“Oh.” Wren supposed he ought to have guessed as much. An uncomfortable suspicion likewise grew in his mind, that Shrike might have first-hand knowledge of why and how the huldra’s charms proved so appealing to more adventurous fae. Wren shoved the thought to the back of his mind for the moment; it wasn’t as though it were any of his business, and besides, they had more pressing matters to hand. “Whereas a mortal may not hope to survive the draining.”
“Aye. Which bodes ill for the fate of your Felix.”
“He’s not my Felix,” Wren hurried to say. “He’s his own Felix. Or Miss Flora’s Felix, I suppose. And Tolhurst’s, and perhaps Mr Grigsby’s as well.”
Shrike raised an eyebrow. “And thus your master charges you with securing his Felix’s return?”
“Yes,” Wren replied with hesitation. “That is to say, he very much wishes for Felix’s safe return, but he has no idea I might know where Felix has gone. He’s only sent me out to look for him.”
“And you wish for his safe return as well?” Shrike asked.
Wren levelled a considering look at Shrike. He’d spoken not in the tone of one attempting to impart moral lessons through the Socratic method, but in the tone of one who wanted to understand what the shape of such morality might look like. It did not unnerve Wren as much as he supposed it ought.
“It would serve Felix right, and solve a number of other smaller problems besides, if he got himself drained to death by faeries,” Wren admitted at last.
“Yet you come to me in search of him.”
The “why” went unspoken. Wren answered it anyway. “Because his absence distresses his uncle and Mr Grigsby. And more importantly, it spells Miss Flora’s ruin.”
Shrike cocked his head to one side in the manner of a puzzled songbird.
“Felix is her betrothed,” Wren explained.
“She is fond of him?” Shrike asked.
“Whether she is fond of him or not, a missingfiancéwould make life rather difficult for her. A broken engagement would be bad enough, but if he is missing, she must either wait for his return or risk his unexpected arrival interrupting her marriage to another man. As it is unlikely any man will want to risk the awkwardness of a possiblefiancéreturning to claim what was promised to him, she will be condemned to wait—and likely die an unhappy spinster.”
“Unless we retrieve him from the huldra,” Shrike concluded.
“Yes,” said Wren, giving in to his conscience with great reluctance. “Could you track him the way you found me? Or the Restive Quills? Acorns and knuckle-bones?”
“I could,” said Shrike. “But if you saw him in the company of huldra, then it may be quicker to go to them at once.”
“You know where they are?” Wren asked, careful to keep any note of suspicion from his tone. Judging by Shrike’s expression, he half-succeeded.
“I know the lands from whence they hail,” Shrike admitted. “And from there, we may trace their path.”
“Oh,” said Wren.
A wry smile tugged at the corner of Shrike’s lips. “Shall we?”
~
Chapter Sixteen
Upon leaping through the fairy ring, Wren found himself in a valley of snow-drifts limned in dark pines beneath a star-studded night sky. The moonlight sparkled across the snow in a fashion which might have appealed to Wren’s Romantic sense of natural beauty if he hadn’t instantly sunk up to his knees in it.
Shrike stared down at him in bewilderment from an even greater height than ever before—for he had not sunk into the snow an inch. Seeing Wren’s predicament, however, he at once swept his cloak off his shoulders and settled it around Wren’s. It did nothing to lift Wren out of the snow, but its fur-lined depths nevertheless proved a welcome shield against the biting wind.
Wren glanced ‘round, shivering beneath Shrike’s cloak, his breath escaping in plumes of steam as if he were a racing locomotive. “The huldra live out here?”
“No,” Shrike answered him, still appearing puzzled by Wren’s sunken position. “In their brugh.”
Before Wren could make further enquiries, Shrike reached down under Wren’s arms and plucked him up out of the snow as if he weighed no more than a quill. He set him down at once beside him atop the snow. Wren began slowly sinking again, much to Shrike’s evident confusion.
“And where is their brugh?” Wren asked with what dregs remained of his dignity.
Shrike finally tore his gaze away from Wren to consider the surrounding terrain. Silence settled around them like snowfall, broken by howling wind. Just as Wren’s patience reached its breaking point, Shrike put one forefinger to his lips and with the other pointed to a pale grey spot upon the white field.
