“Yes, sir,” said Wren.
“It would seem Mr Knoll has vanished once again,” said Mr Grigsby.
“Yes, sir,” Wren repeated.
“I must say you proved quite instrumental to his return after Christmas.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Would it perhaps be possible,” Mr Grigsby asked, “for you to make similar enquiries today, so we might find him once more?”
Wren took his genuine relief at Mr Grigsby’s finally arriving at his point and used it to put on a sincere smile. “Of course, sir.”
A faint echo of that same smile flickered across Mr Grigsby’s aged features. “Then I leave the matter in your capable hands.”
And so saying, he returned to his desk and his newspaper.
Wren retrieved his hat, coat, and satchel and set out from the office for Hyde Park.
Shrike, in the midst of tending the garden, appeared astonished but by no means displeased to see Wren come running up the path to Blackthorn.
“Felix is missing,” Wren gasped, bracing one hand against the cottage wall as he caught his breath.
“Again?” said Shrike.
“Yes.” Wren described his encounter with the money-lender’s agent. Still, he didn’t think Felix had vanished through mortal means. “Have the huldra reclaimed him, d’you think?”
Shrike arose from where he knelt amidst the sprouting beetroot and brushed the soil off his palms. “They’re not fool enough to touch him before Midsummer.”
Wren didn’t share his certainty, but supposed Shrike had more experience with the ways of the Court of Hidden Folk. “Then I confess I know not where he might have flown. Can you find him as you found me? An acorn, wasn’t it? Or how you found the Restive Quills, with knuckle-bones?”
Ever-obliging, Shrike reached into the pouch at his belt and withdrew four stark white bones. He cast them onto the dirt, between the neat rows of carrots, then knelt to examine the pattern in which they fell. Something changed in his face; a slight knit across the brow, and a hardening of the eyes.
“Well?” Wren asked after Shrike had remained silent for a very long moment. “Where is he?”
Shrike looked up and replied in a voice as flat as his expression. “He’s dead.”
~
Chapter Thirty-One
Wren stared at him. “What?”
“Felix Knoll is dead,” Shrike reiterated.
“How do you know?”
Shrike indicated the knuckle-bones with a sweep of his hand.
Wren fought against the rising panic in his chest. It couldn’t be so. The bones were wrong. Or Shrike had misinterpreted them. “Cast them again.”
Shrike raised an eyebrow that suggested he could hear Wren’s doubts as clear as if he’d spoken them aloud—but he took up the bones and threw them down again regardless.
Wren blinked. If he didn’t know better, he’d say they had fallen not only on the exact same sides as before, but in the exact same pattern and position as well. No doubt a combination of coincidence and Wren’s imprecise memory. “Again.”
To his credit, Shrike gave no hint of exasperation as he cast the bones a third time.
Now there was no mistaking the exact repetition of their fall. Their magic had never before seemed so unnatural to Wren.
