Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands (Emily Wilde, #2)

by Heather Fawcett

“The path is eternal,” he said. “But you mustn’t sleep—I made that mistake. Turn left at the ghosts with ash in their hair, then left at the evergreen wood, and straight through the vale where my brother will die. If you lose your way, you will lose only yourself, but if you lose the path, you will lose everything you never knew you had.”

“Emily is puritanical in matters of professional integrity. It’s her only bad quality.”

“I appreciate your advice, Farris. Genuinely. But I know Wendell.” “Emily.” He pointed up at the beech tree boughs, which waved to and fro, scattering more leaves about us. “Do you know the wind?” And with that gloomy koan, he left me.

We city-dwellers have trouble comprehending it, for we don’t know what it’s like to live in such close proximity to the fae any more than we understand the terror of crop failures or predation by wild beasts.

Pillows made of stones, Bed of old kings’ bones, Quilt of moss and earth, Deep beneath the turf, Sleeps the faerie child, Dreaming of the wild, Hidden and unknown. —From “Now the Faeries Sleep,” a nursery rhyme originating in Kent, c. 1700.

Apart from a few bruises, she was largely unharmed, and now that the shock had worn off she seemed to view the attack as a thrilling tale ripe for scholarly documentation, and was already making notes on the subject. An entirely unhealthy response to attempted murder, of course; I have never been more convinced that she has the makings of a dryadologist.