She and Shrike both went to the work-bench—to clean the ducks, presumably, and ready them for the stew-pot. Shrike worked in his customary silence, which by no means prevented Nell from speaking on about all she’d seen in the wood on her hunt and speculating on what future hunts might hold.
Contrary to Shrike’s apparent concerns, Wren didn’t mind having her chatter fill the cottage. Both her arrival and the sound of her voice provided a welcome change to break up the monotony of his convalescence. Even if he had difficulty following the precise threads of her conversation after the laudanum dose Everilda gave him. His mind, as it so often did under the influence of that particular anodyne, wandered. He found himself wondering how long Nell had been in Blackthorn since his plunge beneath the ice. Long enough to converse with Everilda about what best to feed an invalid. Not the whole duration of his convalescence, surely, for she must have other things to tend to in her own life—though, Wren realised belatedly, he hadn’t the foggiest idea what those other things might be. He didn’t even know where she lived. What was her trade? What responsibilities must she be shirking to hunt for Blackthorn’s larder?
Regardless of his unspoken questions, she soon had her quarry plucked and cleaned and skewered on a spit over the hearth, with the drippings collecting in a pan. The crackle and hiss of roasting duck-flesh filled the cottage alongside the savoury scent of cooking fat.
Wren quite enjoyed Shrike’s cooking. And the myriad soups he’d consumed since his convalescence began had all been very good. But as the aroma of roast duck filled his lungs, he missed more than ever before the taste of solid food.
Everilda, meanwhile, plied him with her glass and brass tubes. Then she made him drink two more mugs of waterand more tincture of mould on top of that. She continued on listening to his stomach as he drank.
“You might,” she said at length, surprising him a great deal, “try a morsel of something solid, if you’re feeling up to it.”
Wren’s heart and stomach both leapt at the notion. He glanced to Shrike tending the duck over the fire and saw a reflection of his own joy in those dark eyes.
While Blackthorn Cottage possessed knives and spoons, Wren had never yet seen a table fork in Shrike’s grasp. He didn’t expect one now. In the months since he began dwelling in the fae realms he’d grown accustomed to tearing apart a roast with his bare hands in the medieval fashion.
And at this particular moment, with Wren’s own strength not quite up to the task, it was Shrike who peeled flesh from bone and held a morsel to Wren’s lips.
The buttery meat all-but-melted on his tongue. He hardly needed to chew it, but chew he did—more for the novelty of having something to chew after a week-and-a-half of soups and stews. It slipped down his throat and settled into his stomach.
Yet Shrike’s fingertips remained poised at his lips. For what reason it never occurred to Wren to question. He knew only the enticing aroma of hearty fare and the gentle slide of Shrike’s thumb-pad across his lower lip. His tongue darted out before his mind could catch up to his instincts.
Only after he’d licked the grease from Shrike’s fingers did it occur to him to feel modest.
He flicked his gaze over Shrike’s shoulder to determine who had seen him do something so wanton and bizarre. Neither Nell nor Everilda, however, seemed to take any notice of him or Shrike. Indeed, they appeared entirely focused on each other. Nell sat close by Everilda—so close their knees touched—and bent her head for low conversation, her lips never ceasing to move, more for speech and less for eating. Everilda remaineddemure with downcast eyes but seemed by no means displeased with the attention, judging by the unaccountable smile Wren had never beheld before tugging at the corner of her mouth.
“Another?” Shrike murmured.
Wren, satisfied that Nell and Everilda cared not what he and Shrike got up to, nodded.
Afterward, with supper polished off and Wren’s stomach feeling far more satisfied than it had in some time, Nell arose and stretched. Wren noted she did so in a way which flexed the muscles of her arms—well-honed from the drawing weight of her bowstring.
“I’ll be in the watch-tower if you need me,” she said, and while she looked at Shrike as she spoke, Wren nevertheless had the distinct impression she intended her remark for Everilda’s ears. With that, she donned her cloak and left the cottage.
Wren waited a few moments after the door had shut before he asked Shrike, “What does Nell do for a living?”
Shrike shrugged. “She does as she pleases.”
Wren was on the point of asking what the deuce that meant when the cottage door swung inward again and Nell herself stood on the threshold once more.
“Oi, Butcher,” she said, as easily as if she hadn’t just bid her good-byes not five minutes past. “You’ve two more guests on the way.”
Shrike arose with furrowed brow. “Who?”
“Dunno. Just espied a pair comin’ up the thorned path. They’re a ways off yet. Want I should greet ‘em for you?” she asked, raising her hand to the bow slung over her shoulders.
“No,” Shrike said as quick as Wren thought it. “I’ll go and see what they want.”
~
Shrike followed Nell out into the snow with no small amount of misgivings. He kept his hand on the pommel of his misericord beneath his cloak. Though none who intended harm could pass through the wall of thorns, he still felt wary whilst Wren lay frail and weak within the cottage.
“There they are,” Nell muttered, jerking her chin towards two shadows on the path ahead.
One stood hardly as tall as Wren. The other stood as tall as Shrike himself and, unless Shrike’s keen eye had failed him, had horns and a tail both.
Shrike stepped forward, his lips already parting to demand the strangers announce themselves. But before he could speak—
“Hail and well met, my lord!”
