Chapter Three
In which Dorothea Winthrope goes into Faerie, and Receives an Unpleasant surprise.
Three bottles of honeywine was more than enough, Dorothea knew. And yet, here she was venturing upon her fourth. She was merry and expansive and distantly aware that she was laughing too much, but had stopped caring about halfway down bottle number three.
‘Drowning your sorrows, Dot?’ said Verity Wilkin, who was sitting to her left and sipping far more decorously from a glass. Dorothea had progressed to drinking from the bottle some time ago.
‘I am!’ she agreed. ‘Only—’ and here she dissolved into laughter and took some time to recall herself from her mirth. ‘Only I cannot remember what they are.’
‘Then you have drowned them successfully,’ said Verity with an indulgent smile.
Dorothea sho
