Mickelwaithe leaned closer to the book. His dark eyes scanned the page, his hands hovering just above the paper.
“Alas, mortal storybooks are not known for their reliability in defeating real magic,” Thornwood said. “Besides, your fictional troop of Faeries fail their mission, do they not?”
“Are there more stories like this here?” Mickelwaithe asked.
“Yes,” Mouse said, ignoring Thornwood’s jab.
Mickelwaithe gestured to the book, and Mouse thumbed through it to a story about powerful magic pervading an ancient wood.
“Anything of interest?” Thornwood’s voice dripped with doubt.
“Perhaps,” the servant said. “This collection has been heavily annotated by someone with a good understanding of Faerie.”
Thornwood’s eyes met Mouse’s over the desk. She tilted her head, her lips twisting in satisfaction.
“It was my mother’s. She studied Faeries her entire life.”
Mickelwaithe gestured to the book. “May I?”
Mouse nodded, and he lifted it from her hands. The pages fanned out between his fingers as he held them out to Thornwood, pointing at a note tucked into the margin.
“Your mother wrote this?” Thornwood asked.
“Yes, she wrote all of the marginalia.”
“Did she have contact with Faeries?”
Mouse snorted, sinking into the low seat opposite the desk. “No one has had any contact with Faeries in over one hundred years. I think I would know if my mother had.”
Thornwood raised an eyebrow and placed a single finger on thenote. “Your mother’s additions are specific. It is hard to believe that she knew those things innately.”
“As I said, she studied Faeries her whole life. We could not go to the market without her picking up a new story about them.”
Thornwood’s finger curled back into his fist, and he pursed his lips. “And you have studied this book yourself?”
“I have,” Mouse said primly. Behind Thornwood, Mickelwaithe’s lips twitched. “Margin notes and all. I myself was interested in the study of Faerie anthropology, before the war.”
Thornwood held the book out to her, eyebrows raised. “Your value as a partner in this deal increases daily.”
The sarcasm was not lost on Mouse, but it was tempered. “How kind of you. As I’ve said before, I know that Faeries cannot lie.”
He blanched, and Mickelwaithe coughed to cover what sounded suspiciously like a snort.
“Now,” she said, takingBlakeney’sback. “What am I looking for, exactly?”
“Any reference to arrangements between mortals and lesser creatures that might repel a High Faerie’s magic,” Thornwood said through clenched teeth. “All the better if it takes place in some form of mortal dwelling.”
She flagged a few of the stories, but Thornwood dismissed each one. According toBlakeney’s, Brownies were common Faeries who would do magic in exchange for shelter or food, but no such offering had been made. Gnomes were more interested in gardens, anyway, and they were a kind of common Faerie who lived in colonies. Imps favored ruins.
Thornwood laughed at a story featuring a unicorn.
Mouse flipped past pages of wishing wells, dungeons, and stark cliffsides. She paused on a page with a crumbling castle whose door was outlined in silver and gasped.
“Wait! There is something that comes to mind,” she cried.
“What?”
She took another hard look at the illustrated door before snapping her book shut and marching out into the garden. “Outside.”