The Shakespeare Garden was silent and still as Matt and I crossed through the hedge into the patch of ground. Snow lay in drifting piles, half burying the wreck the space had become, providing the illusion that perhaps it wasn’t as damaged as I remembered.
Still, I knew better.
I could see the footprints in the snow where Phelan had undoubtedly walked, possibly with my brother trailing behind. One of the stone benches had been cleared of snow, facing the ruin of the PAC and the burial ground. I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. It felt warmer here, somehow.
Matt reached over and squeezed my arm, his expression grim. “He’s here,” he said quietly. “I know he is. He must be.”
“That’s all well and good,” I said quietly. “But how do we find him and bring whatever fragment is here back?”
Matt sucked in a breath. “At the worst, I can remember finding something to hide in, something to inhabit until I felt safe again. There must be something here that he’d do that with, right?”
I just stared at him for a long moment, brow creasing as I tried to make sense of his words. “What?”
“Just…just trust me, okay? Look for something that would have resonance for Phelan, something that would make him feel…I don’t know. Whole.”
I stared at him for a moment longer before I sighed and nodded. “Right. Safe and whole.” My eyes skipped over the bench, the broken trellis, the dormant roses and the snow-covered stones toward the old, dark fountain with the Robin Goodfellow finial.
“The fountain,” Matt and I said in the same breath.
“Of course,” I murmured, picking my way through the hummocks of snow and buried debris. “Fucking Puck,” I whispered.
As soon as I touched it, I knew.
We’d found him.
