Wren swallowed hard and turned back to the Mistress of Revels. “We would be honoured to participate.”
“Then these,” the Mistress of Revels continued, gesturing to the loose row of fae at her left with a broad sweep of her arm, “are those who have volunteered to show you our hospitality first-hand. Pick those as would suit your tastes,” she added. “None will take offence.”
Wren, somewhat overwhelmed at the sheer number of beautiful fae looking over both him and Shrike with hungry eyes, felt more relieved than otherwise at this addition. He glanced to Shrike to see what he thought of it.
Shrike gazed down at him with a smile that said as well as words that the choice was rather up to Wren.
Wren would make a liar of himself if he claimed no particular fae had caught his eye. Pointing felt rather rude, so instead he screwed his courage to the sticking-place and strode up to one in particular.
“Your pardon,” Wren said to a fellow who looked as if someone had given him a Payne’s grey watercolour wash; a pale slate blue all over mottled with dappled silver, with blue-black close-cropped curls and beard and tufted tail, and ridged corkscrew horns spiralling up from the sides of his head. “Would you care to join us?”
The Payne’s grey fae, who stood as tall as Shrike if one ignored the horns, split his beard in a smile. “Aye, m’lord.”
Wren bid him go with Shrike and went on to make the same enquiry of two other fae; an antlered and fox-tailed ginger asshort as Wren himself, though more slender, and an enormous burly brute who stood a full head taller than Shrike before one accounted for his horns and whose deep russet coat darkened to black over his hands and hooves.
Three seemed like a nice round number. Not so few as to give offence to those not chosen and not so many as to appear greedy.
The Mistress of Revels clapped her hands to dismiss her gathered subjects. To Wren’s relief, few appeared disappointed for more than a moment before all formed into clusters of two or three or more and wandered off to enjoy their own feasts.
Wren cleared his throat as he turned to Shrike and their three companions. “Is there somewhere a little out of the way where we might…?”
The Payne’s grey fae smiled and bid them all follow him. A short way off, just past the banquet table and down the hill, there lay an unclaimed pile of furs, with branches bent over them to form a domed roof laid with deerskin.
“Perfect,” said Wren, which seemed to please the three fae greatly.
It occurred to Wren, as he regarded the fae he’d chosen for their companions, that he hadn’t the first idea what they were, exactly. The one with the Payne’s grey coat he thought was probably huldrekall, but as for the fox-tailed fae and the hulking blood-bay brute, he couldn’t say. He cleared his throat. “Forgive me—I’m a stranger to your realm and unfamiliar with your custom. Are you all… huldrekall?”
After all, the last time he and Shrike had ventured into the Realm of the Hidden Folk, Shrike had told him the most polite thing to do was to ask.
The Payne’s grey and the fox-tailed fae exchanged a smiling glance before telling Wren they were both huldrekall, to Wren’s surprise. The blood-bay brute, in a deep and rumbling voice, identified himself as an incubus.
“And what may we call you?” Wren asked, glancing between the three fellows.
“Hull,” said the Payne’s grey huldrekall.
“Rikke,” chirped the fox-tailed ginger.
“Drude,” rumbled the blood-bay brute.
“Butcher,” said Shrike, to Wren’s surprise.
“And Lofthouse for myself, I suppose,” Wren added.
“Before we begin,” said Hull. “Is there anything you would prefer we not do?”
Wren hesitated, uncertain how best to delicately phrase his desires. “I would prefer if no one ventured into my fundament.”
It wasn’t that he objected to the practise altogether. Indeed, the notion more excited him than otherwise. But as he’d never done it before—or rather, had it done to him—he would prefer to have it done first with his Shrike alone, instead of amongst strangers.
Against all odds, the fae seemed to understand him, exchanging sage nods.
“And you, m’lord?” Hull asked Shrike.
Shrike shrugged his left shoulder. “I’m game for anything, so long as we may return to our own realm under our own power afterward.”
Wren, who hadn’t thought to specify, gave thanks his beloved proved far more clever than himself.
“We’ve no intention of bringing any harm to the Kings of Oak and Holly,” Hull reassured them with a slight bow.
