Shrike inclined his head in the barest nod.
The lady returned the gesture.
From his satchel, Shrike drew out the cut-filigree mask of white hart’s hide. He held it up toward her. Her silvery hair spilled over her shoulders as she bent to receive it with hands whose fingertips hardly peeked out from beneath the lily-throated sleeves of her gown.
Then she arose. Without any other sign from her that Wren could perceive, her steed resumed its slow and steady pace. She departed as silently as she had arrived, continuing on in the same direction as she had begun to pass through all the market and vanish into the mist with as much substance as a ghost.
Gradually the crowd stirred in her wake until the raucous bustle she had interrupted returned. Only Wren and Shrike remained still and silent together.
“Who was that?” Wren whispered when the pale lady had disappeared from view.
“Lady Aethelthryth,” Shrike replied in a murmur. “Of the Court of Bells and Candles.”
“And what does she grant you in return?” Wren asked.
“She has promised to grant me a boon and given me leave to name it. I know not yet what shape it shall take.”
“What has she granted you in prior years?”
“Nothing,” said Shrike. “I’ve never before made her a mask.”
“Then word of your craftsmanship must have spread in the past year,” said Wren, unable to hide the pride in his voice.
Shrike’s return smile appeared more wistful than proud. “Methinks she is enchanted with the novelty of having her mask made by the Oak King.”
Before Wren could dispute that point, a cry rose up from the milling crowd.
“Oi, Butcher!”
Both Shrike and Wren whirled toward the shout.
A glass-blower’s booth stood across the way. A small ceramic furnace nestled amongst the particular copse of trees which formed their stall. The fire burning within it appeared unlike any Wren had ever seen before. Glowing ribbons swirled through each other in an ever-twisting living knot whose pale hues shimmered between lavender and sea-foam. It etched a similar pattern onto the globs of molten glass thrust into it, and as the fae tending it withdrew the long pipe to blow out its shape into a rounded bottle, the pattern spread out like frost across a windowpane and continued to shift long after the bottle itself had cooled into its final shape.
Then a figure melted out of the shadows cast by the curious flames. From the flickering depths, Nell strode forth to meet them.
“Hunting you out of a crowd is oft more trouble than this,” she observed, glancing between Shrike and Wren. She wore the same garb—tunic, hose, boots, and all—as she had when Wren had met her, and the same knowing smile as well.
“You had some luck to aid you,” Shrike replied with a significant look to where Lady Aethelthryth had vanished.
“P’rhaps.” Nell put a hand on her hip and cast an equally significant look at Shrike’s satchel.
Shrike seemed well-practiced in taking her hints. He opened his satchel and drew out the bat-winged mask.
Nell took it from him. As she experimentally flapped its jointed leather wings, her smile changed from sardonic to sincere. When she glanced up again, pure delight gleamed in her eyes. “It’s certainly not a raven.”
Shrike seemed pleased with this assessment. “Have you seen the ambassador this night?”
This enquiry didn’t appear to baffle Nell even half so much as it baffled Wren.
“No,” she replied. “Though doubtless I’ll meet with him in the next hunt. Will you?”
“I cannot say for certain.” Shrike held out the beaked mask with the glass eyes. “If you would be so kind.”
Nell arched one eyebrow so high Wren assumed she meant to refuse, but then the wry half-smile twisted her mouth, and she took the mask from Shrike.
“When will you rejoin us,” she said, tossing the mask from hand to hand with the ease of a juggler, “if not before Ostara?”
“I know not,” said Shrike. He didn’t seem overmuch troubled by it.
