Winner of the 2020 World Fantasy Award! From Astounding Award winner and Crawford Award finalist Emily Tesh An ALA RUSA Reading List Selection "A true story of the woods, of the fae, and of the heart. Deep and green and wonderful.”― New York Times bestselling author Naomi Novik There is a Wild Man who lives in the deep quiet of Greenhollow, and he listens to the wood. Tobias, tethered to the forest, does not dwell on his past life, but he lives a perfectly unremarkable existence with his cottage, his cat, and his dryads. When Greenhollow Hall acquires a handsome, intensely curious new owner in Henry Silver, everything changes. Old secrets better left buried are dug up, and Tobias is forced to reckon with his troubled past―both the green magic of the woods, and the dark things that rest in its heart. Praise for Emily Tesh's Silver in the Wood "A wildly evocative and enchanting story of old forests, forgotten gods, and new love. Just magnificent."―Jenn Lyons, author of The Ruin of Kings Winner of the 2020 World Fantasy Award! From Astounding Award winner and Crawford Award finalist Emily Tesh An ALA RUSA Reading List Selection "Exquisitely crafted. . . . This fresh, evocative short novel heralds a welcome new voice in fantasy."― Publishers Weekly "Find a quiet place in a nearby wood, listen to the trees whisper, and thank the old gods and new for this beautiful little book, of which I intend to get lost in again and again."― Book Riot "Alive with old magic, Silver in the Wood made my hair stand on end even as it beckoned me to go deeper, and in the end I couldn't resist."―C. L. Polk "A wildly evocative and enchanting story of old forests, forgotten gods, and new love. Just magnificent."―Jenn Lyons "It is easy to praise flash and sparkle, but the beauty of the simple and lighter-than-air is more difficult to capture. Silver in the Wood's sparkle is that of clear water; its flash the snap of a crackling fire, and Tesh's prose reads like returning to a dream long-forgotten or a song half-remembered. It is, needless to say, excellent."―Alexandra Rowland “Tesh lured me into her rich fairytale narrative with the warmth and strangeness, then hooked me on her intricate characters. Silver in the Wood is a novella of quiet yearning and old secrets, gentle woodsmen and fierce dryads and mothers you really shouldn’t mess with.”―Kerstin Hall EMILY TESH is a UK-based author of science fiction and fantasy. Her debut novel, Some Desperate Glory , won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. Tesh is also a winner of the Astounding Award, and the author of the World Fantasy Award-winning Greenhollow duology. Silver in the Wood By Emily Tesh, Ruoxi Chen Tom Doherty Associates Copyright © 2019 Emily Tesh All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-250-22979-3 CHAPTER 1 IT WAS THE MIDDLE OF AN AUTUMN DOWNPOUR when Tobias first met Henry Silver. Summer had come and gone, and the wood was quiet. Tobias was snug inside his neat little cottage with Pearl asleep on the hearth, tail twitching occasionally as she dreamed of catching sparrows. He had all his knives laid out in a row on the table and his oilstone to hand. He looked up through the cloudy panes of his one good window and saw the young man in a well-fitted grey coat stumbling along the track with wet leaves blowing into his face and his hat a crumpled ruin in his hands. Then Tobias didn't even really think about it, just stepped outside and hollered for him to come in. The young man looked up with a startled expression. He had a soft boyish face and pale grey eyes, and his mud-coloured hair was plastered to his skin. "I said come on in, you're getting soaked," called Tobias from his doorway. The young man stared at him a little longer, and then carefully opened Tobias's garden gate, closed it again behind him, and walked down the path to the cottage. Tobias stood aside to let him in. "Need some help with that coat?" he asked. "Thank you," said the young man, and once Tobias had taken it off him — it was a damn good coat, even Tobias could tell that, the kind so perfectly tailored it required a servant to pour you into it and peel you out again — he saw that his new guest really was soaked through. "I'll get you some clothes," he said. He went into the cottage's one other room and fetched out some of his old things. "I'm Tobias Finch," he said as he came back to the main room. The young man was crouched by the fire. Pearl had opened slitted eyes to consider him, but she was a very unflappable cat, not likely to be startled from her warm spot by a stranger who did not disturb her. "Silver," said his guest after a moment. "Henry Silver." "Pleasure's all mine, Mr Silver," said Tobias, and offered him the pile of dry clothes. Silver got changed and then sat down by the fire again. Pearl graciously crawled into his lap and butted his hand with her head to indicate he might have the honour of petting her. Tobias sat down by the window and returned to