“I prefer your company, Em."
He said it as if it were obvious. I snorted again, assuming he was teasing me. "Over the company of a tavern filled with a rapt and grateful audience? I'm sure you do."
"Over anyone else's company." Again, he said it with some amusement, as if wondering what I was doing speculating about something so evident.
"You are drunk," I said.
"Shall I prove it to you?"
"No, you shan't," I said, alarmed, but he was already sweeping to the floor, bending his knee and taking my hand between his.
"What in God's name are you doing?" I said between my teeth. "And why are you doing it now?"
"Shall I make an appointment?" he said, then laughed. "Yes, I believe you
would like that. Well, name the time when it would be convenient for you to receive a declaration of love."
"Oh, get up," I said, furious now. "What sort of jest is this, Wendell?"
"You don't believe me?" He smiled, all mischief, a look I'd seen from other Folk, enough to know not to trust him one inch. "Ask for my true name, and I'll give it to you."
"Why on earth would you do that?" I demanded, yanking my hand back.
"Oh, Em," he said forlornly. "You are the cleverest dolt I have ever met."
I stared at him, my heart thundering. Of course, I am not a dolt in any sense; I had supposed he felt something for me and had only hoped he would keep it to himself. Forever. Not that a part of me didn't wish for the opposite. But that was when I assumed his feelings in that respect were equivalent to what he felt for any of the nameless women who passed in and out of his bed. And why would I lower myself to that, when he and I already had something that was vastly more valuable?”
―
Heather Fawcett,
Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
