So it seemed only fitting to seize the front of Shrike’s tunic and pull him down for a kiss to take his breath away in turn.
~
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Vernal Equinox fell on a Friday, which made matters not quite as convenient as Wren might have hoped.
“A holiday?” Mr Grigsby echoed when Wren finally screwed up the courage to ask him about it on Thursday morning.
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, sir,” said Wren.
“No trouble at all! You’ve done so much for us all winter long, Lofthouse—it’s high time you had a spring holiday.”
Privately, Wren very much agreed. Aloud, he demurred.
“Nonsense,” Mr Grigsby said over him. “A holiday you deserve, and a holiday you shall have. When we part tonight, don’t let me see you again before Monday morning.”
In the face of that, Wren could do little more than acquiesce.
That evening, Achilles watched over him as he met Shrike in Hyde Park and continued on at arm’s length to the mushroom ring. They returned to Blackthorn, where, despite the sturdy warmth of Shrike’s embrace, Wren found himself hardly able to sleep. His nerves remained afire with eager anticipation. Like a child counting the minutes until Christmas morning, though no Christmas he could recall from his own childhood had ever promised so much delight as any day with Shrike.
Dawn arrived. Wren and Shrike broke their fast in the customary fashion. Then Wren took up his Green Man mask. It appeared beautiful as ever, Shrike’s craftsmanship evident in the burnished point of each leaf and the curl of every vine.
“It seems a shame,” Wren said as Shrike shrugged on his cloak. “To toss it aside after wearing it but the once.”
Shrike appeared bemused. “If you like it so well, I’ll make you another.”
“You needn’t,” Wren hastened to say. “Unless, of course, you wish to.”
“Your wish is mine,” Shrike replied with his small, bashful, handsome smile.
Wren couldn’t help but return it. He raised his mask to his face as much to hide his glowing cheeks as to test its fit.
The mask fit his face as if tendrils of true ivy had grown over his bones. Inside, it felt soft and smooth and warm against his skin. Crafted by hands that by know knew his features as well as their own. Peering out through its eyes limned his vision in verdant growth, all the world framed in by bending branches. He turned this gaze on Shrike and found it suited him well.
Shrike, meanwhile, had donned his antlered oaken mask. While it hid certain handsome features, the warmth of Shrike’s dark eyes shone through the shadows cast by the leather as he smiled.
The path through the woods from Blackthorn Briar to the gathering place of Ostara celebrants echoed with trills of birdsong. The merry whistles increased the further along Wren and Shrike went down the winding way. Wren’s anticipation heightened with every step.
Then all at once the forest fell away to reveal a glistening glade.
Its span rivalled the breadth of the tourney field of the Court of the Silver Wheel. A massive beech tree, its trunk gnarled and burled and its branches stout and curving in all directions, stood proud in the midst of the host of fae already gathered. It would take a score of fae joining hands to encircle its roots. Indeed, some seemed determined to try, as they clustered ‘round it. Others flocked together in smaller congregations throughout the meadow, dancing, drinking, laughing, and performing arcane rites Wren felt all too eager to examine more closely.
“Where is Nell?” Wren asked, his arm thoroughly entangled with Shrike’s as they strode out into the meadow. “Do you think she’s arrived?”
Shrike tilted his head toward a particular corner of the meadow. Wren squinted. There, amidst a picnic of pomegranates and wine strewn over mossy stones, a half-dozen nymphs in pale gauzy chitons lounged tittering around a singular dark-haired feathery figure in tunic and hose and bat-winged mask. Nell, Wren concluded, had not only arrived but already staked her claim on the hearts of a bouquet of beauty which even Wren’s own biased eye couldn’t fail to appreciate.
“Ah,” said Wren.
“Aye,” replied Shrike.
Wren’s gaze flitted over the masked crowd in search of other examples of Shrike’s handiwork. He thought it best to leave Nell to her amusements. It seemed Shrike thought likewise, as he strode through the crowd on a meandering course which allowed Wren to soak up all the bizarre sights his feverish dreams could never have imagined.
A faun frolicked past on prancing hooves. The eyes and mouth of their wood-carved mask were all perfectly round, its surface mottled like tree-bark, and they played a jaunty melody on a hornpipe as they went. A pair of fae danced to his tune; they wore helms of knights so rusted full of holes they appeared as lacework, one in green-tarnished copper, the other in black-tarnished silver. Following their path led Wren’s eye to a circle of fae seated on the ground before a pile of eggs—speckled quail, robin blue, pale green duck.
Among these fae Wren recognized a mask of Shrike’s make in the patchwork leather mask with button eyes. Its wearer plucked an egg from the pile and pierced its shell with a pin before blowing out the innards into shallow dark-glazed bowls. They bent to examine the resulting patterns; what conclusions they drew from them, Wren couldn’t fathom.
The other gathered fae, who had evidently already enacted this very ritual, carved and painted their hollowed eggs and strung them through with strands of hair plucked from their own heads. The mask of one had clockwork features which whirred and spun together to form a brass imitation of a fae smile that moved as the wearer spoke. Another wore a cracked doll’s face which appeared porcelain at first, but at second glance Wren thought might be egg-shell. The third wore a goat’s skull bleached white with the sun save for the blackened spatter of dried blood across its ivory brow.
