My visit to Auður’s family was informative but not particularly helpful. That is, her parents, Ketil and Hild—both hardy and kind-faced in equal measure, with that greyish touch of sadness—answered my every question, but it was a story with only a beginning and an end. When had their daughter been taken by the Hidden Ones? Two days after Christmas, while fetching mushrooms. How long had she been away? For as long as the moon rose above the mountains at night, which is to say, a little over one week. Where had she been recovered? A hunter found her wandering the mountainside, her basket full of a queer sort of mushroom that melted against his palm.

Through it all, the girl sat in her chair by the fire, empty-faced. Her gaze drifted around the room, occasionally settling on me; I could not help shivering during these moments, for it was like looking through the windows of an abandoned house. I asked questions regarding her condition, of course. In addition to being incapable of speech, she is unable to attend to her own well-being. If ordered to stick her hand into the fire, she would do so; in fact, her left palm bears a scar from the time her mother ordered her to fetch a skillet, forgetting it was still hot from the stove. The only thing she does of her own initiative is wander outside during the longest nights, striding across the snowbound fields without even donning her cloak. She is now tied to her bed every night from the first snowfall to the thaw.

Ketil and Hild were even more interested in asking questions than I, though I could give them little comfort. Not only was I unaware of a remedy that might treat their daughter, I knew of no analogues of her affliction.

Beautiful Lilja arrived in the afternoon to chop our wood, which I’m grateful to say has become a regular favour. I watched through the window as Bambleby flirted, fixing her with many long green gazes whilst his golden hair fluttered in the breeze, even asking her to instruct him in the proper technique, which she did, patient despite his utter lack of improvement. Throughout, she remained cheerfully oblivious, alternately hacking away at the wood and responding perfunctorily to his comments while she wiped sweat from her pretty brow. At one point, I laughed so hard that Bambleby turned and scowled at me through the window. I had heard, through Thora, that Lilja was quite happily committed to a girl from a neighbouring village, but I saw no need to disclose this information to Wendell. It was his own fault, anyhow, for assuming that every woman who walked the earth would be enraptured by his charms.

I spent the day with my books and my notes. Bambleby flitted in and out, contributing absolutely nothing to scholarship, though he did shake out the rugs after exclaiming over their begrimed state and hang some useless woollen tapestry he had purchased from Groa. The effect of his simple ministrations upon the place has been almost alarming; it is virtually cosy. I have never lived somewhere warranting such an adjective, and I am not sure how to feel about it. And anyway, what is the point of decorating a place one is only temporarily inhabiting? When I posed the question to Bambleby, he replied with characteristic solipsism that if I had to ask, I would never understand the answer.

“Come down to the tavern,” he said after dark had fallen.

“No, thank you,” I said, glancing up from the dryadology journal I was jotting notes from—I was working on the bibliography for my encyclopaedia. “I’d like an early night.”

“You don’t have to stay long. You’d rather sit here with your nose in a book?”

“Vastly,” I said, and he shook his head at me, not in disgust but utter bemusement.

“Very well, you strange creature,” he said, and to my astonishment he took off his cloak and settled himself in the other chair.

“You don’t have to stay. I’m perfectly content by myself.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed.”

I shrugged. I didn’t mind him staying; I am in fact used to having him around, not only here but at Cambridge, where he is always poking his nose into my office. He took up that blasted sewing kit of his and attended to his cloak, tucking one leg boyishly beneath him and leaning into the chair.

I am largely incapable of making conversation of a personal nature. I rarely have the inclination, fortunately, but I have had occasion to resent the lack of this particular human skill, as I did then. How many scholars have had the opportunity to question a ruler of the courtly fae? Not one, or none who lived to tell of it.

And yet I could not make myself ask. I suspect that, if I could have convinced myself that my interest was of a purely intellectual nature, I could have managed it. But it was not. This was Bambleby, after all—my only friend. (God.)

“Em,” he said without looking up from his work, after I had snuck yet another glance in his direction, “either you are plotting how best to have me murdered and stuffed for one of your exhibits, or you are still concerned that I am bewitched. You are so contrary that I would not be surprised by both concurrently. Perhaps you could set my nerves at ease.”

“I am only wondering what in God’s name you are doing,” I said, taking refuge in the familiar banter.

“What does it look like? You and your hairy accomplice ravaged my cloak.” He added a few more stitches and ran his hands over the fabric, folding it this way and that—I could not make out precisely what he was doing. “There.”

He tried the cloak on, nodded. If anything, it looked even more magnificent than before, with an elegant billow in the hem, as if the weaver had cut the pattern from his shadow. He saw the expression on my face and raised his eyebrows.

“I can do yours if you like.” He grimaced slightly. “And that—that dress.”

I looked down at my woollen shift. “There’s nothing wrong with my clothing.”

“It doesn’t fit you.”

“Of course it does.”

He lifted his eyes to the ceiling and muttered something that I couldn’t hear, apart from the distinct words paper bag. This offended me not at all, as I afford less than an ounce of importance to my appearance, and still less to his opinion of it.

“You said before that needlework ran in your family,” I said after he’d settled himself again.

“Ah,” he said, “yes.” To my surprise, he did not seem as eager to talk about himself as was generally the case. “Well. I suppose I must gird myself for mockery. I have a very little amount of brownie ancestry, you see. On my mother’s side.”

I stared. A slow smile crept across my face. “A very little,” he repeated severely.

“The oíche sidhe,” I said, naming the Irish house fairie who, like many of their ilk, operate as a sort of friendly housekeeper, stealing out at night to clean and tidy and make repairs. The well-known tale “The Golden Ravens” is of Irish origin and offers an example of typical oíche sidhe disdain for mess and disorder. I include the most famous version of the story in my encyclopaedia—I shall append a copy to this journal.

“Is that usual?” I said. “For a prince to have common fae ancestry?”

He gave me a puzzled look. “How did— Ah, I see. Poe told you. If you are not careful, Em, that creature will come to love you so that he will not let you leave.” He went back to his sewing. “No, it is not.”

“And is that why you were forced into exile?”

He raised his eyebrows at me, looking amused. “Do you want the whole story?”

“Obviously,” I said, unable to keep the eagerness from my voice. “Every sordid detail, in fact.”

“Well, I am very sorry to tell you that there is little of that,” he said. “Ten years ago, my father’s third wife—my mother was his second; the first was barren—decided that she would prefer the sight of her own flesh and blood on the throne. You know how it goes.”

I nodded. This sort of ruthlessness is a common occurrence with many of the courtly fae. “Have you siblings?”