Some selfish impulse within Wren bade him ignore Felix’s plight and dance on. But as Shrike’s steps slowed, Wren let them come to a halt, and with considerable effort he forced himself to withdraw from Shrike and let him remain out of reach as they went to meet Felix.
Felix, in the midst of entertaining the huldra who straddled his hips, seemed not to notice their approach.
Wren cleared his throat. “Mr Knoll.”
Felix neither opened his eyes nor disentangled his lips from the huldra.
“Mr Knoll,” Wren repeated a little louder.
Felix moaned into the huldra’s mouth and put his fingers around her wrist to slide her hand beneath the fall-front of his trousers.
“Felix,” Wren barked.
The huldra glanced up sharp, breaking off her kiss to do so. Felix groaned and tried to pull her down again, but she held him off with one palm planted on his all-too-visible sternum..
“Your friend wants you,” she said, her indefinable accent lending a husky timbre to her words.
Felix followed her line of sight to Wren. His dreamy smile dropped into a sneer. “Lofthouse. What’re you doing here?”
“I could ask the same of you,” Wren replied before he could stop himself. As Felix opened his mouth to retort, he quickly added, “Neither of us should be here. We’re leaving. Now.”
The huldra obligingly withdrew from her prey.
Felix, however, gave a half-shouldered shrug. His clavicle appeared as if it would burst through his skin like an iron bar through parchment. “Go, then. I’ll not stop you.”
“You’re coming with us,” said Wren.
Felix rolled his eyes. It seemed as if it cost him a great deal of effort to summon the strength to do so. “Make me.”
Wren, who had crossed realms to retrieve the delinquent spendthrift, found himself bereft of patience. As such, he did what he had oft wanted to do in the years since Felix had come under Mr Grigsby’s guardianship. His hand shot out and seized Felix by his mangled shirt-collar.
To Wren’s astonishment, Felix weighed on his arm as insubstantial as a wicker poppet. He’d meant to drag him upright, yes—but he’d never expected to succeed in the attempt, having assumed Felix would prove both a literal and figurative anchor to drag him down. Yet a swift clench sufficed to bring them nose-to-nose. The fetid wine-soaked breath that poured from Felix’s mouth soon gave Wren cause to regret this.
Felix, meanwhile, looked no less astonished than Wren. Yet he mounted no resistance. His head lolled against his own shoulder as his blue eyes flew wide.
“Must you take him?” one of the huldra asked, her voice languid and low in a way Wren suspected had more effect on other gentlemen.
“He makes a fine feast for us,” the other huldra added, taking Felix by the wrist. “But we fear he may prove too much for mortal maidens’ appetites.”
Wren did not divulge how sincerely he shared their satirical concerns. Nor how much he thought Felix deserved such a fate. He wondered if perhaps this was why they’d chosen Felix in particular; perhaps something in the way Felix had approached them at the solstice duel had given offence, and this was how they chose to exact their vengeance, not only on their own behalf but on behalf of all the fairer sex.
“Regardless,” Shrike rumbled overhead as Wren struggled to say, convincingly, that he truly wanted Felix returned to the mortal realm. “He is required elsewhere.”
Both huldra gave Shrike an appraising look, then exchanged a speaking glance between them.
Whispers and murmurs rose up on all sides. Wren realized the music had faded off into silence. He glanced ‘round and saw that those who’d danced and feasted moments before had halted all their merriment to stare back at him and Shrike. Satyrs, fauns, incubi, succubi, and huldra alike drifted towards them.
Then the sea of fae-folk parted, and through their midst came the Mistress of Revels. Seated on her throne, she’d seemed a formidable presence. Now, striding towards them, Wren realized she stood eye-to-eye with Shrike—taller, if one included her antlers—and her sleeveless gown displayed sinewy strength that put Wren’s own arms to shame. She halted a single stride away from Shrike and Wren.
“Mistress,” said Shrike. He gestured to Felix slumped on Wren’s shoulder. “By your leave, we would bring this boy back with us to the mortal realm.”
Her mottled green eyes flicked from Shrike to Wren and back again. “With what shall you ransom him, Oak King?”
“I am a leather-worker,” said Shrike. “A crafter of no small skill. Armour, tack, scabbards, belts, satchels, quivers—name it, and it shall be yours, by my hand.”
The Mistress of Revels tilted her head at him. “While your craft is not without its charms, we find your company more charming still. Perhaps, since you deprive us of a guest, you would yourselves return again?”
Shrike glanced to Wren. Wren, with Felix’s dead weight heavy on his shoulder, gave the barest hint of a nod in reply.
