Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands

trolls like nothing better than to explore, roaming hither and thither and establishing temporary villages where they offer their services to the locals, then packing it all up and moving on again.

Rose asked me why I was not more surprised by your feat. He does not understand you as I do, Em, but as you seem to consider him a friend now, I told him the truth: in order to be surprised, I could not have known already that you are capable of anything.

the courtly fae are not difficult to fool; their pride and self-satisfaction rarely admit the possibility that a mortal might even attempt to outsmart them.

Yes, there was enchantment in her commands, but there was also a human version of authority there that I recognized. Were the king of England to order me to speak—or, for that matter, the chancellor of Cambridge, a small but forbidding man—I would have found it similarly difficult to disobey. For there are certain mortals who are quite capable of intimidation and dominance without the aid of magic, particularly when they are used to it, when they possess a certain stature, inherited or earned.

generally he gave off the impression of a man in the sort of ideal health only wealth and ease can afford.

I was simply not that interesting a person to look at. There are advantages to being a smallish, dusty-looking scholar.

. I wonder: is this truly the product of enchantments woven into Faerie designed to muddle human minds, as we scholars have always speculated? Or is the explanation more innocent, and yet more terrible: that in Faerie are things that lie beyond the limits of human understanding, and thus the primitive system of record-keeping that is our mortal memory

His magic was woven into the cloak, and faerie enchantments are not like inanimate human workings; they often seem to have a personality and can retain a distant connection to their maker.

only an amateur falls asleep in Faerie without some form of alarm clock.

If Dr. Bambleby has friends among the courtly fae, perhaps they will help us.”

I shook my head. “Do not assume that any friends of Wendell’s will be friends of ours. It is more likely that they will see us as valuable pawns, and shut us away in some gilded prison for safekeeping. The courtly fae have a tendency to underestimate mortals, and they are completely unpredictable—perhaps they would believe in the importance of our mission, and perhaps they would not. And anyway, it is just as likely that we will stumble across one of Wendell’s enemies.”