logic was difficult to glean.

“Please stand,” Wendell said. “I am not anybody’s Highness at present, so you needn’t—oh, this is tedious.”

The annoyance in his voice seemed to penetrate the faerie’s desperation more than his words. The creature stood, shivering.

“We are not going to harm you,” I repeated, but she only looked at me miserably. I felt a surge of pity.

Wendell swept his cloak to one side and crouched before the faerie. “Now,” he said, “answer me quickly, and you shall return to your moss-den all the sooner. What has happened to my realm?”

The faerie began to jabber again, coupling this with a great deal of hand-wringing and elaborate gesticulations. Again I could make out very little of what she was saying, despite my fluency in Faie; the brownie mumbled and spoke in a dialect that seemed to have a great deal of Irish mixed in. After listening for a moment, Wendell held up a hand.

“Nothing particularly useful,” he said to me, standing. “The little ones have been greatly troubled of late by Folk charging about on their steeds, trampling their burrows. Battles have been waged, and a great deal of magic expended, sending brownies like this one into a panic. Some have fled into the mountains, abandoning their homes altogether.” He looked genuinely upset. “But they do not know what is happening, nor the players involved, only that their lives have been made very unpleasant. What a mess!”

He rubbed his hand through his hair. “It began with my stepmother—her decision to enlarge her kingdom by conquering the neighbouring realms; not an event appreciated, it seems, by all the inhabitants, who send regular raiding parties to harass our Folk. Things have grown only more unstable since your visit.”

I addressed the brownie. “Does the queen live?”

More gesticulating and dense dialect. This time, even Wendell looked confused.