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“That’s plain enough,” she said, her face falling a little. “How long has the little one been gone?”

Despair settled over me. “Two hours, perhaps.”

“You must eat,” Niamh said, placing a hand on my back. “You are trembling. Come with me.”

“I cannot.”

She sighed. “I will send for breakfast, then. And you will eat it, if I have to force it down your throat myself.”

—

Despite my weakness, I was sickened by the smell of breakfast when the servants placed it before me on a tray. Still, I made myself eat a few spoonfuls of egg and a piece of toast—I could not countenance the strawberries or spiced porridge—knowing that Niamh was in the right.

The morning turned into afternoon. I sat and watched the dais, or wrote in my journal. More Folk flitted in and out. Lord Taran departed, then returned. I do not think he came to see if I would succeed, but rather how long I would hold on to hope. Not once did he press me, though. Callum came and sat with me, and though I knew he meant well, I found his presence hardest to bear. He looked at me with an understanding I wanted no part of.

Ivy continued to cover Wendell’s body. It was twining about his hair now, too, so thickly that only the odd clump of gold could be seen squeezed between the leaves. Moths fluttered about the flowers, a snail made its slow way across his chest, and I caught sight of the odd cocoon being spun and the dark skitter of a spider. I wanted to brush it all away, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t touch him.

As the day slipped into evening, I dozed off, Shadow snoring against my feet. I was startled awake by a cavalcade of flickering lights, which spun once around the room and were gone before I could even pinpoint what variety of faerie they were.

I lifted my head, trying to shake off the nebulous unease that accompanies awakening in an unfamiliar place. The room was empty apart from a solitary brownie upon a ladder, who was lighting the lanterns, but a few Folk were still gathered outside on the stone steps—I could hear the murmur of their conversation.

I reached down to pet Shadow. But at some point, as I dozed, the dog had gone to lie next to Wendell’s body. I felt my eyes begin to sting. But then I noticed that the beast was not dozing—though his head rested on one paw—but gazing fixedly at the corner of the dais.

The hair rose on my neck. And I realized something else.

Shadow had not howled.

I went to crouch beside him, placing my hand on his head. Black Hounds are known for their haunting howl, which they let loose in the presence of death—or, in some stories, around those who are soon to depart. Yet not once since we entered the room with Wendell’s body had Shadow made a sound.

“What, my love?” I murmured. Shadow was not staring at the place where the oíche sidhe had vanished, but to the left, around the other side of the dais. Which was where Wendell’s shadow would have been now, were there light enough to see it.

“The door is in his shadow,” I murmured. I had seen the housekeeper go that way, but it still felt impossible, even amongst the many impossibilities of Faerie. “Isn’t it?”

The dog took no note of me. His world was that of smells, not theories. And while he had never demonstrated any particular aptitude for locating faerie doors in the past, perhaps because he saw them as unexceptional features within the shifting tapestry of scent, his nostrils were twitching now. He stood.

“Shadow,” I said warningly.

He stood there for a moment, simply looking at nothing, and I thought that was the end of it and he would lie back down again, as he did whenever he sighted a rabbit on the campus lawn, remembering the effort it would require to catch it. Then the dog made a motion with his snout that was like lifting up the hem of a curtain. And then he stepped into the shadow, and was gone.

“Shadow!” I lunged forward, but caught only a few hairs of the dog’s tail. He could move quickly when he wanted to, which was not often.

I am not proud of this, but my immediate reaction was not to send for help, or to charge after him. Instead, I slumped against the dais and burst into tears.

I was crying like a child, heedless of the noise I was making. I heard the murmur of Folk around me, and felt small hands patting my face, my hands, caught the flicker of wet black eyes and leaf-woven hats. I ignored them.

After a few moments, someone pulled me into their arms—not at all gently—and held me in a tight grip. Too tight. It was a faerie, which I knew from the way she smelled. Many people assume the Folk, the courtly fae in particular, will smell like roses, but in truth they smell like mortals, at least on the surface. I suspect it is a part of their glamour, for beneath this is the smell of rainforests and river reeds, moss and algae and leaves decaying into humus. A green smell, not always pleasant, noticeable only when one is very close.

The faerie held me so tight it was almost a wrestling match to get away. This was surprisingly effective at calming my sobs, for my misery was eclipsed by irritation. It was Deilah—but I had guessed that by her golden hair, which she had shoved my face into.

“Poor thing!” she cried. “I should have stayed to comfort you—we could have comforted each other.”

I made no response to this—she was still gripping my arms too hard and gazing at me with an excited sort of despair that I found more exhausting than pitiable. Deilah wore a mourning cloak, which for the Folk of this realm meant a cloak woven with thorns that pricked at your arms and throat, and her dress was a torn and filthy mess. Her hair, too, had pinecones and bits of mud stuck in it, as if she had hurled herself down on the forest floor multiple times. She was, on the whole, a pathetic sight, her eyes painfully swollen, as if she had not left off sobbing for days, though she would have been more pathetic if she did not give off the impression of having taken part in her dishevelment. The mud on her cheek, for instance, looked as if it had been smeared on by a finger, and as someone who had traversed the forests of Wendell’s realm several times now, I did not quite understand how one would come by so many tears in one’s dress, unless they went looking for blackberry bushes to fall into.

Still, she was here, and so I babbled what had happened. Her eyes grew wider and wider as I spoke.

“Where is the door?” she demanded, whipping around to scan the room. Her instantaneous belief in me did not inspire confidence—quite the opposite, in fact; I felt a shadowy premonition that Lord Taran’s skepticism would soon be proven right. With their only ally a querulous ragamuffin, anyone would doubt their cause.

“Somewhere here,” I said, pointing to the dark place where Shadow had vanished.