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When I got the invitation, Tom, knowing Edwin's intrigue, had insisted that I first invite my boss on this sojourn. But Edwin had declined, telling me he had other plans, even though I was sure he didn't. He was just stepping aside so Tom and I might enjoy the event together. I appreciated it, and Tom was having fun too, though he wasn't as intrigued by Ryory Bennigan as either I or Edwin.

The directions to the studio had been mostly clear. "Third building down the Friar's Close. The one with the interesting door."

Looking up the location of the close was easy enough. Tom and I had taken a bus from Grassmarket and then walked a short block to reach it. We found three doors on each side of an unadorned alleyway flanked by a four-story, stone medieval building on each side.

We glanced at the third door of each building. At first, neither door had seemed more interesting than the other one until we looked very closely. The only real difference was a small carved symbol in the darkly stained wood above an old brass knob on the southerly building. The symbol, a bird, was a crude representation of a Pict symbol: a disc shape atop a rectangle. Many speculated that this symbol represented the sun. Though he didn't show his work publicly, pictures of it somehow surfaced, and then he dodged the social media that shared it with great skill. I had looked at the pictures on the internet; Ryory had carved lots of symbols over the years, but this one didn't represent his skill. He was very good at his art.

The symbol on the door might have been scratched with a dull knife, but, still, it was a symbol, and the other door was plain. It seemed like an obvious clue.

"Should we knock or just go in?" I said.

"I would probably knock first if the invitation doesn't mention differently."

"Right."

As I lifted my fist, though, the door pushed open with surprising gusto. A woman exited in a hurry.

At once the three of us recognized each other.

"Delaney? Tom?" Bridget asked.

"Bridget?" Tom and I said simultaneously.

Bridget McBride, one of Tom's old girlfriends, had come through the door, her long blond curls bouncing, her big blue eyes shiny and determined, which was her normal state of being.

"What...?" I began.

A knowing smile spread over Bridget's pretty face. "You are here to see the art."

I nodded. "Yes. You too?"

"Well, I have an open invite." If anyone was good at smug, it was Bridget. But somehow, whenever I witnessed that, I didn't like her any less.

Our friendship was not something anyone could have predicted. She'd held a long grudge over the way Tom had ended their relationship, and things were icy at first, but for whatever reason she and I found a way to get along. We were friends, and it seemed that's what we both wanted. Tom had remained neutral regarding my time with Bridget, but I thought even he was doing okay with it.

For a time, I thought I only wanted us to get along because I sometimes needed her assistance as a local newspaper reporter with access to archived articles. I'd felt guilty about my disingenuousness, but it hadn't been long before I realized I actually liked her. She was a little snotty sometimes, but I'd come to find even that endearing.

"Oh?" I used an inquiring tone. It was clear she was dying to tell us more.

"Well, aye." She nodded back toward the door. "Ryory is an old friend. I did a piece about him years ago. He liked that I was honest, didn't hide his strange ways but didn't make fun of him either. Plus, I gave him final approval of the printed piece, which I rarely do."

"You're very good at what you do," I said after a slightly too long beat. "And that's pretty darn cool."

"Aye," Tom agreed.

Bridget sometimes pretended that she was still angry at Tom, but not today. Today her smile transformed into something humbler, and she nodded. "I agree. He's a lovely man."