Yet when he sat before Wren, and Wren’s gaze seemed to strip him down to his very bones, he found unspoken words rising up from deep within him and spilling over his lips as if desperate to be heard.
And as he beheld what Wren had wrought, it seemed those unspoken words had transformed into something beyond his imagination.
A figure sat on a mossy outcropping of rock beside a sparkling stream. It wore the tunic and hose Shrike recognized as his own, but their folds clung to flesh in a way that laid broad shoulders and lithe waist bare beneath the viewer’s gaze despite the layers of wool. The waterfall and the figure’s dark hair descended in the same straight lines, the latter framing a face slightly downcast, which rendered the sharp edges of the cheekbones in shadow and softened the sloe-eyes through sweeping lashes as they gazed at Molle, who curled asleep against the figure’s boots. This sight seemed to provoke the enigmatic smile on the figure’s full lips.
Throughout the centuries, Shrike had glimpsed his own reflection in still water and polished silver, but had never given his appearance much thought beyond his recognition of himself. To realize someone thought him handsome was astounding. To have Wren in particular think him handsome was wonderful. And to see himself through Wren’s eyes, in the sketch Wren thrust upon him, was to see an aspect of himself he’d never before considered.
For the first time in all his centuries, he saw himself not as a hunter or a warrior or a killer…
But as a lover.
The beauty of the sketch, which even Shrike couldn’t deny, he attributed to the skill of Wren’s hand rather than his own appearance. And yet the portrait had an aura of authenticity. It seemed Wren had seen through Shrike to depths he hadn’t realized he’d possessed. In wonder of the creator as well as the creation, Shrike looked up to meet the very eyes that had pierced him to his heart.
To his astonishment, Shrike found they held not the gleam of victory. Indeed, the concerned cant of Wren’s brows suggested something had unsettled him, and his gaze flitted over Shrike’s face with a look akin to fear.
“My apologies for my draughtsmanship,” Wren said before Shrike could wonder aloud at what had disturbed him. “I practice as best I can in stolen moments from my work, but…”
Shrike realized his stunned silence had been mistaken for disapproval. He reached out his hand to touch Wren’s cheek as he trailed off. His thumb traced across the freckles scattered over his lower lip. He bent to kiss him, Wren’s lips parting beneath him as they met. A long minute passed before they broke away.
“You’ve done me better than I deserve,” Shrike murmured against Wren’s mouth.
Wren said nothing, but the way he threw his arms around Shrike’s shoulders to drag him down into another embrace told Shrike he’d been understood.
~
Chapter Twelve
Staple Inn
London, England
December 20th, 1844
“Eager for Christmas, eh?” Mr Grigsby chuckled.
Wren, who’d been staring out the office window at the white fog fading into the black of night for almost three-quarters of an hour, flinched in surprise. “Pardon, sir?”
“Less than four days away,” Mr Grigsby continued as if Wren had made a sensible reply.
Wren agreed that Christmas Eve was, in fact, three days out. This seemed to satisfy Mr Grigsby, who went back to his work with a smile after humming a few bars ofGod Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.
Wren returned to the window. The sun had set upon the shortest day of the year. Somewhere beyond London’s blanket of fog lay the fae realms, where even now the Queen of the Court of the Silver Wheel made preparations for her twin champions to duel to the death. Wren had arranged to meet Shrike in Hyde Park at eleven. At midnight, the solstice duel would commence. Several excruciating hours lay ahead between now and then.
At half-past seven, Mr Grigsby rose from his desk and invited Wren to dine with him. Wren, his stomach in knots, declined. He still had his luncheon of bread and cheese tied up in a handkerchief in his desk. A nagging voice in the back of his mind told him he ought to eat, that the night’s trials wouldn’t go well on an empty stomach, but the first bite of bread had turned to ash on his tongue.
Ash tinged with blood.
Shrike was a warrior, Wren reminded himself, in skill if not in trade. And Wren had inscribed the pentangle of Gawain on him.
Still, the worry gnawed at his guts like a hound tearing through a rabbit.
Eight and nine o’clock chimed and went. At half-past the hour, Mr Grigsby returned from dinner and paused in the office just long enough to bid Wren a cheerful good-night before going up to bed.
Wren tried to occupy himself with theTimesbut fell to drawing in the margins. Sketches of fairies danced down the page on moth-wings. Daggers and arrows chased after them. The mantle-clock struck quarter-to-eleven.
Something thudded against the door.
Wren bolted upright from his hunch over his desk.
