“May I?” he asked, gesturing to the faun’s grisly leg.
The faun cocked their head to one side in consideration, then hopped nearer and extended their wounded limb.
Wren bandaged it as best he could, tying the corners of his handkerchief into a neat little bow.
The faun smiled their thanks. Yet still they shivered as they glanced around the wood.
Against his better judgment and in defiance of Shrike’s warning echoing even now in his mind, Wren slipped his cloak off his shoulders and held it out to the faun.
The faun’s brow furrowed in confusion. They glanced from the cloak to Wren and back again. Then, at Wren’s nod, they took the cloak with a reverence Wren had thought none but himself felt for Shrike’s handiwork. Their shivering ceased as they drew it over their shoulders.
“Many thanks, m’lord,” they murmured again, running their fingertips through the rabbit-fur as if to marvel at its softness, as Wren himself had oft done.
Likewise again, Wren assured them it was nothing, even as he suppressed a shiver of his own. It seemed the faun’s chill had passed to him in exchange for the cloak.
The faun bowed deeply. Then they bounded off into the wood, swift as a deer, startling Wren once more before they vanished altogether.
Wren wasted some moments blinking in confusion in their wake. Then he turned, intending to go back the way he’d come.
And realised he had no idea which direction he ought to go.
The same howling wind which had carried the faun’s cries to his ears had swirled through the snow and obscured what few tracks he’d left behind like waves washing footprints off the sand. Shrike could have probably followed the trail of broken twigs and crushed pine-needles to trace precisely where Wren had gone. Wren, however, could not. And so he stood in the midst of the forest feeling particularly stupid. The lack of his cloak didn’t improve matters; while his wool coat and scarf hadproved sufficient for London winters, they left him shivering in this icy realm.
Though, Wren observed as he spun in an idiotic circle looking for his own tracks, the faun, as fae, likely knew precisely where the hunt had gone. He could do worse than follow them.
And so he stumbled off into the wood.
The faun had vanished from mortal sight. Nor could Wren’s dull ears hear their hoof-beats. Yet he recalled—vaguely—what direction they had bounded off in. He went on in that way for some time, making the straightest line the winding wood would allow. A muffled silence hung over him, broken only by the occasional rustling of the wind through the branches and the crunch of his own footsteps over icy twigs.
Just as his self-doubt overcame his resolve and he cursed himself in earnest for having ever strayed from the point where Shrike bid him stay, he glanced up to find the trees thinning ahead.
A change of scenery, for once, had the very effect most quacks declared it would, in that it instantly upraised Wren’s hopes that he might not be quite so lost after all.
Continuing on through the thinning trees brought Wren to the lake-shore. No sign of the faun or any other of the hunt appeared to his mortal eyes. But if nothing else, on shore he could at least see and be seen. And, being an awkward mortal, he’d left a readily apparent trail behind himself through the woods as he went. And furthermore, unlike the ethereal white hart, he had a scent. If worse came to worst, Shrike could seek the aid of the wolf pack in tracking Wren down.
Still, the wind bit far more fiercely without the cover of the trees and the comfort of his cloak. Wren drew his scarf up over the nape of his neck until it almost touched the back-brim of his hat and tucked his gloved hands into the elbows of his overcoat. Nevertheless, he shivered. Perhaps, he thought, he ought toreturn to the wood—just a few steps in, mind—to shelter himself whilst keeping an eye on his surroundings.
Then something glimmered in the corner of his eye.
Wren whipped his head toward the spark. Squinting against the wind and the sun glinting off the snow, he beheld a pale form out on the lake. Long slender legs ending in delicate hooves pawed at the snow, and a regal head with its crown of silvery antlers bent to drink from a dark hole in the ice.
Wren had never seen an ethereal creature in all his life. Yet in an instant, he recognized this for what it was.
The white hart.
Wren knew not how he’d stumbled upon such luck. He stood downwind, as Shrike had told him he ought to do if he wished to catch anything. And it seemed as though the trick worked. The hart took no notice of him.
He had an urge—a very mortal urge, he supposed—to approach the wondrous creature. Not to hunt or harm it; he hardly had the skill for that, though upon reflection, he thought his steel pen-knife might more than suffice when hunting a creature of fae origin. But rather in this moment he wished to see it better and fix the image in his mind. Already he cursed himself for leaving his sketch-book at home. A memory would have to suffice if he wanted to immortalise it in his art.
Wren took a cautious step toward the lake-shore.
The hart continued to drink.
A few more sideways skulking steps brought Wren down to the lake’s edge. He dared to slide his boot-heel onto the ice. It held his weight. Indeed, it felt as solid as any dance-floor at a country ball. He slipped another stride out. Then another. And another. The ice withstood his weight.
All the while, the hart ignored him.
Wren held his breath as he drew within a few yards of the beast. Almost without thinking, he raised a trembling hand toward it.
