Sentiment #2
A mortal banishment was hardly so strong as a fae banishment, as Wren had to explained to Shrike to forestall the latter preparing for enchanted eventualities (including Wren being flung bodily from the threshold should he set foot upon it; or turning to stone the instant his fingertips touched the door-knocker; or suits of armour springing to life to cleave the head from his shoulders; or his mouth filling with thorns should he ever attempt to speak of the house—this one Shrike had already known to be false, from how freely Wren told him of his ancestral hall; or entering its corridors only to find himself forever trapped in a portrait frame).
Shrike’s relief had been palpable once Wren reassured him that a mortal banishment meant only that other mortals, and perhaps hounds, would set upon them if they discovered them there.
Shrike remained confident he could defend Wren against any mortal foe, even if they were armed with iron, and even with Wren’s further stipulation that Shrike not slay anyone beneath the house’s roof.
Still, it was unsettling to tread upon the floor-boards amidst the haunting familiarity of somewhere he never thought he’d see again.
Not that he could see it now, so dark as it was in the countryside with neither moon nor rush-light nor will-o’-th’-wisp to guide him.
Yet though he never thought of it before he’d returned, his body recalled which boards creaked, which flagstones came loose, which doors stuck in their frames in the damp.
The pendulum confirmed the path Wren forged; the milk-teeth and baby-hair were here still, either precisely where Wren had supposed or very near to it.
The master suite, as Wren had explained to Shrike before they set out, was his father’s domain and had been all Wren’s life.
His mother had kept her boudoir for herself.
His father had left it untouched after her death or at least had done so throughout Wren’s residence there and his stint at university.
Wren halted on the stair as the horrible thought occurred to him.
Had his father remarried in the meantime?
He’d not done so in the years between his wife’s death and his son’s dismissal, but perhaps losing his presumptive heir had induced him to remarry and beget another.
Wren would never forgive him if he had, irrational a point as that might prove.
“All well?” Shrike murmured behind him.
Wren endeavoured to master his emotions. “Yes.”
The barest whisper had escaped his lips. Yet he knew it must resound in Shrike’s fae hearing.
And it sufficed to keep them both moving towards their goal.
Wren skipped the squeaking stair and alighted on the upper landing in near-silence—at least, to mortal ears. His nerves heightened as he crept along the corridor towards the master bedchamber.
The boudoir door had never appeared remarkable in his mother’s lifetime. Afterwards the sight of it inspired grief, and he’d kept clear of that corner of the household. He assumed he’d forgotten what it looked like. If asked direct, his mind could summon no image.
To see it now, however, felt like glimpsing his own reflection in a quiet pool.
Wren clenched his fist and shook it out to rid his fingertips of trembling. Then laid his hand on the knob. It turned easier than he’d anticipated. But when he gently pushed inward, he found the door locked.
He could only hope that was a good sign. If his father had left it undisturbed since his mother’s death, then finding the tokens he sought should prove easier than otherwise. Wren knelt and plied his lock-picking tools.
Even now, with ghosts looming in every shadowed corner and long-lost memories bubbling up from the depths of his mind, it cheered him to recall the bashful presentation Shrike had made him of these very articles.
Before he'd made do with hair-pins and needles.
Then, in their fortnight of planning, Shrike had gifted him a set of silver fae-made pins, wrenches, and skeleton keys.
They worked smoothly and silently even in his unworthy mortal hands.
And beneath their ministrations, the lock to his mother's boudoir sprang open with the faintest click.
Wren blinked, the spell broken, and found his Shrike gazing down upon him with an admiring smile.
He would’ve liked to reward his gallaunt with a kiss. Instead he arose, drew a deep breath, and eased the door inward.
The memories of his mother’s boudoir had grown stronger and stronger with every passing moment spent under his father’s roof.
Wren had visited it seldom in his childhood, led there now and again by the nursemaid at his mother’s behest, never on his own.
Those recollections shone all the brighter for their rarity.
Until the door swung open to reveal not the settee nor the wardrobe nor the little tables nor the curtains he remembered, no writing desk nor sewing kit, nor a single stick of furniture or scrap of lace whatsoever, but a cold empty chamber with just a film of dust to soften its echoes.
Wren’s heart shot into his throat. In the same instant, he chastised himself for not expecting exactly what he’d found or failed to find.
Of course the man who had sold off his dead wife’s favourite books would also empty her boudoir.
He clawed his way back from the boundaries of despair by reminding himself that Shrike’s osteomancy had already confirmed the tokens he sought were here.
Somewhere. The bones might prove confounding more oft than not, but Wren had never yet seen them proved wrong.
And the pendulum, whilst limited in its scope and not allowing one to plan one’s journey beyond a few strides ahead, had never failed to find its mark.
He strode forth now, across the threshold, to find what he might.
Turning to see what the pendulum made of this obstacle of absence, Wren found Shrike already running his fingertips over the wainscoting.
Some of the panels had warped over the decades.
A particular convex bend gave Shrike’s fingertips pause.
No sooner had Wren noticed it than Shrike delicately prodded it.
And the wainscoting opened like a particularly obedient cupboard.
A secret crevasse. His mother had hidden her treasures away, much as Wren had stashed his manuscripts beneath the loose floorboard in his garret. Like mother, like son, he supposed.
Shrike brought his will-o’-th’-wisp down to the mouth of the cavern in the wall. There he halted and turned to Wren.
It was not an imposing hollow by any means. Scarcely a foot in height and half as much in breadth. And its depth, Wren reasoned, could not run any further than that of the wall itself, lest it impose upon the room beyond. Yet he found his hand hesitating before reaching within.
“No,” Wren muttered grimly, “‘tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church-door, but ‘tis enough, ‘twill serve.”’
Shrike served him a puzzled glance.
“Shakespeare,” Wren explained.
Shrike accepted this with a nod. He had heard the name oft enough, Wren supposed, with his mortal partner spouting it in Blackthorn Briar as lines occurred to him.
Shrike held more patience for this behaviour than Wren felt he deserved, reacting with curiosity rather than annoyance to the impromptu quotations.
They’d read some of it together by the cottage hearth on long wintry nights, but of course hadn’t yet finished it, much less re-read it oft enough for Wren to suppose Shrike had memorized all the same passages.
And even then, far be it from Wren to presume that what lines struck mortal sensibilities would hold the same appeal for one of the fae, lacking the context of the intervening centuries between Elizabeth and Victoria’s reign; which plays the theatre-going public had deemed worthy of exaltation and which they had condemned to apocrypha.
For all Wren knew, at the end of their joint perusal, Shrike might count A Winter’s Tale amongst his favourites.
At present, however, his mother’s secret cupboard loomed before him, illuminated by the faint blue glow of his beloved’s fae flame.
Dust lined it like velvet. A cobweb covered the far corner, with the remains of desiccated spider curled in upon itself who knew how many decades ago. Just before it lay a paper packet folded up to a size slightly smaller than his own palm.
Wren reached for it with trembling fingers. It did not crumble to dust at his touch, much to his relief. He withdrew it and held it close to his face. The folds tucked in on themselves over and over, layer upon layer, in a knot that would do any sailor proud.
“It’s a puzzle-purse,” Wren heard himself whisper, though Shrike hadn’t asked.
A sensible burglar would tuck the packet into his pocket and flee into the night. Wren, however, watched as if from a distance as his thumbs tucked into the folds and ever-so-gently began to pry the purse open.
It was not swift work by any means. More than once he found his fingertips tearing rather than unfolding and had to retrace his steps to find the true path to undoing what his mother’s hands had wrought. Then, at last, it opened in his palms.
A half-dozen milk teeth, appearing far too small, lay encircled in the nest formed by a lock of chestnut hair tied in a lavender ribbon.
The sight struck him like an arrow through a swan’s throat.
It rendered him not merely speechless but thoughtless for longer than he could possibly fathom.
Only the soft hooting of an owl from out-of-doors returned him to his senses.
No magic more powerful than sentiment, indeed, he reflected, perhaps more bitterly than he ought.
“We’ve got what we came for now,” Wren muttered, as much to himself as to Shrike. “Now we just have to get out.”
Only then did he glance at Shrike again, who must have felt quite forgotten and had every right to feel at the very least annoyed with his partner in crime.