Shrike cast the bones. Wren held his breath. He couldn’t be certain, but it seemed to him the bones had fallen on different sides and in a different pattern than before.
“The only child of the late Mr and Mrs Fairfield,” said Shrike, “is headed west of London.”
Wren frowned. “Not north?”
“Further west than north.”
“You’re certain?”
Shrike cast an exasperated look up at him.
Wren supposed he deserved that. “How far west?”
“To the sea. And across it. They’ve not reached the sea yet,” Shrike added as Wren stifled an oath. “But it is their intention to continue through it to lands beyond.”
Wren studied the bones, though their pattern did not speak to him as it did to Shrike. “I don’t suppose you could persuade the bones to be more specific as to the present location of the one we seek?”
“No,” Shrike admitted. “But we might seek them as I sought you.”
As Wren watched in fascination, Shrike dropped the knuckle-bones back into the leather pouch. In their place he withdrew a delicate sun-bleached songbird skull. Then he reached up to the top of his head and plucked a single silver strand from amidst the dark raven locks. This done, he threaded the hair through the eye-sockets of the skull and tied it off in an intricate knot.
“Acorns are out of season,” Shrike said apologetically as he held for the result for Wren’s inspection.
Wren had no complaint. “And this will find the individual I knew as Miss Flora?”
Shrike laid a strong yet gentle grip on Wren’s wrist. Wren took the hint and opened his hand. The bird skull seemed to weigh little more than a feather when Shrike dropt it into Wren’s grasp. Then, as Shrike’s clever fingers drew arcane signs in a sort of benediction over it, the skull became heavy as a stone—and pulsed with faint warmth. Instinct bid Wren close his hand over it, and no sooner had he done so than he felt the skull press softly against the inside of his fist, as if it wished to fly beyond the bounds of Blackthorn Briar. Shrike looped the strung hair over Wren’s neck, and Wren tucked the bird skull under his shirt-collar to lay against his heart. It fluttered still, too faintly to be seen from without, but keenly felt by Wren.
“Would you,” Wren asked, “be willing to remain in Staple Inn whilst I go where the charm leads?”
Shrike cocked his head to one side.
Wren tried again. “If Tolhurst should realize his mistake and return before I do… I’ve been warned not to let him alone with Mr Grigsby.”
Shrike’s jaw tightened. He gave a grim nod.
~
They separated the moment they stepped through the toadstool ring into Hyde Park; Wren to find his employer’s ward and Shrike to Staple Inn on the pretence of looking for Wren. Shrike wore his oak-leaf domino mask with Wren’s cobweb sigil to disguise his antlers from all mortal eyes save Wren’s. Mr Grigsby, being all politeness, would of course invite Shrike to stay, which would in turn allow Shrike to keep watch over Mr Grigsby in case of Tolhurst’s early return. Wren, meanwhile, hailed a passing omnibus and hopped aboard for a ride to the train station and thereon northwest as Shrike had said. The bird skull pulsed encouragingly beneath his shirt.
To ask after particular unremarkable individuals amidst the general crush of London would prove useless. However, Wren had a somewhat profitable conversation with a particular ticket clerk regarding a young gentleman of means accompanied by a young lady in a blue frock. Enough to induce him to procure train passage to Liverpool—further west than north, a stepping-stone to lands across the sea, just as Shrike had said—and the thrum of the bird skull as he made the transaction gave him confidence to step aboard.
Hours passed away rattling over the rails. All the while Wren had the bird skull strung on Shrike’s hair ‘round his throat, tucked beneath his shirt to lie warm against his heart and to beat its own pulse faintly and tug him ever onward, telling him he trod the true path. Then the train halted, at last, in Liverpool, and he disembarked. The bird skull fluttered stronger than ever before as his boot-heel struck the cobblestones.
Wren’s eagerness turned to uneasiness when the bird skull tugged him toward the harbour. If Miss Flora had already taken to the sea, Wren could hardly hope to catch her now.
Yet as he wandered down the docks in a meandering pattern that must have irritated every sailor who crossed his path, the bird skull did not seek the waters nor the ships, but rather the edifices lining the street; ship-builders, chandlers, warehouses, and taverns.
The bird skull gave a pulse that forced Wren to a halt beneath a black-lacquered sign carved in the shape of a spouting leviathan. The door it hung over opened into a particularly greasy public house. The very rafters seemed soaked in whale oil. To say nothing of the seafaring folk gathered within. Wren ignored the salty stares and strode to the bar.
“Pardon me,” Wren asked, after clearing his throat several times to catch the barkeep’s attention and succeeding at last. “Have you seen a young lady with golden hair and a blue gown? Travelling in the company of a young gentleman? Or possibly unattended?”
Nothing moved in the barkeep’s face as he gestured with his rag towards a low doorway in the back.
Wren thanked him and put a shilling on the counter for his trouble as he went.
The private dining room of the Black Whale looked only slightly less greasy than the public room. The armchairs clustered around the soot-streaked hearth bore heavy stains on their antimacassars. Yet on the edge of one seat perched a young lady in cornflower-blue poplin with a veiled bonnet covering her face.
Wren withheld a triumphant smile. The situation required delicacy. As such, he approached at a sedate pace.
