Lofthouse spent a moment in silent contemplation. He brought his fingertips to his mouth again, this time biting a cuticle before he caught himself and forced his hand back to his knee. Shrike’s gaze lingered on his mouth, marking how the freckles scattered across his lips like constellations across the night sky. How dearly Shrike wished to kiss those stars.
“I won’t deny this has been fascinating to hear,” Lofthouse said, drawing Shrike’s attention away from his desires. “But I still have no idea what part I might possibly play in it. Much less how I might render aid to your cause. Not that I don’t wish to help you,” he added quickly. “Truly, I do. But I’m at a loss as to what’s expected of me.”
“You’re a clerk,” said Shrike. “You have the gift of letters and an education in the mystic arts.”
“The former, certainly,” Lofthouse admitted. “The latter, however, remains to be seen.”
“Perhaps the mere thought of you will inspire me to triumph.”
That earned him a sharp glance.
Shrike smiled.
Lofthouse mirrored it in his own bashful way. “Tell me a little of the mystic arts, then. If I were some sort of warlock, how might I assist you?”
Shrike recalled all he knew of magic, which wasn’t much. “A sigil of protection. Or an enchanted weapon. Or a geas that compelled me to win.”
“I don’t know that I’ve ever compelled anyone to do anything,” said Lofthouse—which Shrike thought unlikely, given his unstudied natural charm. “And I’m certainly no weapon-smith. But let’s say I could make a sigil of protection. How would I go about it?”
“You’d draw out the shape of it. Carve it into wood or stone, engrave it on silver or gold, scribe it on parchment with ink—or spit, or blood, or seed. A steed could be branded with a sigil that allows it to gallop tirelessly for nights on end. Bird skulls carved with runes and filled in with blood and ash become arrow-heads that always find their mark. A warrior who paints herself with woad before a fight may become ferocious and wash that ferocity away with the blood she spills and return from the battlefield serene.”
“And what shape would a sigil of protection take?” Lofthouse pressed.
“Whatever shape you thought best suited to the magic you wished to do.”
“The art favours improvisation, then?”
“It favours the intent of the practitioner.”
The clerk considered the matter. Again his fingertips graced his mouth. “Spit, blood, and seed, you said, by which I must assume you mean…” A faint blush rose beneath his freckles.
A lazy smile wound its way up Shrike’s cheek. “Aye.”
Lofthouse cleared his throat. “Indeed. Well. That’s certainly something to consider. When is the next holy day on the fae calendar?”
“Samhain,” Shrike replied. “Halfway between the Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice. And a full moon.”
“Hallowe’en, you mean? All Hallow’s Eve? When the veil between worlds is thinnest?”
Shrike didn’t know about any of that, and said as much, but added he thought Samhain a suitably significant date for their intended ritual. “Shall I return for you then?”
“Yes—but not here. It wouldn’t do for you to be seen hanging about. Perhaps I might meet you in Hyde Park. Beneath the statue of Achilles.”
“The brawny fellow with sword and shield?” asked Shrike.
“And the fig-leaf.” Shy amusement flickered across Lofthouse’s star-speckled lips. “Yes, him. Would eight o’ clock be a convenient hour?”
Shrike found most any hour convenient and said so.
“Very well. As for getting you out of here tonight,” Lofthouse continued, hauling himself out of his chair, “I suppose there’s nothing for it but to creep downstairs together so I may lock you out, thought it may take a mad dash if Mr Grigsby should wake—unless,” Lofthouse broke off, shooting Shrike a suspicious glance. “How did you get in without our noticing?”
Shrike indulged in a self-satisfied smile and nodded toward the window.
Lofthouse cast his astonished look first at Shrike, then at the window, then back again. “And no one saw you?”
“The fog is very thick.”
Lofthouse gave the window another considering look. “I suppose, then, if you’ve no objection to going out the same way you came in…?”
