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As I gazed up at the canopy, I realized that the forest was still alight with lanterns, the silver faerie stones still aglow, which I regarded with an absurd disdain. One of their monarchs had perished; why did these Folk not have the decency to turn their lights off? So a part of me was aware of what had happened, I suppose, but it was a distant, intellectual part, securely walled off from the rest of me.

Callum believes it was no more than ten minutes before he and Niamh found me, having been summoned from a meeting of the Council by one of the tree brownies, who had been understandably distressed by the sight of their queen sprawled on the forest floor in a motionless heap. According to Niamh, all I could do at first was complain about the faerie lights. She could get no sense out of me regarding what had happened, though they knew—they knew. For the corruption had vanished from the hill behind the castle, and now here I was, alone and with blood on my dress, babbling insensibly. Callum, however, said it was Orga who confirmed his fears. For I had been holding her tight to my chest the whole while, and she was not attempting escape, but had curled herself into a silent, motionless ball against me. She was less substantial than she had been, her golden eyes anchoring a form that was little more than a spectre.

Callum helped me back to the castle. It was only when I stepped out from under the boughs of the attentive oak that I realized the sky was clear. The tree was weeping.

—

I must find a way out. I am very tired.

What do I know? Wendell sacrificed himself to heal the kingdom; the kingdom is now healed. We know this, for Lord Taran’s scouts have confirmed that the curse has been lifted from not only the hillside but several other nearby groves. He has sent more Folk to confirm it does not linger elsewhere. But of course it doesn’t—Macan the Second healed his realm, and then he died. And now Wendell has done the same.

What else? That when Wendell’s stepmother took her own life, she gave Wendell no other way out. As the source of the curse tearing the kingdom apart, her death should have lifted it, as in the Macan story. However, unlike Macan, Wendell’s stepmother was a halfblood, and I should have foreseen that she would introduce complications, for halfbloods slip more easily out of the patterns of faerie stories. I should have foreseen it. For what healed the kingdom in the Macan story is not the old king’s death, as I had assumed, but his murder. The ancient notion of a sacrifice carried out by the new monarch. Wendell could not sacrifice his stepmother; her suicide prevented it. So he could only sacrifice himself. Or me, I suppose. I wonder if I would have suited.

No doubt she had planned it this way all along, as one governed by spite and vengefulness would. I should have foreseen it. Probably she hoped Wendell would not find her, that he would be so distressed by the suffering of his realm that he would simply take his life and put an end to the trouble he had caused her. But if he did, somehow, confound her low opinion of him and track her down, of course she would not allow him the upper hand. If she was to die, she would force her enemy to follow her. I should have foreseen it.

21st January

I have burnt the pages that followed that. They are little more than gibberish—lists of stories that I intended to consult, half-baked theories. Crossings-out and ink blots from where I drifted in a state of half-sleep.

When I awoke, I was hunched over my journal, and it was the wee hours of the morning, still dark. My legs were nearly numb and my neck was sore, as I’d fallen asleep in a slump in a chair by the bedroom window. A little over a day had passed since Wendell’s death. I hadn’t slept at all the night before—at least I don’t think I had. My memory of that day and night is as blurred as my time in the snow king’s court.

Someone was knocking at the door. It was a gentle, hesitant sound, as if the gesture required effort. I stood, still half asleep, trying not to look at the bed where Shadow and Orga were curled up together. They watched me as I passed on unsteady feet, and I realized they had been there all day, sometimes napping and sometimes not, but aware of me at all times. Once Orga had assured herself that I was not going to keel over, she put her head back down and closed her eyes.

I expected Niamh or Callum—perhaps even Lord Taran. Instead, the hall beyond the door was darkened and empty.

I stood there for a moment, blinking. A little shiver went through me—I’d been reading my grandfather’s disturbing journal entries late into the night, putting the book aside in favour of some academic tome only to pick it up again, irresistibly drawn back to the tragedy of it. For companionship, perhaps, in my own tragedy. I could hear my grandfather’s voice in the text.

I closed the door. Likely I’d imagined the knock, groggy as I’d been, or it had been Niamh or Callum again; each had come by multiple times. I had locked them out, and had heard them muttering together outside the door, sometimes with one or more councillors, until Lord Taran’s voice had ordered them all away. Taran, at least, had understood the importance of the work I was doing.

At some point I’d dropped my grandfather’s journal, and it lay facedown on the floor by my chair, pages bent. I picked it up.

Oddly, though, as I glanced down at my grandfather’s writing, I wasn’t thinking of him. I was thinking of the butter faerie, and that sensation I’d felt when I’d learned she had come from Somerset, where once there had been a door to Wendell’s kingdom. It had been a feeling akin to hunting for a word on the tip of my tongue. I had it now—perhaps my sleeping mind had solved the mystery.

Exmoor was in Somerset.

Did that mean the now-broken door in the Silva Lupi had led to Exmoor, to the very landscape where my grandfather had met his doom? Possibly. Not likely, my rational mind replied. But still—it was an odd coincidence.

At that, I felt another tremor. Coincidence is not a word to be taken lightly in Faerie.

I turned back to my grandfather’s journal, fingers trembling against the pages. My interest had been reframed, and now I reread each word of his sojourn in Exmoor, stopping each time I could not make out his shorthand until I’d untangled it, rather than skipping over these parts as I’d done before. This was no longer merely a family heirloom, a tragic story no more relevant to my plight than one of Wendell’s novels.

When I’d finished, I sat and stared out the window for a long moment. The weeping rowan tapped its dark berries against the pane.

Then I stood. I opened the door again and listened—Wendell’s apartments seemed abandoned. But then I heard the faintest of noises in the bathroom. When I made my way there, I found it empty.

Empty—but very clean. A mop leaned against the wall by the bath, and half the floor was damp, as if the mopper had been interrupted in the middle of his task.

“Are you there?” I said. “I need to speak with you. Will you show yourself?”

There came a rustling noise behind me. I turned and found myself facing one of the oíche sidhe.

We gazed blankly at each other. Or, rather, I was blank—his face was inscrutable.

“Are you the one I spoke with before?” I demanded—I did not intend to sound rude, but I’ve no doubt that’s how it came across. Ordinarily, I attempt to sand down my bluntness, but it did not even occur to me then.

The creature gave no sign of offence. “I am he.”

I gazed at him. The faerie looked so much like Wendell had, back in Ljosland, that I felt an inexplicable surge of fury, and I wanted to scream at him, to strike him with my fists. The feeling vanished as abruptly as it came, leaving me breathless and sick.