“What exactly happened,” Wren said slowly, “and when, and where?”
“At our last meeting,” Humphreys answered. “In the coffeehouse at Cockspur Street. We were all sitting in our corner of the back room reading the minutes when this Gothic brute stormed in and demanded to know if he’d found the gathering place of the Restive Quills. Vincent informed him he had and asked how he knew where to find us, and he claimed that the bones had told him. Which was of course nonsense, and he proved it in the next moment by looming over us all and growling out: ‘Lofthouse sends his regards.’”
Wren felt his dawning horror at war with a fervent wish to have seen the looks on all the Restive Quills’ faces as Butcher passed on his message.
“So Vincent demanded his name,” Humphreys continued, “and you’d have thought he’d asked for the man’s own firstborn son, for how he smouldered at the question! But then he rumbled, ‘Butcher,’ and turned on his heel and stalked out. Well?” Humphreys concluded with evident irritation. “Does this account of your prank satisfy you? Or did your Butcher give you a better one?”
“Not my prank,” said Wren, still digesting the tale. “And not my Butcher, either.”
Humphreys scoffed. “As you like it. But know this—the Restive Quills will not forget this offence. All that follows, sir, you will have brought down on your own head!”
Wren, who knew full well that what followed would likely be little more than a satirical sketch in the margins of whatever literature the Quills produced in the coming year, resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
Humphreys took a pinch of snuff without offering any to him—not that Wren wanted it, but he knew from experience Humphreys delighted in the slight—and bid him an extraordinarily sarcastic good day as he whirled away from him. The three consecutive sneezes that resounded through the foyer after Wren had closed the door on him somewhat marred the impressive nature of his exit.
Mr Grigsby glanced up from his newspaper as Wren passed him on his way back to his own desk. “Glad tidings, I hope?”
The question jerked Wren out of bizarre musings, and it took him a moment to respond. “Interesting tidings.”
Mr Grigsby seemed pleased by this and returned to his newspaper with no further questions, much to Wren’s relief.
Wren found no relief from his own mind, which continued apace in its theorizing on the matter of Butcher.
Very little was accomplished in the way of clerking that afternoon and on into the evening. The next day brought no relief from the ever-twisting coils of the mystery. Wren spent the day scratching surreptitious notes on scraps of paper whenever Mr Grigsby wasn’t watching—which was most of the time, to be perfectly honest. The sun rose and set somewhere beyond the fog over London. Mr Grigsby invited Wren to dinner. Wren declined. Mr Grigsby departed. Wren hunched over his desk and resumed his scribbling by candlelight.
The downstairs bell rang.
Wren’s head shot up. His fevered brain flitted through the possibilities—another visit from the Restive Quills demanding an explanation? Perhaps Felix had come again to beg, borrow, or steal an advance on his inheritance, hoping to find the servant more willing than the master. If so, Wren would prove him very much mistaken.
More likely, Wren supposed as he rose and stretched the stiffness from his bones, it was Mr Grigsby, who had left his ring of keys behind and required Wren to let him in so he might retrieve them.
Wren opened the door.
There before him, in all his medieval majesty, stood Butcher.
~
Chapter Four
Butcher loomed in the doorway. As Wren blinked up at him in astonishment, so Butcher stared down at Wren with something like merriment and satisfaction twinkling in his dark eyes.
“What are you doing here?” Wren demanded.
“I’ve fulfilled the first object of your quest,” Butcher replied in a rumbling voice that thrummed through Wren’s own breastbone. “I’ve given your regards to the Restive Quills.”
“So I heard,” said Wren. “How did you find them?”
“The bones told me.”
Just as Humphreys had said. How consistent of them. Almost as if they read it off the same script. Wren withheld a sardonic smile. “And, pray tell, what bones are these? How do they speak to you? May I see them for myself?”
Butcher’s brow furrowed, yet his hand didn’t hesitate as it dropped beneath his cloak and withdrew a fist-sized leather pouch to proffer to Wren.
Wren took it warily. The leather felt warm in his palm. He pulled open the tie at the neck and peered down into the pouch’s depths.
Five knuckle-bones the size of dice gleamed white amidst the dark shadows.
“From a sheep,” said Butcher. “I cast them on the stones, and they showed me where I might find my quarry.”
