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

by Heather Fawcett

I stopped for a moment to glance around my office with satisfaction—when I was recently granted tenure, I also inherited a much more spacious office, now three doors away from Wendell’s

Heheeeee she got her tenureeee <3

Wendell insisted on cluttering the place up with two photographs from Hrafnsvik that I did not even know he took, one of me standing in the snowy garden with Lilja and Margret, the other of a village scene; a vase of dried flowers that somehow never lose their scent; and the newly reframed painting of Shadow he commissioned for my twenty-eighth birthday—all

Just past the main dryadology building was the ivy-clad magnificence of the Library of Dryadology, which overlooks a lawn dotted with trees known in this part of Britain as faerie favourites, yew and willow.

The man gave me the most inexplicable glare. There was something familiar about that look that I could not put my finger on, though I was certain I had never met this strange person before.

“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.”

he really did look like death. His ordinarily rosy skin had a greyish pallor, his dark eyes underscored with shadows. He mumbled something unintelligible as he rubbed his forehead, tangling the golden locks that had fallen into his eyes. I suppressed the familiar urge to reach out and brush them back into place. “I have to say I’ve never understood this annual ritual of poisoning oneself,” I said. “Where’s the appeal? Shouldn’t a birthday be an enjoyable affair?” “I believe mortals wish to blot out the reminder of their inexorably approaching demise. I just got a bit carried away—bloody Byers and his drinking games. And then they brought out a cake—or was it two cakes? Anyway, never again.”

I glared. I’m afraid I have not gotten over my resentment of him for saving me from the snow king’s court in Ljosland earlier this year, and have made a solemn vow to myself that I shall be the one to rescue him from whatever faerie trouble we next find ourselves in.

Ariadne is my brother’s eldest daughter. She arrived at Cambridge for the summer term with a deep-rooted love for dryadology, which my brother, unsurprisingly, has added to the extensive list of items he holds against me. Only nineteen, she is easily the brightest student I have ever taught,

alacrity

“Where would I be without you, Em?” he said. “Probably still flailing about in Germany, looking for your door,” I said. “Meanwhile, I would be sleeping more soundly without a marriage proposal from a faerie king dangling over my head.” “It would cease to dangle if you accepted.”

We have fallen into this pattern of jesting over his marriage proposal, though it is clear he is no less serious about it, as he has informed me more times than I care to count.

I am also keenly aware that I should have refused Wendell long ago, and that allowing him to hope like this is cruel. I do not wish to be cruel to Wendell; the thought gives rise to a strange and unpleasant sensation, as if the air is being squeezed from my body. But the reality is that one would have to be an utter idiot to marry one of the Folk.

De Grey sounds like she was far too much fun.” “Her ideas are innovative. She believed ardently that the Folk of different regions are in closer communication than scholars assume—back then they called this the Trade Routes Theory. She also came up with a classification system that would still be useful today if it had ever gained traction. When she disappeared, she was investigating a species of faun.”[*]

Wendell made a face. “I hate fauns—we have them in my kingdom. They’re vicious little beasts—and not in an interesting way. I don’t know why dryadologists make such a fuss over them. What on earth do they have to do with my door?” I leaned forward. “In fact, you have several species of faun within your kingdom, don’t you?”

It showed a blurred, hairy creature with a goat’s legs and hooves—many fauns alternate between bipedalism and a sort of crouched, apelike lope. Rising from the faun’s head were two majestic horns, sharp as knifepoints. “Yes. They live in the mountains to the east of my court.” “De Grey called them tree fauns—not because they dwell in forests, but because their horns resemble tree rings, the intricacy of them. It’s a feature unique to their species.”

“I believe the rumours about you have reached Cambridge,” I said. “Oh, good grief.” In Hrafnsvik, the villagers had known Wendell’s true identity—there had been no avoiding it. Wendell

“You have plenty of enemies. Some would jump at the chance to villainize you, and I think a rumour that you are here playing some cruel faerie game aimed at making us all look ridiculous would suit that purpose nicely. We cannot lose our funding, Wendell. We need that if we are going to find your door.”

I realized what had been so familiar about the glare the man with the ribbons had given me. It was the same look I have seen numerous times from older professors, often when I have challenged them on a point of scholarship. There had been a quality of disappointment in it that is particular to scholars, which would explain my reaction—I had felt, for a brief moment, like an undergraduate who had forgotten to do the assigned reading.

Ariadne looks a great deal like my brother, round-faced with a long nose covered in a smattering of freckles, with her mother’s hazel eyes and light brown complexion. Unlike my brother, though, whose disposition is decidedly taciturn, Ariadne is possessed of a wearying amount of energy.

De Grey may not have the respect of dryadology’s corps d’elite, but her irreverent character coupled with the mystery of her disappearance have made her something of a folk hero among the younger generation of scholars.[*1]

Dr. Farris Rose has served as Department Head for over a decade, taking over from Letitia Barrister, who was abducted by a bogle in the Hebrides and returned several weeks later aged to approximately ninety (she’d been forty-eight when she vanished).

His body of scholarship is vast and respected—he is the author of the Sandstone Theory,[*2] after all—but he has few friends

The door burst apart. The faeries swarmed into the room, silent as a breath of wind. There were four—no, five of them, flowing together like water. They wore oversize cloaks of shadow that rendered their exact movements nearly impossible to track; at times they seemed mere ripples of darkness, and other times they dropped to all fours and moved as wolves, their long muzzles bright with teeth. I knew—had already guessed—that they were the grey sheerie, a species of trooping faerie found in Ireland. The grey sheerie, unlike their bog-dwelling brethren, are deadly creatures commonly hired as assassins by the courtly fae. They use their lights, which bob in the air above them, to blind their victims before they strike.

Watching Wendell with a sword is like watching a bird leap from a branch—there is something thoughtless about it, innate. One has the sense that he is less himself without a sword, that wielding it returns him to the element most natural to him.

“Did you enchant my pencil?” I demanded. “I enchanted all of your pencils,” he said without opening his eyes. “You always have at least one upon your person. I knew they would come in handy.” He added, as I continued to stare at him, “Well, I can’t carry a bloody sword around with me everywhere,” misunderstanding entirely. “Why didn’t you enchant your own pencils?” I groused. “I would have, but I can never remember where I put them.”

In overall form they were closest to human, I suppose, but with overlarge, velvet ears, a twisted snout glittering with teeth, and wispy fur like an ethereal mane. I have seen plenty of strange Folk, but I cannot begin to convey how disturbing these sheerie were,

“Your sword?” I huffed. “Dropped it, I’m afraid,” he replied. He staggered a bit but managed to keep his feet. “Give me another pencil.” “I only had the one on me!” “One? Who are you?”

I LOVE HIM

“Goddamn you.” I found one of my pens in another pocket and tossed it at him. “If you’ve magicked any of my books, I will shove you into that river with the sheerie.”

Wendell hurled another stone. When it smashed, glittering banners unfurled upon the museum walls, covered in the faerie script.[*3]

“Can’t you sense what enchantments are stored in the stones?” I demanded. “No!” I threw my hands up in frustration. “Then why do you keep on breaking them?” “Because you told me to, you lunatic!”

“What a mess!” he said, surveying what remained of the museum, which now had the appearance of a fever-induced hallucination, or perhaps several.

I turned back to Wendell. “What should we do about him?” Wendell made a face. “Why must we do anything about him? He wasn’t poisoned on his birthday.”

Wendell is SO funny jfc I love him so much

“Wendell,” I said, keeping my voice even through sheer force of will. “Your family has begun sending assassins after you. We must make every effort to locate your door without delay. At the very least, we must get as far away from Cambridge as possible, given that they know you are here.”

“I simply cannot believe it,” she continued in a breathless voice, clasping her hands together as she often did when caught up in one of her fits of enthusiasm. “An expedition with two of the greatest dryadologists of the twentieth century! I can hardly contain my excitement.”

“You haven’t even told us where we’re going. You are not going to make us sit through charts and diagrams first, surely.” “The Alps,” I said shortly. “Specifically, the village of St. Liesl in western Austria.

“Sit down,” I told Ariadne. She sat, looking apprehensive. I drew in my breath. “Wendell is Folk. He is the monarch of a court in the south of Ireland which we scholars call Silva Lupi. He was overthrown by his stepmother, who has named herself queen and is now attempting to have him assassinated.” Ariadne stared at me. She seemed to be waiting for me to add something, but when I did not, she looked dubiously at Wendell, who was brushing flakes of croissant from his lapel. “I see,” she said.

“What do I care if she believes you or not? Let’s get back to your interest in de Grey. She was investigating faerie doors when she vanished, is that it? You think she found mine?”

I genuinely have so much fun reading this book because of his little quips like this ughHHhhh <3

“we must answer a more immediate question: why now?” “Why now?” Wendell repeated. “What do you mean?” There was something a little too guileless about the way he said it, and the way he was gazing at the notes I had scrawled upon the blackboard as if suddenly fascinated. I narrowed my eyes. “Why is your stepmother only now sending assassins after you? Surely she could have tracked you down sooner than this. She’s had ten years.”

“You are keeping something from me,” I said. “I dislike it when you do that. Please do not treat me like some faerie supplicant to whom you must talk in mysterious riddles.” He laughed. “Emily, Emily. How long have we been friends?” “Seven years this December,”

“These creatures you scholars call tree fauns are Irish. De Grey went missing in Austria,” Wendell said. Then he froze. “Ah.” I smiled. While he chewed it over, I wrote a list on the blackboard: St. Liesl, Austria. Corbann, Ireland. Nalchik, Russia. Kolyma, Russia.

“A nexus,” Wendell murmured. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You think de Grey was chasing a nexus.” “No,” I said. “I think she found one.”

A nexus is a door that connects more than two places. In that sense, they are less like this office door and more like the door of a ship, which moves about and can open onto any number of locations.”

“Oh,” Ariadne breathed. “Then that would explain the presence of these fauns in so many countries—they are using a nexus, which connects their realms.”

I drew a door on the blackboard with lines connecting it to St. Liesl and Corbann. “Ireland has seven known faerie kingdoms. Wendell’s is located in the southwest of the country, where lies the mortal village of Corbann and those sightings of tree fauns. Now, Wendell’s stepmother has all the doors to his realm closely guarded to keep him out, either by magic or other means—but this?” I circled St. Liesl. “A back door used by the common fae? Perhaps built by the fauns for their own particular use? She likely has no idea it exists.”

He smiled. “This is all going into your book, isn’t it?” “I was not even thinking about my book,” I said defensively—I was only half lying. With my encyclopaedia complete, I have, as Wendell knows, turned my attention to another large project—creating a mapbook of all the known faerie realms, as well as their doors.

“Are you certain you wish to go with us?” Wendell said. She stared at him in disbelief. “Of course I’m certain! I’ve been reading stories of the Folk since I was a little girl. This is everything I’ve ever hoped for.” “Everything you ever hoped,” he repeated thoughtfully. “But if you come with us, you will also find everything you ever feared.”

“You both seem to think I am carrying this around for my amusement,” I said, exasperated. “Have neither of you heard the story of the cluricaun’s ear?”[*] “Oh,” Ariadne said. “Oh. Then the foot will lead us to the nexus!” “The foot will lead us to the fauns, which will lead us to the nexus,” I said. “That’s the idea, anyhow. I hope I don’t need to point out that I have never taken directions from a faerie foot before.

“And I may yet,” Rose said. “But should you agree to my accompanying you on this trip, I could decide to overlook the matter of those falsified papers.” I gaped at him. Wendell, however, didn’t appear surprised. He was drumming his fingers on his desk, looking increasingly bored with the conversation. “This isn’t really my area, but that strikes me as rather unethical, Farris.” Rose shrugged. “I can live with a lapse in ethics. I can live with a great deal if, in exchange, I find answers to the great scientific mysteries of our time.”

Wendell sighed. “You scholars are all mad. No wonder you’re always getting yourselves gobbled up by the common fae or trapped in some miserable realm. Emily, there’s no point in arguing. He’s obviously coming.” “I don’t see how that’s obvious,” I said, glaring at him.

“Well, my love,” I said. “Here we go again.” Shadow gazed up at me with the perfect contentment known only by dogs, and I massaged his enormous forehead. I hoped that the journey would not prove onerous for him. Though he is a faerie beast, they are no more immortal than those of the human realm, and when I found him eight years ago, he was already old—I do not like thinking about this.