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“The Folk cannot be understood. They live in accordance to whims and fancies and are little more than a series of contradictions. They have traditions, jealously guarded, but they follow them erratically. We can catalogue them and document their doings, but most scholars agree that true understanding is impossible.”

“Mortals are not impossible. Mortals are easy.” He rested his head on the chair and regarded me aslant. “And yet you prefer our company to theirs.”

“If something is impossible, you cannot be terrible at it.” My hand tightened briefly on my pen.

He smiled again. “You are not so terrible, Em. You merely need friends who are dragons like you.”

I flipped to a clean page, glad the firelight concealed the warmth in my face. “Which of the Irish kingdoms is yours?”

“Oh—it’s the one you scholars call Silva Lupi,” he said. “In the southwest.”

“Wonderful,” I murmured. Faerie realms are named for their dominant feature—statistically, the largest category is silva, woodland, followed by montibus, mountains—and an adjective chosen by the first documenting scholar. Ireland has seven realms, including the better-known Silva Rosis. But Silva Lupi—the forest of wolves—is a realm of shadow and monsters. It is the only one of the Irish realms to exist solely in story—not for lack of interest, of course; a number of scholars have disappeared into its depths.

“Only you would say that,” he said. “Don’t worry. I am not as vicious as the rest of them—you may have noticed. I did not see my stepmother’s plot coming. I’m afraid I was not much used to doing things for myself back then, and that included thinking. My stepmother encouraged this—she ensured I was never without a host of servants to see to my every desire, nor without a party at which to amuse myself.” He slouched down in his seat in a long-limbed sprawl, scowling into the fire.

“Tell me about your world,” I said, leaning hungrily forward.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you will only write a paper about it, and I don’t wish to be an entry in the bibliography. Ask me something else.”

I huffed, tapping my pen against the paper. “Very well. If you turn your clothes inside out, do you disappear? I have always wondered.”

The dark mood vanished like smoke, and he gave me a youthful grin. “Shall we try it?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, an unlikely giggle escaping me. I seized his cloak and reversed it, and he pulled it on.

“Oh,” he said, his face blank.

“What is it?” I gripped his arm. “Wendell? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t—I feel most unwell.”

He let me strip the cloak from him, and then he collapsed into the chair. Only after I had made him another mug of chocolate and built the fire up for him again did he start to laugh at me.

“Bastard,” I said, which only made him laugh harder. I stomped off to my room, having had quite enough of him for one night.

17th November

I woke some hours before dawn in the quiet of a winter night, snow pattering against the window. Shadow was curled against my back, his favourite position, nose whistling.

I lit the lantern upon my bedside table (both lantern and table had appeared earlier in the week, despite my objections) and held my hand up to the light.

For a moment, I saw something—a shadow upon my third finger. It was visible only from the corner of my eye, and only then when I let my mind wander and did not think of it. My hand was very cold. I had to hover it above the lantern for some minutes before it warmed.

I curled the hand into a fist and pressed it to my chest as an unpleasant shiver ran through me. I lifted the covers, intending to go to Wendell immediately and admit my foolishness. But no sooner had the thought entered my mind than it drifted away again. Even now as I write these words, I must hold tight to my coin to keep them from slipping from my memory. Each time I open my mouth to tell Wendell, a fog arises in my thoughts, and I know that if he were to ask me whether I have been enchanted, I would lie quite convincingly.

“Shit,” I said.

I took out my coin and pressed it to my hand. I did not know what manner of enchantment the king in the tree had ensnared me with. What was clear was that I was ensnared. Now, there are faerie enchantments that fade with time and distance if they are not renewed. I could only hope it was of this nature.

If I found my feet taking me back to the tree, I would have to cut off my own hand.

Naturally, I spent the rest of the night in a misery of shame and worry, cursing myself. The worst of it was that Bambleby had warned me away from the tree—if I descended into a murderous rage, or turned into a tree myself, he would be very smug about it.

As soon as the winter dawn ghosted over the snowpack, I dressed and hiked up to the spring in my snowshoes, Shadow at my heels. He does not require snowshoes, nor protection from any weather.