“The fault is yet mine,” Shrike insisted. “If I’d not given you her gyrdel—drawn her eye to you—it would never have occurred to her to name you her Holly King.”
“Balderdash,” said Wren.
Shrike stared at him.
“If she didn’t intend to name me,” Wren explained, seeing Shrike could form no words, “then why leave the post vacant all these long months? She must have known about me since Midwinter at least. Our embrace on the duelling field could hardly have escaped her notice. She’s planned it since then, I’d bet my eye-teeth on it—and only held off so long in proclaiming it to toy with you as a cat toys with a wounded mouse. The gyrdel just gave her a convenient excuse to put her plans into motion.”
Shrike continued staring at Wren as the threads wove together before his mind’s eye until the resulting tangle knotted around his throat. Then he ran a hand over his face to clear his head. It didn’t work. When he met Wren’s gaze again, Wren looked no less exhausted and lost than Shrike felt.
“What shall we do now?” Wren asked.
“London,” said Shrike. “You must return to London. It’s choked with iron. No fae may touch you there.”
“You kissed me there,” said Wren.
How long ago and far away that seemed. Shrike tried again. “No fae willharmyou there.”
“Will you come with me?”
Shrike gazed down at Wren in disbelief. To think, after all that had befallen Wren this day, that Wren would still want him near—Shrike hadn’t dared hope half so far.
Wren must have mistaken his confusion for aversion, for he hastened to explain. “I know the iron is a trial for you, but I should like to have you nearby all the same. Perhaps, if you were to follow me as a bird, you might tuck yourself away in Staple Inn. Perched on a windowsill. Or,” he added, as it seemed inspiration struck him, “I could open the window to my garret, and you could remain safe indoors.”
“Do you truly want me there?” Shrike murmured, scarcely able to believe him even now.
Wren blinked at him. “Of course. More than ever.”
“Then you shall have me.”
The faintest smile flickered across Wren’s bespeckled lips—more of a smile than Shrike had ever hoped to see again.
“Let’s go for the day at least,” said Wren. “I can hardly abandon Mr Grigsby without explanation, but I should like to return to Blackthorn this evening.” In reply to Shrike’s bewildered gaze, he added, “I feel far safer here than in London.”
Shrike wished he could say the same.
~
If Wren had found it difficult to return to clerking in Mr Grigsby’s office after his previous adventures in the fae realms, it felt nigh-on impossible after he’d been declared the Holly King. Yet go he must. He desperately needed a dose of the familiar, however mundane.
“Lofthouse!” Mr Grigsby cried as Wren entered the office at half-past nine. “Pray, tell me Mr Butcher is not worse?”
“What?” Wren halted on the threshold. Belatedly he recalled the fib that had seen him out of the office just the day before. How long ago that seemed now. “No, not worse.”
“I’m much relieved to hear it! You looked so grave, I had feared—but quite glad to know Mr Butcher is better.”
Wren attempted to master his face. “I would not say he is better.”
“No?” Mr Grigsby made no effort to disguise his confusion.
“Not worse,” Wren insisted, his tongue running on whilst his mind whirled elsewhere, spinning out truth whilst his nerves remained too raw to suppress it as he ought. “But not better.”
“Oh.” Mr Grigsby didn’t appear any less confused. But as he did not enquire aloud what had prompted Wren’s return to Staple Inn if Shrike’s condition remained unchanged, Wren saw no need to volunteer an explanation.
“As such,” Wren said instead, “I had intended to go back again this evening. With your permission, sir.”
“Of course! You hardly need my permission for that, Lofthouse—your hours are quite your own once we’ve locked up.”
Wren hesitated. “I would not intend to return before morning, sir.”
