Thornwood did not seem to suffer aftereffects of the enchantment in the well, even though he’d been the one fully under its spell. However, he was gentler with Mouse, not mentioning her exhaustion and always ready with food and drink when she woke between naps. She supposed this was his way of thanking her for saving him without saying the words aloud.
She had not been so tired since the height of the war, and the gravity of the threat of magic hung over her like an airship. Before, Mouse felt that she had made the easier choice, making a deal with a Faerie to revive Thistlemarsh, but now she was not sure. She almost died in that well, and Thornwood’s indifference to their peril only magnified their power imbalance. Mouse, armed with only a book of old Faerie tales and folk knowledge, was by no means the right person to take on an unseen magical force.
Neither Thornwood nor Mickelwaithe commented on the dark circles under her eyes.
In one particularly dark dream, Mouse sank to the bottom of the well, looking up at the surface but unable to move. Above her, a shadow dropped into the water. It drifted down, limbs spread wideand blood lifting off it like clouds. It was a man dressed in a soldier’s uniform. His arm was missing above his elbow, and there was a hole in his torso. Slowly, the current changed, and the body turned with it. Mouse screamed.
Bertie stared at her, unseeing, with his mouth open and half his skull missing. The shrapnel of an artillery shell stuck out of his chest. His voice drifted to her, hollow and haunting beneath the water.
You’re too late.
Mouse woke in a cold sweat. It took her a moment to recognize Thornwood in the entryway. She was curled in an armchair Mickelwaithe had dragged into the room for her.Blakeney’slay on her lap, open to a story about a weaver tasked with opening a secret cave. Mouse’s mother had penned in a list of magic words likeopen sesameandabracadabrain the margins.
“Any luck?” Thornwood asked, slinking into the room with two coffee mugs. Mouse took one gratefully.
“No, none of the words had any effect.”
“It was a good idea,” Thornwood said.
Mouse placed a warm hand on her neck, letting the muted heat from the coffee mug seep into her sore muscles. Her palm met the cold chain of her necklace, and she froze.
Struck with realization, Mouse lifted the chain from around her neck. Depositing the coffee at her feet, she rose and walked to the door. Carefully, she slipped the key her mother gave her into one of the two keyholes.
My inheritance from my mother, she thought as the key slid seamlessly into the lock. Behind her, Thornwood let out a long exhale.
The lock clicked as she turned it before grinding to a halt. She looked to the other keyhole, shimmering in the dim entryway light.
Thornwood was at her side, his own coffee abandoned. “Does the key have a twin?” he asked.
“It has a cousin,” Mouse said. “But getting ahold of it might be trouble.”
“More trouble than what we’ve faced so far?”
“My cousin had the key before he died,” Mouse said, and Thornwood’s excitement dissipated. “To retrieve it, we’ll have to visit my uncle’s solicitor in London.”
The Weaver and the Faerie Princess
FromLady Blakeney’s Tales of Faerie: Stories for the Modern Traveler.Collected and edited by Lady Blakeney of London, England, with consultation by Lord Threadneedle of Raven Tower, Faerie, 1780.
Once, when the road between the mortal world and Faerie was clear, there lived a man who wove carpets. In most respects, the man was unremarkable. He was kind, generous, and intelligent, but not in a way that might draw the attention of the Faeries who drifted through the marketplace, collecting treasures.
His carpets, on the other hand, were extraordinary. They sparkled like the wings of beetles, drawing in crowds wherever he went.
One day, a beautiful woman appeared to the weaver, requesting one of the stunning carpets praised throughout the market. The weaver was immediately smitten with the woman, whose beauty was unnaturally bright. For her, he selected his finest fabric. A rainbow of color reflected on her face as she took the carpet. The weaver was enchanted by the sight, planning his next design before the carpet even left his fingers.
When the woman opened her purse to pay, the weaver waved her silver away. “You have given me inspiration. You do not owe me anything else.”
The woman smiled and was gone.
That night, between the moment when the weaver laid his head down to rest and when his dreams should have started, a jolt ran through him. He opened his eyes to find that he was in the Court of the Faerie King of the Deserts.
The woman was there, with the weaver’s most beautiful carpet laid out before her.
“You offered me this beautiful gift, weaver,” she said. “In return, I offer you my hand in marriage. I am the Princess of the Sands, and all the beauty of the desert from which you draw your inspiration will be yours.”
Shocked, but more than happy to accept the princess’s offer, the weaver took her hand. She drew him close, as though to press her lips to his.
Before they could touch, the princess said, “I must warn you: Should I die while you still live, we must be buried together. It is the tradition of our kingdom.”