Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales

Because Emily could never have guessed that Arna’s hideaway was in Lake Silverlily, she feels that the story of King Macan has run away from her. Events are unspooling in a way she cannot always predict, which makes her uneasy. Thus, when Wendell decides that he and Emily should sail on Silverlily alone, she refuses at first. However, when Wendell insists, Emily realizes there is no option but to go to the lake. Taran prophesizes that Emily and Wendell’s quest will end badly. Wendell hugs Orga and asks her to stay behind. As he and Emily get onto a boat, Orga slashes Taran viciously, taking her revenge on him for trying to kill Wendell early in the novel. The cat then leaps onto the boat.

The wind carries the boat southwards until the castle disappears from view. Looking at the beautiful sunlit lake and the grassy banks, Emily’s mood lifts a bit. Meanwhile, Wendell tells Emily that before finding his stepmother they must do something more important. He asks Emily if she will marry him immediately.

Emily is surprised that Wendell would want to marry her on a day when they’re both so tense, but he realizes that he is thinking of the Macan story. Mona, Macan’s wife, never came to harm, perhaps because she was married to the Macans. In case something happens to Wendell, Emily will have the formal title of his wife and the queen as a defense. Emily is touched by Wendell’s thoughtfulness and agrees. Since in Faerie getting married can be as simple as making a declaration, Emily and Wendell embrace and are wed. Thousands of fairy lights now dot the river banks, with little fairies bringing out lanterns in celebration.

Emily and Wendell sail along, watching the beautiful lights. After a while, they reach the southern bank of the lake, where Emily spots weeds with barbed thorns just like those described by the hairdresser. The boat comes to a stop against an unseen object. Orga on his shoulder, Wendell pulls himself and Emily off the boat and into the water.

They land on a tiny island with a small, roofless castle. Wendell remarks that this must be Queen Anne’s Isle, said to have been created by the realm itself to protect a mortal queen fleeing from her murderous husband. They’ve been able to access the island only because Emily, a mortal queen, was on the boat; Arna can hide here because he is half-human. As Emily and Wendell try to approach the castle, they spot snails like the ones the butter faerie showed them. Wendell asks the snails for help, and the snails glide out from shadows to illuminate a path to the castle.

When Emily and Wendell open the castle’s doors, they find a large hall with an attentive oak growing in the middle. Wendell pauses, spotting something at the other end of the room. It is a bed on which Queen Arna lies, a dagger through her heart. It is obvious that Arna has just died by suicide, perhaps when she heard Emily and Wendell’s footsteps. Wendell mutters that vengeance is so important for Arna she pursues it even in death. Emily cannot understand Wendell’s words or his sad demeanor, since the curse is now lifted. Just then, a dark mist descends upon the roofless castle. Emily jumps back from the mist, Orga in her arms. Wendell darts forward, picks up Arna’s dragger, and drives it through his own heart. As the blood bursts out of him, the attentive oak takes hold of the horrified Emily and pulls her and Orga away from the mist. The castle vanishes.

Emily finds herself leaning against another attentive oak in the forest. The tree in the castle must have acted as a door for her. She is in a state of shock, still unable to comprehend what happened to Wendell. Later, she will have little memory of Callum and Niamh finding her in the forest and bringing her back to the castle.

When Emily is able to think, she reflects on the sudden events in the underwater castle. In the Macan story, it is the murder of the first Macan at the hands of the second that heals the land. Since Arna died by suicide, the land was still cursed. Wendell realized this and sacrificed himself to save the realm. Arna must have planned the entire thing, which is why Wendell remarked on her continuing need for vengeance. If Arna had to die, she would make sure Wendell would die too. Emily berates herself for not being able to predict Arna’s final move.

Emily writes theories and ideas to bring Wendell back and then burns the pages. When she wakes up, she has a viable idea in mind. She recalls Niamh saying that the butter faerie was a native of Somerset. The fact that the faerie is in Wendell’s realm indicates that there is a door between Somerset and Silva Lupi. Exmoor, from which his grandfather’s capricious, beautiful faerie hailed, is also in Somerset. There is a possibility the fairy walked through the Somerset door into Silva Lupi. Emily thinks she knows who the fairy is.

Emily asks the housekeeper to show her the room of the Lady with the Crimson Cloak. They enter her chambers, where the housekeeper melts into the shadows. The lady enters, clearly expecting Emily, and congratulates her on figuring things out. As she serves Emily tea, her hands dripping blood, Emily notices her hair, golden just as in Edgar’s descriptions, but their ends are now dipped in crimson. The fairy tells Emily that she destroyed the door to Somerset once she came to Silva Lupi so that her enemies could not follow her. She had been fond of Emily’s doting grandfather till she tired of him and abandoned him for her people to claim as sport. Emily tells the lady she is not interested in the past. She has come to her because Edgar wrote about the lady knowing the location of the door of death. Emily wants the lady to show her the door so she can seek Wendell. The lady agrees, but only on the condition that she be allowed to leave the realm unharmed. After she’s done telling Emily how to find the door, an unafraid Emily asks the lady to run before she changes her mind about sparing her life.

Wendell and Arna’s bodies are carried back to the castle and placed on stone daises in a large, spare lakeside room. Emily, Shadow, and the housekeeper keep vigil next to Wendell, as various courtiers visit to mourn. Lord Taran sits on a bench at the far end of the room. When Emily asks her about Deilah, he tells her the child has been wandering in dramatic grief in the forests. Meanwhile, Wendell has transformed as well, but not to the same extent as Arna, who is half-covered in moss. Taran tells Emily that Wendell and Arna will be soon removed to the forest, where they will turn into trees or some other natural feature. Emily replies that before that, she must do something “mad.”

Rubbing the coin in her pocket for strength—coins and iron ward off enchantments—Emily looks for the door of death in the shadow of Wendell’s body, as the Lady instructed. She detects a darker rectangle within the shadow and tells the oiche sidhe about the door. The housekeeper tells Emily that no mortal can pass through the door. An angry Emily tells the housekeeper that she has to get Wendell out. The housekeeper tells Emily that Wendell is one of his own kind, hands Emily his rag, and unexpectedly opens the shadowy door and disappears.

Emily spends the hours following the housekeeper’s exit in an agony of worry. When she tells Lord Taran about what has transpired, he refuses to believe her. There is no door to Death, Death being too final a state. Emily tells him the Lady said the door led not exactly to Death, but to a realm where the spirits of the Folk briefly linger before truly dying. Niamh confirms that there exists a rare tale about a brownie visiting his mother in the afterlife, giving Emily some hope.

Emily refuses to leave Wendell’s side, despite Niamh’s insistence that she eat something. As she lies next to Shadow in despair, she realizes that he has not howled once since Wendell died. Shadow, a Grim, should have howled in the presence of death, but he has been quiet. Moreover, Shadow is now looking at something in Wendell’s shadow. The dog stands up all of a sudden, scouts the shadow with his snout, jumps, and disappears. Emily bursts into tears. Deilah appears in the room and hugs Emily tightly till Emily quiets down. Deilah asks Emily to call to Shadow, enticing him with his favorite meal of raw, stinky meat. Suddenly, they can hear Shadow howl. The howls grow louder and Shadow jumps out, dragging the housekeeper by his ankle. The oiche sidhe is holding a lantern, which disappears immediately. Before the housekeeper can tell Emily what happened, Wendell surprises everyone by sitting up.

After Deilah and Emily have hugged Wendell, he tells them he was lost in a dark, icy place for a long while. Faeries could not see him in that place, till the housekeeper arrived and spotted him. Wendell and the housekeeper wandered in the dark, but could not find a way out. Then, Shadow arrived and pounced on them, dragging them around, till they emerged in this room. Folk gather to celebrate Wendell’s return, but soon a shocked murmur breaks out. Queen Arna sits up as well, removing the moss from her person. It is clear she followed Wendell out.

Emily tells Wendell he must not kill the queen, as her instinct says this is the wrong move. Wendell says he will imprison Arna, but not in a dungeon. Wendell makes a gesture, splits apart space, and thrusts Arna into the swirling interdimensional space of the Veil.

Even before Wendell and Emily can reach the castle, a party, complete with extravagant food and music, is well underway on the grounds and in the banquet hall. Wendell is nearly mobbed by the courtiers, who ignore Emily and the housekeeper. Emily does not mind, as she dislikes the spotlight. However, Wendell himself is endlessly attentive to Emily. Emily takes the opportunity to pull him aside for a private word. When she tells him that she is sorry to interrupt his happy mood at being back from the dead, Wendell laughs in surprise. He tells Emily that he is celebrating his wedding to her, not his return from the afterlife. Emily, who’d forgotten all about their wedding in light of what happened afterward, is moved with emotion. However, Emily tells Wendell that she has something urgent to discuss with him: Arna needs to be taken out of the Veil, as what he has done to her is wrong by the logic of the stories she has read. Wendell is skeptical of the suggestion. Emily thinks she will not be able to convince Wendell to extract Arna from the Veil, so the next day, leaving the sleeping Wendell a note, she sneaks off to Corbann to research how to rescue the queen.