“Is there something I might do beyond this?” Wren asked.
Almost another se’en-night had passed since the outer lips of his wound had closed. This circumstance had not altered the exercises Everilda gave him. He lay on the workbench with his knees drawn up, having just completed the third round of five repetitions, and while still winded, he felt rather less exhausted by them with each passing day.
Everilda blinked down at him. “Swimming would be best. Though that’ll have to wait ‘til summer, most like. Or springtime at the very least.”
Wren felt as though he couldn’t wait another hour, much less three months or more.
Shrike appeared thoughtful. “How far may he travel?”
Everilda looked at him curiously. “He oughtn’t walk far. And I’d advise against the strain of keeping himself in the saddle.”
Wren wished they wouldn’t talk about him as if he weren’t there.
“Perhaps a sleigh?” Shrike asked.
Everilda raised her brows. “Perhaps.”
Wren shot Shrike an enquiring look.
But for the moment, it went unanswered.
~
No sooner had Everilda arrived to check on Wren the following morning than Shrike arose from their broken fast and made a peculiar declaration.
“I must go,” he said, to Wren’s bewilderment. “I’ll return by nightfall.”
Wren wondered what could drive Shrike from the cottage. He wondered still more at Shrike’s not divulging it at once. Nevertheless he trusted that whatever reasons he held for his actions, they were doubtless important, and Shrike would tell him the whole when the proper moment arrived.
At present, he indulged in a parting kiss before he let Shrike go on his way.
Which left him alone in the cottage with Everilda.
He expected it might—nay, must—feel awkward. But as moments passed into minutes with Everilda focused upon her gyrdel-book and only the crackling of the hearth-fire breaking the silence, Wren found himself rather more comfortable with her presence than he’d felt before. Perhaps now that she knew his body outside and in and had answered his most damning questions, he could at last discard the final flimsy barrier of mortal propriety that lay between them.
Although it did discomfit him to think she knew almost all of him and he knew almost nothing of her.
Despite the laudanum weighing down the wheels of his mind, he tried to think on what he did know. She had come from the Court of Bells and Candles. She served as chirurgeon andbone-setter to Lady Aethelthryth. She appeared no older than himself—indeed, perhaps somewhat younger. She was mortal, yes, but had she come from a mortal realm? If so, which one, and when?
“Everilda,” Wren said before his better sense could catch up to his curiosity.
She raised her head to regard him.
“You’ve travelled rather a winding road to come here, I should think,” said Wren.
Her left brow approached her hairline. “As have you.”
“How did you arrive in the fae realms? Forgive me,” he added, as her right brow joined her left. “It’s just—I’ve never met another mortal here.”
She levelled a long considering look upon him. Then, to his surprise, she got up from her seat by the fire and settled onto the stool at his bedside.
“It was my duty to tend the abbey gardens after supper,” she began. “One night, beneath the full moon, a creature appeared amidst the greenery. I mistook them for a cat at first, until I beheld how they walked on their hind legs and wore a little mouse-skin cloak to cover their wings. Veined glass,” she added in response to Wren’s bewildered look. “Like damselfly wings. They approached me—which was astonishment enough—and spoke. They told me the life of their prince hung in the balance and begged me to do all in my power to save her. My power, I thought, would not fill an egg-cup. Still, I had my herbal, my faith, and my years spent assisting chirurgy in the abbey, and I had taken vows to do all I could to aid those less fortunate. And so I followed the little fellow not out of the abbey, but further into the garden to a toadstool ring I’d never noticed before. I stepped through it and found myself in a forest. The creature led me through the winding paths to a palace growing out of the very trees—a realm of pure viriditas. There I met the LadyAethelthryth, who lay dying of a curse laid on her by her foes. I tended her as best I could, never expecting to do more than ease her suffering. Yet, by miracle, she emerged victorious from the fight within her own flesh and offered me a boon of my own naming. The idea of performing a kind of chirurgy never done before, and for those who could not do for themselves, struck me. And so I asked if I might remain to heal the sick and wounded of her court, and not just assist them, but by doing so learn a different sort of anatomy and alchemy by which I might help still more. She agreed. There I have laboured ever since.”
“Never leaving?” Wren asked.
“Oft leaving,” she replied easily. “I journey throughout the realms to learn from others in my trade. But always I return.”
“And… for how long have you done this?” Wren enquired with some hesitation.
