Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1)(11)

She gave me a pitying look, as if wondering why I’d bothered to say something so obvious. I felt the need to keep talking, for some reason, to justify myself or perhaps my presence. “And, of course, most of my interactions have been confined to the common fae. I’ve studied the enchantments left behind by the courtly fae—the tall ones—as well as numerous firsthand accounts, but I’ve never met one.” Besides Bambleby, perhaps. “May I ask if you’ve encountered the Hidden Ones yourself?”

She picked up her knitting. “My money is on a month. Krystjan gave me poor odds. Please don’t disappoint me—I need a new roof.”

“Here we are,” Finn said, setting a bottle of mulled wine on the table. “I hope this will do, Amma.”

“Idiot,” Thora said. “Ulfar’s stuff tastes like piss. How many times have I told you?”

Finn only sighed and turned to me. “Aud would have me ask if everything is to your liking.”

“Thank you, yes,” I said, though I had not yet tasted the stew. “Thora is your grandmother?”

“She’s grandmother to half the village, give or take.”

Thora made that rude sound again.

The door swung open, admitting a swirl of cold, and a dishevelled figure stood framed against the darkness. It appeared roughly woman-shaped, but it was difficult to tell given the many layers of coats and shawls. The figure did not proceed further, but simply stood upon the threshold with the night billowing at her back.

“Au?ur,” called Aud, then she went to the stranger’s side, murmuring something. The firelight fell upon her face, revealing a young woman in her middle twenties, her mouth slack, her eyes darting ceaselessly without appearing to see. She gripped Aud’s arm tightly, and when Aud directed her to a chair, she sat in a boneless slump.

Curious, I drifted to the woman’s side. “Is she well?”

Aud stiffened. “As well as can be expected.”

Ulfar set a bowl of stew before the girl. Au?ur did not look at it, or him.

“Eat,” Aud said in Ljoslander. Au?ur picked up her spoon and mechanically filled her mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

“Drink,” Aud said. Au?ur drank.

I watched them with growing confusion. There was something both uncanny and abhorrent about the way in which Au?ur responded to Aud’s instructions, like a puppet on strings. Aud saw me watching, and her face darkened.

“I would ask that you refrain from including my niece in your book,” she said.

I understood, and gave a slight nod. “Of course.”

I know of several species of Folk who are in the habit of abducting mortals for the thrill of breaking them. In truth, it is something most of the courtly fae are given to on occasion. I once met a Manx man whose daughter had taken her own life after a year and a day spent in some horrific faerie kingdom so lovely that its beauty became as addictive as opiates. Others have endured torments and returned so changed their families barely recognize them. But in Au?ur’s manner and expression, its scrubbed-clean quality, I found something I’d never encountered before. And for all my expertise, it sent a shiver of foreboding through me, a sense that perhaps, for the first time in my career, I was out of my depth.

“Does she live alone?” I enquired.

“She lives with her parents, as she always has.”

I nodded. “May I call upon her?”

“You are a guest here, and are welcome anywhere,” her aunt said, lightly and automatically, but there was a brittleness in her smile that even I could recognize, and so I retreated to the fireside. Au?ur continued to eat and drink only when instructed to, and when the meal was complete, she sat with her head slumped and her hair in her face until her aunt took her home.

“Is she always like that?” I said.

Thora gave me a brief, sharp look, then nodded. “That child would carve out her own heart if someone ordered her to.”

There was a cold sweat upon my brow. “What did they do to her?”

“What did they do?” Thora repeated. “Did you not see? She’s hollow. There’s less substance there than the shadow of a ghost. But at least she returned.”

The words had an emphasis that made me swallow. “And how many others did not?”

Thora did not look at me. “Your dinner is growing cold,” she said, and there was something beneath the pleasantness in her voice that I did not dare challenge.

When Shadow and I returned to the cottage, we found the embers still hot in the woodstove, a fact that filled me with an ill-fated pride. I decided I would read for a time at the fireside, if only to put Au?ur from my mind, for she had unsettled me more than I cared to admit. Reaching into the wood box brought me swiftly down to earth, though, for I found only two logs remaining.

I chewed my lip, shivering lightly. I recalled Krystjan’s reference to the woodshed, and wished, abruptly, that I had taken Finn’s advice and “settled in” instead of spending the day charging hither and thither about the countryside. There are times when my scholarly enthusiasm gets the better of me, but I have never had cause to regret this so deeply before.

Well, there was nothing for it. I lit the lantern and thrust myself back out into the snow. Fortunately, the woodshed was easily located, tucked beneath the eaves. My heart sank, however, when I looked within. The wood had not been cut into logs, but piled up in huge chunks that would never fit into my humble stove.