Until the door swung open to reveal not the settee nor the wardrobe nor the little tables nor the curtains he remembered, no writing desk nor sewing kit, nor a single stick of furniture or scrap of lace whatsoever, but a cold empty chamber with just a film of dust to soften its echoes.
Wren’s heart shot into his throat.In the same instant, he chastised himself for not expecting exactly what he’d found or failed to find.Of course the man who had sold off his dead wife’s favourite books would also empty her boudoir.He clawed his way back from the boundaries of despair by reminding himself that Shrike’s osteomancy had already confirmed the tokens he sought were here.Somewhere.The bones might prove confounding more oft than not, but Wren had never yet seen them proved wrong.And the pendulum, whilst limited in its scope and not allowing one to plan one’s journey beyond a few strides ahead, had never failed to find its mark.He strode forth now, across the threshold, to find what he might.
Turning to see what the pendulum made of this obstacle of absence, Wren found Shrike already running his fingertips over the wainscoting.Some of the panels had warped over the decades.A particular convex bend gave Shrike’s fingertips pause.No sooner had Wren noticed it than Shrike delicately prodded it.
And the wainscoting opened like a particularly obedient cupboard.
A secret crevasse.His mother had hidden her treasures away, much as Wren had stashed his manuscripts beneath the loose floorboard in his garret.Like mother, like son, he supposed.
Shrike brought his will-o’-th’-wisp down to the mouth of the cavern in the wall.There he halted and turned to Wren.
It was not an imposing hollow by any means.Scarcely a foot in height and half as much in breadth.And its depth, Wren reasoned, could not run any further than that of the wall itself, lest it impose upon the room beyond.Yet he found his hand hesitating before reaching within.
“No,” Wren muttered grimly, “‘tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church-door, but ‘tis enough, ‘twill serve.”’
Shrike served him a puzzled glance.
“Shakespeare,” Wren explained.
Shrike accepted this with a nod.He had heard the name oft enough, Wren supposed, with his mortal partner spouting it in Blackthorn Briar as lines occurred to him.Shrike held more patience for this behaviour than Wren felt he deserved, reacting with curiosity rather than annoyance to the impromptu quotations.They’d read some of it together by the cottage hearth on long wintry nights, but of course hadn’t yet finished it, much less re-read it oft enough for Wren to suppose Shrike had memorized all the same passages.And even then, far be it from Wren to presume that what lines struck mortal sensibilities would hold the same appeal for one of the fae, lacking the context of the intervening centuries between Elizabeth and Victoria’s reign; which plays the theatre-going public had deemed worthy of exaltation and which they had condemned to apocrypha.For all Wren knew, at the end of their joint perusal, Shrike might countA Winter’s Taleamongst his favourites.
At present, however, his mother’s secret cupboard loomed before him, illuminated by the faint blue glow of his beloved’s fae flame.
Dust lined it like velvet.A cobweb covered the far corner, with the remains of desiccated spider curled in upon itself who knew how many decades ago.Just before it lay a paper packet folded up to a size slightly smaller than his own palm.
Wren reached for it with trembling fingers.It did not crumble to dust at his touch, much to his relief.He withdrew it and held it close to his face.The folds tucked in on themselves over and over, layer upon layer, in a knot that would do any sailor proud.
“It’s a puzzle-purse,” Wren heard himself whisper, though Shrike hadn’t asked.
A sensible burglar would tuck the packet into his pocket and flee into the night.Wren, however, watched as if from a distance as his thumbs tucked into the folds and ever-so-gently began to pry the purse open.
It was not swift work by any means.More than once he found his fingertips tearing rather than unfolding and had to retrace his steps to find the true path to undoing what his mother’s hands had wrought.Then, at last, it opened in his palms.
A half-dozen milk teeth, appearing far too small, lay encircled in the nest formed by a lock of chestnut hair tied in a lavender ribbon.
The sight struck him like an arrow through a swan’s throat.It rendered him not merely speechless but thoughtless for longer than he could possibly fathom.Only the soft hooting of an owl from out-of-doors returned him to his senses.No magic more powerful than sentiment, indeed,he reflected, perhaps more bitterly than he ought.
“We’ve got what we came for now,” Wren muttered, as much to himself as to Shrike.“Now we just have to get out.”
Only then did he glance at Shrike again, who must have felt quite forgotten and had every right to feel at the very least annoyed with his partner in crime.
Instead, Wren found Shrike gazing down at him with a tenderness that was frankly too much to bear at present.
Wren swiftly glanced away and crept out of the boudoir without another word.
Shrike followed close behind; Wren knew this not from the sound of any footsteps or creaking floorboards but from the faint blue glow of the will-o’-th’-wisp over his shoulders, illuminating the path ahead.Somehow, he made it through the corridor.Down the stair.Into the hall.And then he stood in the library.
The window remained open.A faint breeze stirred the curtains.All that remained was to slip out into the night and from thence escape home to the fae realms.
Yet something in his heart pinned him where he stood.
He carried scraps of himself in his satchel now… but what of his mother?The puzzle-purse, yes, folded by her own hands—and if he dwelt on that for more than an instant he knew not what he would do—but—was there nothing else he might find of her?Even a fragment… His gaze slid to the shadowed hint of bookshelves all around him.He could never forgive his father for selling off the Audubons.
And yet, he realised with a thud in his skull not unlike a book snapping shut, the Audubons had not been his mother’s sole tomes.
A fiery surge of determination scoured the melancholy from his mind.If there was the merest pale shadow of his mother left in the library, then by whatever fates had made him king, he would find it out.He went to the shelves and began thumbing over the spines with more desperation than skill.
“What are you looking for?”Shrike enquired, his voice gentle even after one accounted for the soft speech required of night-work.
