“Helping me catch Angoulême.”

Martin’s eyelids snapped open, silver gaze full of fury. The air around us warmed, and I felt Tristan come closer, ready to step in if things got out of hand. “Bad enough,” he said, “that you went back on your word to kill him, but must you also mock me?”

“I’m not mocking you,” I said. “You said once that you’d see him bleed out like his daughter. At first, I thought you meant Anaïs, but then it occurred to me in the tombs that you meant Pénélope. That Angoulême had the same affliction as her.” I swiftly explained what had happened.

“You bit him?” Martin shook his head, then accepted a mouthful of tea from my gran. “You know I can do it myself,” he said to her, the cup lifting out of her hand and floating in the air.

“Gives me purpose,” she said, taking hold of the handle and pulling it back. “And what’s a life without purpose?”

“What indeed.” He stared at the blanket where the rest of his legs should’ve been. “I never saw any proof that Angoulême was afflicted,” he said. “But a number of years ago, several volumes of research on the condition went missing from the library, and there was a rumor that circulated amongst the librarians that someone from the peerage had paid for them to be destroyed. After Lady Pénélope’s affliction became known, my curiosity was piqued, and I delved into the matter. Of a surety, the girls’ mother was no more than a carrier if she was able to bear two children, which, based on my research of other inherited conditions, lead me to believe the Duke was a victim of the ailment.

“I thought you never speculated,” I said, realizing that I’d staked everything on an unproven notion.

“It was a well-researched hypothesis,” he said, accepting another mouthful of tea. “Which you subsequently proved to be correct.”

“Right,” I said, wishing my cup was filled with something stronger. “I need your help with something else now.” I explained my meeting with the Summer King, and his belief that the trolls could somehow be brought back to their homeland.

“Fascinating,” Martin breathed, leaning back on the bags stacked behind him, lost in thought. “There are very old manuscripts within the library recording the accounts of the fey who lost their immortality. Many spoke of a growing difficulty in passing between worlds, that it became physically painful for them to do so. Some took it as a warning and left, never to come back, but some couldn’t help themselves and remained. The change happened swiftly and to nearly everyone at once; only a few were able to flee back to Arcadia, the rest no longer even possessing the ability to open paths. It was as though our link to our homeland had been severed.”

“What did they do?” I asked

“It was a panic, of course,” Martin replied. “They knew it was iron that was holding them back, but not how to rid themselves of it. Many tried starving themselves and forgoing water; others attempted to bleed themselves dry, believing they could remove the contaminant that way. There were casualties, but when they realized that they’d started aging, that their magic had begun to change, that they were no longer immortal, they tried anyway. Those ancient fey were still long-lived by our standards – hundreds of years – but with each passing generation, lifespans grew shorter. Now they are no better than the average human. In a few hundred years, perhaps we’ll live and die in the space of a handful of decades.” He sighed. “There have been some who have postulated that it is this world’s way of getting rid of that which does not belong, but that strikes me as fancifulness.”