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Today I went to Groa’s shop to gather supplies for our journey to the tree. By Thora’s estimation, the hike will take about three hours each way. The village is carpeted in snow, partially melted by a storm that came in from the sea; I have been assured by Krystjan that the recent fall is but another clearing of the throat by Old Man Winter; when he truly settles himself over Hrafnsvik, I will know it.

Upon exiting the shop with my parcels, I could not help my gaze from straying to the farmhouse across the road. The curtains were drawn as usual, the sheep huddled in a corner of the field. Altogether the place had such an unwholesome air about it that it was hard to look away, dark smoke drifting sluggishly from the chimney like the ooze of an infected wound.

Mord was coming round the front of the house, and he gave me a wave before disappearing inside. I stared in astonishment at the side of his head, which was mottled with bruising, and returned to the shop to question Groa.

For once, the merriness dimmed in her pale eyes. “He was out rescuing his wife the other night,” she told me. “She nearly took a tumble into the sea. He pulled her back just in time.”

“I see,” I replied, and we left unsaid the oddness of a man sustaining such bruises in that scenario. Back at the cottage, I reported the news to Bambleby.

“Well, what did you expect?” He had absconded from his notes entirely and was seated by the fire rubbing Shadow’s ears. “The creature is clearly bent on driving both of them insane. I don’t know who the miserable wretch imagines will care for its needs after its guardians have thrown themselves into the sea. They should kill it now and be done with it.”

“And kill their son in the process?”

“Their son may at this moment be suffering any number of torments. He may never be returned to them. We don’t know.”

He went back to Shadow’s ears while I fumed. I have not been able to convince him to care about Mord and Aslaug’s plight.

“It could be worse,” he said. “Mord and Aslaug are unlikely to fall prey to these snow ghouls when the weather turns. It seems that fate only threatens the lovesick and naïve, and I’ve no doubt they’ve been disabused of naïveté where love is concerned.”

He saw my face and gave one of his theatrical groans. “Tell them to be kind to it.”

This was the last thing I had expected him to say. “What?”

“They keep the changeling shut away in an attic. Spoiling the brats rotten is the only way to appease them.” He drummed his fingers on his knee. “Like you do with Poe. Really, Em, I thought you would have worked this out.”

I watched him. “And that’s what the parents of stolen children do in Ireland, is it?”

“The clever ones.” He rubbed his nose. “Just don’t ask me to pay my respects again, please. I can’t abide children, mortal or Folk.”

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We have found it. We have found the tree. When we set out on our expedition, I was expecting either a scientific triumph or utter catastrophe.

Well, I should have expected both.

The morning was dark, the wind clawed with frost crystals. I was unsurprised to find Bambleby still asleep at the appointed hour. He was near impossible to wake, and I began to fear I would have to drag him from the bed. I could not determine if he was wearing anything, that was the problem.

“I see now why you faked the Schwarzwald study,” I said. “And here I thought it was ruthlessness!”

“Laziness, Em,” he intoned from his pile of blankets. “Do you know how dense that bloody forest is? And you’re well aware what sort of ground trooping faeries can cover in a single afternoon. Horrid, self-involved Folk.”

“You would know,” I said blandly. He roused himself eventually amidst a volcanic cloud of grumbles and remonstrances, and we set out.

In the end, it was easy.

In my earlier rambles, I had stumbled across the river that the tree grew beside, and as Thora had said it could be found downstream, past an elbow-bend, downstream we went, albeit slowly. The snow was too shallow to warrant snowshoes, but the partial melt had created unpleasant little ice streams atop which the snow sat like a bridge made of feathers. Our feet remained dry, courtesy of the furred Ljoslander boots we had purchased prior to departure, but the going was awkward over such cumbersome terrain.

It was Bambleby who saw the tree first.

He came to a sharp halt, his brow furrowing. I caught a gleam of white through the trees ahead, different in quality to the surrounding snow. Shadow began to whine.

“Is that it?” I marched onward, cursing as my boot broke through another rind of ice. I pushed a branch aside and drew in a sharp breath.

There was no doubt that the tree before us was the tree; it could have stepped from the tales into the forest. It was centred in an oddly round clearing, as if the other trees had all felt inclined to back away, and was towering but skeletal, its trunk only a little wider than I was and its many, many branches arching and tangling overhead, like a small person propping up a tremendous, many-layered umbrella.

But the strangest thing about the tree was its foliage. There were leaves of summer-green mixed in with the fire and gold of autumn; tidy buds just opening their pink mouths, and, here and there, red fruits dangling in clusters, heavy with ripeness. These fruits could not be easily identified; they were roughly the size of apples, but furred like peaches.

I felt a happy little glow start in my chest, for the tree—though utterly terrifying, when viewed from an objective standpoint—was so evidently, obviously Folk, while at the same time it was like nothing I had seen before. Oh, I wished to learn everything about it.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” I called to Bambleby, who had not moved from the riverbank. “Come and tell me if you think there really is a king trapped in here.”

I could see him only in parts, through the forest: a smear of gold; a hand on one of the trees; the edge of his black cloak. “Emily,” he said, “come away from there.”

A dreaminess fell over me, and I almost took a step. But then my hand clenched reflexively on the copper coin I carried in my pocket—it’s something I’ve practiced many times whenever a faerie has tried to bewitch me.

He had never done that to me before. It was him doing it, not the tree—I could hear it in his voice. I was suddenly filled with a fury of such force my vision swam, and which drove away the last vestiges of his enchantment.

“I will not,” I replied, a dagger in each word.

He seemed to start back. “Please, Em,” he said in his ordinary voice. “Please come here.”

“Why?”

He seemed to think. “Don’t you trust me?”

That threw me. But only for a moment. “Of course not.”

He fell to irritated muttering, chafing his arms and pacing back and forth. I turned back to the tree, keeping a hold on my coin. Despite my anger at Wendell, his reaction made me cautious. I paced slowly around the circumference, taking photos. I did not touch the tree, and I kept an eye out for errant leaves that might fall upon me, bewitching me in some ghastly way. When the branches moved against each other, an odd, high sound was produced, like someone whistling out of tune.