Epilogue

E PILOGUE

“Come,” said the Fairy King. “Simply give me a poem, and Sabinus shall be free. Don’t you wish to save your love from our wickedness?”

“You can do this,” Lady Long-Nose whispered to Christina. “Please try.”

“I can’t,” Christina cried. “I simply can’t because it was Lady Long-Nose who wrote those letters.”

At this, Sabinus seemed to become more aware. He looked up in surprise, first at Christina and then at Lady Long-Nose. “What?”

The Fairy King slowly turned to him. “Did you know this?”

“I… I thought Christina had written those letters.”

The Fairy King raised one eyebrow dubiously and turned to Lady Long-Nose. “Tell us a poem.”

And so she did, the words flowing from her lips like jewels tossed to the ground. Sabinus closed his eyes, smiling, as she recited, but when she finished, he opened them and winced when he saw her.

“You are a fool,” the Fairy King said, and turned to Lady Long-Nose. “You love this man?”

Her heart was bleeding, but Lady Long-Nose tilted her chin up. “I do.”

“Then I offer to you the same bargain that I would’ve offered Sabinus’s true love: I will let this fool go now if you will take on his year’s debt to my court instead. Do you agree?”

“Yes,” Lady Long-Nose said simply.

Christina sobbed, taking Sabinus’s hand. “Oh, please let me go with him!”

“If she goes with him,” the Fairy King said, his gaze never leaving Lady Long-Nose’s own, “then the debt is three years.”

“Why an extra year?” Lady Long-Nose couldn’t help asking.

The king shrugged. “Because I wish it so. Normally a mortal’s debt would be ten years’ time in the fairy realm, or, if the mortal is especially intriguing, their lifetime. But this man here”—he waved to Sabinus without looking at him—“is nothing special. He may be pretty, but otherwise he is a dullard. I can do nothing with him other than add his bones to my throne.”

Christina screamed and fainted into Sabinus’s arms.

Sabinus looked at Lady Long-Nose with pleading eyes, but it hardly mattered, save for a pang in her heart, for she’d already made up her mind. “Yes, I will stay in the fairy kingdom for three years in exchange for Your Majesty letting both Christina and Sabinus go.”

“Excellent,” said the Fairy King, and clapped his hands.

Instantly, the lovers were gone.

The Fairy King stepped down from his throne and held out his hand to Lady Long-Nose. “Come. I will show you my kingdom.”

Now, the Fairylands are vast, encompassing forests and fields, the oceans and rivers, mountains rocky and snowy, and caves so far underground that the fish that live in the pools there have no eyes. Wherever they went, there were fairies. Some had gossamer wings; some covered themselves with moleskin coats; some had scales on their bodies. There were fairies of the sky who lived among the clouds and delighted in sending rain down on unfortunate travelers. There were fairies of swampy lands, each with a small glowing light with which they danced in the reeds on black nights. There were fairies who disguised themselves with gray lichen and lived in rocky hills.

And every fairy they met bowed to the Fairy King, glancing at Lady Long-Nose with curious but unhostile eyes.

After days, weeks, perhaps years, for there is no way to tell time in the fairy world, they returned to the Fairy King’s own lands, stark and colorless.

Lady Long-Nose looked around the stark forest and said, “All the other fairy lands are colorful and filled with life. Why is your land so cold?”

“It is a curse,” the Fairy King said. “Long ago, I fought my cousin for the throne, a terrible battle in which many, many fairies died, until at last, I dealt him a killing blow. But as my cousin fell, he cursed me.”

Lady Long-Nose waited, but the Fairy King said nothing more. So she asked, “What was the curse?”

“Ah,” said the Fairy King with a careless wave, “it hardly matters now.”

That first year, Lady Long-Nose was called upon each morning to recite a line or two of poetry, and as the year progressed, more and more fairies attended her recitals. The Fairy King never took his eyes off her face.

She learned to eat honey and milk, tiny silver fishes, berries and nuts picked fresh, and exquisite cakes, beautiful and tasting of wine.

The second year, Lady Long-Nose learned to dance as the fairies do, slow and stately, quick and leaping, and wanton and wild. Soon she danced so well that the fairies vied to be her partner, although the Fairy King always took her hand for the last dance, just before the dawn.

The third year, Lady Long-Nose learned to ride the fierce fairy horses of the wild hunt. She gripped her horse with thigh and heel, and when she shot her arrows, she hit her target every time. The Fairy King rode beside her, his eyes nearly warm.

But finally, the three years ended.

The Fairy King sat on his bone throne and summoned Lady Long-Nose. “You have served your time in my court,” he said, his face blank and cold once more. “A fairy of my court will escort you to the world above.”

Lady Long-Nose stared at him. “That is all? I’ve lived and danced and hunted by your side for three years, and you will dismiss me without even a farewell?”

“If that is what you want,” he returned.

“It isn’t,” Lady Long-Nose shouted. “I like it here. No one seems to care about my nose at all.”

At that, the Fairy King’s brows drew together. “Your… nose?”

She pointed to her own face. “It’s huge.”

He blinked. “And?”

She waved her hands nearly hysterically. “Everyone in the world above has always told me how ugly it is.”

The Fairy King cocked his head slowly. “Sometimes I do not understand humans at all.”

“Why do you think they call me Lady Long-Nose?”

“I thought it merely descriptive,” the Fairy King said. “You dislike it?”

“Yes,” Lady Long-Nose said. “It’s not even my real name.”

“What is your real name, then?”

“Roxane,” she whispered.

The Fairy King nodded briskly and held out his hand. “Then, Roxane, will you remain with me in my realm, reciting poetry for me, dancing with me, and riding beside me as my queen forever?”

“Yes,” Roxane said, “for I fell in love with you in my first year here. And though you haven’t said so, I think you return my affection.”

“I love you more than the stars above, more than the sweetness of honey, and more than my heartbeat,” the Fairy King said with fervor. “Please stay with me.”

Roxane smiled as she took his hand.

And the forest bloomed with color.

—From Lady Long-Nose

O NE MONTH LATER

A DDERS H ALL

Dear Ran,

You would not believe the improvements that we’ve made to Adders Hall. Already we have the broken windows in the east wing replaced, and the portico has been patched by a lovely local man who wears the most awful wig. I thought I saw a beetle in it the other day.

Have you finished reading that rather ghastly anatomy book you told me about in your last letter? Perhaps you ought to read something light next time. I’ve heard many people are fond of The Compleat Angler , although I don’t really know why. I’ve just finished the most marvelous book, The Other World: Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon , by a man called Cyrano de Bergerac, and it is quite interesting as…

“There you are!” Messalina strolled into Elspeth’s study—actually one of the unused rooms on the first floor, but if she wanted to call it a study, she could—and plopped an armful of evergreen boughs on the table by the window. “Do you think that’s enough? Hawthorne has declared a cessation to gathering evergreens and is sitting in the library with a glass of brandy. If we need to go back out again, I should go get him before he becomes too comfortable.”

Elspeth set down her pen to eye her sister-in-law’s bounty. “Maybe? I don’t really know. I’ve been surprised by how much Julian is enjoying the Christmas festivities. I suppose we ought to ask him.”

“Whom are you asking what?” Quintus inquired as he brought in a second heap of evergreens. “His Grace? Do you want to ask His Grace a question? Because if so, I think you should have to send a letter to his solicitors in London and find out if His Grace has the time to—”

“For God’s sake, Quinn,” Julian called mildly by the door, “are you ever going to stop gracing me?” Plum, who had been lazing by the fireplace, got up to greet him.

“No,” Quintus replied, unperturbed at the interruption.

“Grace. Grace. Grace,” Messalina chanted absently under her breath. “Do we need more evergreens? What do you think?”

Julian eyed the mound of branches. “I think that is enough to decorate the hall and dining room, and if you cut any more, my trees will be completely denuded.”

“Oh, good,” Messalina said. “Then I’m off to the library before Hawthorne falls asleep.”

“Certainly,” Julian said with a small smile as his sister passed him. He looked at Quintus. “May I borrow my wife?”

“You mean Your Grace would like to borrow Her Grace so that Your Graces might spend time all on your gracely…”

Elspeth giggled as she met her husband at the door. Plum had settled on the hearth again. “The more you object to Quintus’s gracing the more he’ll do it, you know.”

Julian grumbled under his breath. “You’d think he might be more respectful now, and yet…”

Elspeth squeezed his arm. Her husband might complain, but she thought that he secretly enjoyed the gentle teasing from his family. Quintus and Julian had always been close, but the fragile accord with his sister—sisters, hopefully, if Lucretia could visit them for the Christmas season—was a new and beautiful thing.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked as they turned a corner of the hall. They were nearing their bedroom—Julian’s old bedroom for now, until the master bedroom was done being renovated.

Julian leaned closer to her. “I have need of my lady.”

She felt a lovely warmth between her thighs. “Do you, truly? Then I hope you have thought about the proper way to ask.”

They were at their door now. Julian shoved it open, ushered Elspeth in, and shut the door firmly.

She turned and looked at him.

Julian dropped to his knees.