The current of the crowd ebbed before Shrike as he and Wren strode on through the revelry. The variety of masks did not abate—one of feathered wings which seemed about to flutter off the wearer’s face; another of rose-vines with the mouth ringed in thorns; a veil of chain rings woven so fine as to flow like folds of silk over the wearer’s cheeks; a mask of glass blown so thin it appeared as little more than a sheen of dew on the wearer’s skin. Rising above the tumult of gaiety rode a pale woman on a grey horse. Wren recognized Lady Aethelthryth, though the white hart hide of her lacework mask had crusted over crimson since he’d seen it last.
Wren’s heart leapt to recognize another of Shrike’s make in the beaked plague doctor’s mask with the bottle-end green eyes. He had expected to find it on an imposing figure, one of Shrike’s own height or more, something to loom over all like the spectre of Poe’s Red Death. To his astonishment, the wearer appeared no taller than himself, though the rest of their costume satisfied Wren’s desire for the dramatic. A voluminous black hooded robe obscured any hint of their shape, like shadow over shadow, and from the sleeves falling like sheets of rain over their hands, only a slender silver-capped walking stick protruded. Despite this encumbrance, the plague doctor wove their way through the crowd with sprightly animation and twirled their arms in apparent delight at the sight of Shrike and Wren going past.
The plague doctor was not alone in taking notice. While Wren gawked at his fellow revellers, many more eyes gazed back at him. He could not quite deny his initial spark of alarm at attracting attention—as he strode arm-in-arm with Shrike through the wide open meadow with neither tree nor shrub to shelter them from judgment—but as before, in the Wild Hunt and the Moon Market and the Court of Hidden Folk, the fae gazed on him not with censure or derision. Some of their glances appeared admiring. A few Wren thought held the gleam of jealousy. Most, by far, fixed him with eager and open curiosity. A certain delight in discovery ran throughout the fae realms like a golden thread winding through a tapestry. And on this particular occasion, they delighted in discovering the Oak King arm-in-arm with his mortal paramour wearing beautiful masks crafted by his own clever hands.
As Shrike and Wren’s amiable ambling drew them nearer to the sacred tree, Wren caught sight of the leather patchwork button-eyed mask again. Its wearer carried strings of blown eggs decorated in intricate patterns, and as Wren watched, tied them on to the slender tips of the lowest-hanging twigs. Wren paused to observe their work and by so doing drew Shrike’s attention to it.
“And when shall we make our own votive offering?” Wren asked.
“After the dance,” Shrike replied. “If you’ll join me in it.”
Wren turned to him with brow raised. “Are you asking, my lord?”
Shrike wore the small, shy, handsome smile that Wren loved so well. “An’ it so please you.”
Wren grinned.
They did not have long to wait. Above the general murmur of the crowd the strains of the hornpipe grew louder, and a jaunty fiddle and chiming tambourine soon rose to join its song. Folk turned away from idle conversation towards the tree looming over all.
Shrike held out his hand to Wren.
And, as he had wished to do so many times over in Hyde Park, Wren accepted his handclasp.
The warm rough palm laid against his own as if, like pages from a book, they were meant to nestle together for centuries, with their interlaced fingers as binding. Wren had lost count of how oft he touched Shrike whilst in the fae realms. Every instance gave him the same thrill settling into comfort, like a wave crashing over the shore followed by the gentle lapping of the tide. How happily Wren could sink beneath that sea and sleep in bliss.
But the masked dance was no Vienna waltz.
As Wren took Shrike’s hand, so too did other revellers, hand-over-hand-over-hand until a loose chain of fae began to encircle the massive, gnarled cluster of roots at the base of the mighty tree. Despite the wild and unconventional appearance of the throng, Wren recognized the form as the beginnings of a country dance. He expected Nell and her nymphs to appear beside Shrike and himself to complete the ring. But they appeared on the far side of the circle, and other fae seemed reluctant to approach Shrike, bound by the same wary awe as the crowds of the Moon Market. At length, just when Wren thought the chain must break, two bold souls stepped forward. The one who grasped Wren’s free hand wore a fox-faced mask carved of wood, and while it disguised her visage, her pastoral garb, cloven hooves, and tufted tail marked her out as one of the huldra. A creature with a frame as small as a child’s took Shrike’s hand on the opposing side, yet Wren noted the grey beard trailing out from beneath their golden sun mask with sparkling sapphirecloisonnésurrounding the eyes.
No sooner had all hands clasped than the dance began. The steps proved simple enough; a winding spiral grapevine that sent Wren stepping sideways across the tree-roots, his boot-heels fitting into the hollows between them. Wren had attended a few country assemblies in his youth—however unwillingly—yet he felt far more at ease amidst the fae, where his blood seemed to sing in his veins at the bidding of the fiddle and flute and tambourine. Shrike and the huldra released him to spin, a move he followed a half-second behind, but no matter, as he reunited with them all with backs to the tree, and on and on in the ever-winding chain of masks, faster and faster, whirling with the rising shriek of the fiddle until, with one final desperate trill, the song ceased, and the dancers with it.
Wren turned to find Shrike removing his own mask and hastened to follow suit.
A pang of regret struck Wren’s heart as he tied the leather cord of his mask ‘round the branch. His recollection of Shrike’s promise to craft him another soon soothed it away—less so for the mask itself and more for the thought of wearing his beloved’s handiwork on his unworthy frame.
Thus freed of his burden, Wren stepped back from the tree and glanced over his fellow Bacchantes in search of Shrike. He did not find him at first sight, though he did find his handiwork in evidence all throughout the throng. There was the many-eyed fae with their eyeless mask strung up amidst twigs which greatly resembled their own limbs. There were Nell and her accompanying nymphs with their masks strung together in a garland of daisies—Nell’s at the centre—to drape across the barren branches. There was Lady Aethelthryth astride her grey steed reaching up to tie the delicate ribbons of her crimson-encrusted leather lacework to a far higher perch than anyone else could hope to attain.
And nearer to hand stood the plague doctor in their voluminous black robes and the long-beaked mask with bottle-green glass eyes.
The plague doctor threw back their hood to reveal shoulder-length silver hair tied in a loose queue at the nape of the neck. They shrugged off their black robe to uncover satin breeches, silk stockings, an embroidered waistcoat with at least a hundred minuscule buttons running down its front, and a frock coat in the same style with voluminous skirts, all in a particular shade of green like sunlight seen through the under-sides of leaves in summer. Then they took their leather mask by the beak and lifted it from their head. Beneath it lay thousands of silvery silken threads crossed over each other into a tightly-woven mask.
With a jolt, Wren recognized the spiderweb fae from the Wild Hunt.
Oblivious to Wren’s gawking, the spiderweb fae hung his leather-beaked mask on the end of a barren branch and folded his black robe over the limb behind it, as if to dress the branch up as a writhing shadow serpent with glass eyes of glittering green. He clutched his cane in slender kid-gloved hands—a cane which Wren belatedly realized was not a cane at all, but the scabbard of a rapier. This he buckled on to a slender belt strung across his narrow chest to hang down at his waist so his palm might naturally come to rest on the pommel.
And, just as naturally, Shrike’s palm came to rest on the small of Wren’s back.
Wren smiled despite his distraction. He turned to regard the welcome sight of Shrike’s dark eyes gazing down on him. Such a gaze pulled Wren in as the moon pulled the tides and seemed to bid him lift his own face up to meet Shrike’s in a kiss. A call which sorely tempted Wren, and even in the midst of a crowd, here in the fae realms he felt almost free enough to respond to it.
Almost.
“Hail and well met, Butcher! Lofthouse!”
Both Shrike and Wren whirled towards the now-familiar call. Emerging from the current of the crowd, like Venus rising from the foam, came Nell, flanked by a pair of attending nymphs. She draped one arm around the first nymph’s shoulders and nestled the other around the second nymph’s waist. With her bat-winged mask relinquished to the tree Wren could see she bore a most satisfied grin, and the nymphs for their part appeared equally content to share her company.
“Nell,” Shrike replied, sounding not in the least surprised to find her thus.
Nell raised her brow at the nymph to her left. The nymph lifted her free arm, which held a wine-bottle. A pale green liquid sloshed within.
