Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1)(56)

“You’re a long way from home, child,” he said to me in Faie, with a condescending tone that I did not appreciate. Unfortunately, he was very old, older even than some of my court’s most tedious councillors, so I suppose he had reason to condescend to me. No reason at all to put an arrow in my chest, though.

You were at my elbow then, rapidly recounting the whole story of the cloak and the Hidden Ones’ interest in me—unnecessary, really, for I had already gathered that the man had been drawn to the great hole I’d put in his realm, and that he meant to make a meal out of me, hollowing me out like an orange, as he’d done to Au?ur. My, what an ignominious fate that would have been! I can imagine my stepmother’s reaction; I think she would have injured herself laughing. It would not have surprised her.

Anyway, I did not much want to fight him—he looked a mean sort, and I was resentful that after all the effort I’d expended, here was yet another trial to keep me from my supper—so I simply explained to him who I was and gave him a little demonstration of my power to put him off, summoning a very pretty rose garden in the middle of his desolate winter, complete with a handful of bees.

“You were cast out?” he said with distaste, and looked me up and down. “Yes, we have children like you at our court. Indolent peacocks, strutting about with their jewels and their perfumes, teasing one another with vacuous enchantments. Your stepmother did your realm a great favour.”

I did not have any time to be angry at that, for before he’d even ended his sentence, he was charging at me with his sword.

I shoved you out of the way first, which cost me; a slash through the arm of my cloak. Then I had to vanish into the landscape, a trick I hate very much here, because even the trees feel like ice when I step into them. He shadowed me everywhere I went, so that I was endlessly spinning and leaping and dodging his sword, and generally making myself ridiculous. I tried to throw my own magic at him, but the sword swallowed it. Of course it was no ordinary enchanted sword—it was enchantment, a powerful one at that, probably honed through all the years he’d been alive, just my luck.

“Wendell!” you were yelling, trying for some ungodly reason to get my attention as I dodged and weaved, as if I needed another thing to think about. “Wendell, what do you need?”

I think I replied something ungracious about shutting up; it’s all a bit hazy. I managed to get an ordinary blow in when the faerie was looking for me in a hazel tree I’d summoned—I was summoning all sorts of trees and shrubberies, more to distract him than anything else, and the icy mountainside was beginning to look like the domain of some mad hedgewitch. My hand still stings from that blow as I write this; it was like punching solid ice.

You just kept yelling, though. “Think of the stories, Wendell—there’s always a loophole, a door! I can find it, if you’d just tell me what you need!”

“A sword!” I shouted back, half hysterical at this point and not thinking for a second that you’d actually pull a sword out of the snow. I was beginning to wonder if I’d have to blast a hole in time itself to get rid of this bloody iceman; and oh, what a mess that would be to clean up. It’s not something I’ve done before, so who knows, I might’ve blasted myself to pieces in the process, leaving you to put me together again, which I’ve no doubt you would have managed with perfect detachment.

The next time I took notice of you, you were sobbing all over the snow. Well, I thought, finally she’s being sensible. Then I realized that you were sobbing because you’d stabbed yourself in the arm, and not out of concern for my imminent demise. I noticed that your tears were freezing as they hit the icy ground and collecting into the shape of a sword.

Well, that almost killed me. I mean that—I froze for a full second, during which our yeti friend nearly skewered me through. I dodged, barely, my head whirling. One day I would like for you to explain to me how you heard of the story of Deirdre and her faerie husband, a long-ago king, which is one of the oldest tales in my realm. Do mortals tell it as we do? When the king’s murderous sons schemed to steal his kingdom by starving it into torpor with endless winter, Deirdre collected the tears of his dying people and froze them into a sword, with which he was finally able to slay his children. It is a tale many of my own people have forgotten—I know it only because that poor, witless king is my ancestor.

I felt the story in my blood and let my magic flow into the sword you were fashioning. Unfortunately, our enemy noticed there was trickery afoot and lunged towards you, so you dropped the sword in the snow. Lilja, though, was once again firing on all cylinders—she snatched up the sword before the faerie could crush it, and threw it to me.

I caught it, of course, and in the same instant I interposed myself between you and him, catching the blade of his sword with my own. From that moment on, things were much more enjoyable. I do like swordplay—I began my lessons when I was virtually still in the cradle, as do all royals in my realm. I didn’t kill the man straight away, but made him dance a while first, running through several of my favourite patterns, forcing him back, and then back again. He wasn’t bad, though he wasn’t much of a challenge, either—few Folk are. It’s a pity sword fighting isn’t de rigueur in the mortal world anymore. I could end every tedious argument with the department head by challenging him to a contest in the quadrangle.

Anyway. Eventually I grew bored of the whole thing and knocked the sword out of his hand. Then I knocked his head off with one well-aimed stroke, nice and clean and hugely satisfying. In fact, I liked it so much that I wound back time and did it again, just to hear the lovely thunk of his head hitting the snow. I had just decided to have a third go at it—for we Folk like things that come in threes, you know—when you roared at me to stop. I turned, and saw that Lilja was being sick in the snow, which distressed me, as I’ve decided that I quite like her. I’m not sure if it was due to the general mess that accompanies decapitation or the fact that mortals are not used to seeing time moved back and forth like the pages in a book, but I felt sorry anyway. I will have to make amends to her when we return to Hrafnsvik—perhaps she would like a tree that fruits year-round, or a dress that changes colour at her will, which neither stains nor wrinkles? I’ll think on it.