Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
T he last time I’d gone to sleep with Rook, I’d been so glowing and happy when I woke up, no doubt from whatever drugs Lanise used on me to help with the pain and healing. This time I woke up, and one: I felt like I’d been assaulted by a tree-size slug, all slimy and shivery, and two: there was no Rook the ogre in my bed, or a prince heir for that matter. Nope, I was alone, and his three quarters of the bed, no, more like seven eighths, was cold. It was also blood-specked. The only thing there was an elven bracelet, but not just any bracelet, no, it was my mother’s, the one that had been stolen, the one I’d been so heartsick about losing.
I frowned and stared at the swirls of silver filigree with gold inset. Was it poisonous? Spelled to put me in a permanent coma? Had the assassin come into my room and left it there for me to stupidly put on?
“Awake. Eat,” Lanise said, putting a large tray on my lap, even though I was on my side and couldn’t eat from that position.
“Lanise, what is that?” I said, staring at the bracelet and ignoring the hot bacon that sang its song of endless deliciousness.
“Pretty.”
I squinted at it and then at her. “Why is the pretty in my bed?”
“Arrook put.”
“Arrook?” I carefully reached out and touched my mother’s bracelet. It flared warm and bright, greeting me like a long-lost friend. I gasped and then carefully picked it up, cradling it in my hands. “Where did Arrook get my mother’s bracelet?”
“Driver track. Best. Arrook find first.”
“First? Why was he tracking me? Oh, right, for propaganda.”
“Protect. HARPs safe. You leave. Not safe.”
I stared at her. “Oh. Right, because someone else was hunting me down. Really? Even then?”
She shrugged and picked up a piece of bacon in her large, yet talented, fingers. “Eat.”
I opened my mouth, because there was no other option, then I sat up because it was so good, and I was suddenly starving. I took a bite, chewed, swallowed, then asked, “And Driver tracked me to Singsong City?”
“Arrook. Heard story. Crazy musician.”
I nodded like that made sense, because it did. I’d been keeping my position here pretty low-key, and it had been cut off from the music guild, but musicians did talk. Coming here like I did had been crazy, but I’d taken the falling-down building and turned it into a functioning hall, even before Rook found me and put his stone artisans to work on it. I ate every last bite, and finally, Lanise nodded like I’d done something right.
“Where is he?”
Her eyes widened. “He?”
I cocked my head and studied her. “You know, Arrook. The guy who took a poisoned elven arrow in his back last night.”
“Not last night. Last week.”
I gasped before throwing back the blankets and scrambling out of bed. I was wearing my nightshirt. The pun one. “Last week?! I can’t sleep for a week! I have the jubilee to prepare!”
She stared at me, then shrugged. “Then not use big magic.”
“It wasn’t that big.”
“Was that big,” she contradicted.
“No, it wasn’t! I just incinerated the elven arrow and made Arrook puke.”
She stared at me for a minute, then shrugged. “Then you not sleep week. Only day.”
I frowned at her. “I only slept for a day?”
She shrugged and turned away, apparently irritated with me and herself for bothering to use so many words on our argument. I dressed quickly, throwing on a pair of pants and a kimono to go over the nightshirt, since I couldn’t find anything else.
I expected Yaga to attack me when I came out, but she wasn’t in the small sitting room outside my bedroom, or the hall outside. Lanise followed me down the spiral stairs and into the kitchen, where Tiago was leaning against the counter, strumming his lute.
He straightened up when he saw me. “Mirabel! I thought that you’d sleep through the Jubilee entirely.”
I grabbed a roll and various slices of cold cuts before I said, “Has it really been a week?”
“No,” Lanise said at the same time Tiago nodded. He gave her a curious look. “A week yesterday night. This morning will make eight days. She said you weren’t injured, but what kind of magic did you use that knocked you out for so long?”
“I burned an eleven arrow and made someone puke. That’s all.”
Lanise snorted.
Tiago looked between me and her before scrunching his fluffy brows and leaning close. “You burned an elven arrow? Did it happen to be sticking out of an ogre’s back? Was an ogre the one you made retch up poison?”
I shrugged and stuffed my makeshift sandwich into my mouth.
He continued with a frown of concern. “Ogres don’t respond well to light magic. Forcing one to respond to light magic would be a great task, indeed, particularly if the ogre in question was, ahem, Magr.”
I frowned at him. He’d been shifty about what to call him. Did he know that the prince heir was Rook the Luthier? Impossible. No, actually, Tiago could know any number of things that he never mentioned. Elves were like that when they weren’t trying to assassinate you for being related. Come to think of it, I really didn’t understand much about elves.
I made another roll and meat sandwich and then turned to Lanise. “Where is he? Arrook.” I added when I remembered the way she’d hedged.
Tiago answered easily. “Rook is in the organ hall. Are you going to tell him that you’ve shifted your affection to Magr? I suggest that you wait until after he’s repaired the organ. We’re going to have a fine concert to kick off the Jubilee. I hope you don’t mind, but I arranged…well, Rook probably arranged it first, but he lets me pretend that my efforts had something to do with the great organist Balry coming here to play our organ.”
I patted his shoulder. “It’s cute that you think I have affection to shift. Don’t worry. If the organ isn’t ready, I hear that Balry plays a mean tambourine.”
Tiago’s face was the picture of horror at the thought of anyone playing a tambourine, much less the great, revered organist. Balry was actually a vampire, so that would be extremely fitting for our concert. And he was coming all the way from Europe? How global. Apparently, there were significant perks to seducing the heart out of the prince heir.
As I walked towards the organ hall, I considered. Is that really why Rook had repaired my music hall? Because I’d played his heart song and he couldn’t resist? What about me? I’d been under his spell the second he started singing, but it wasn’t my heartsong, and I definitely didn’t go into it looking for an ogre to love. Did I love him?
I stopped walking while the question beat at my brain. Well, he was Rook the Luthier, and I’d always been half in love with the idea of him. Maybe more than half. He was also one of my favorite elven composers. He was also the person who had saved my life on more than a few occasions. I’d have to be a complete psychopath not to be in love with a musician of that caliber after we did that incredibly memorable duet. I had a lot of elven blood, so I could definitely be a complete psychopath. Was that bitterness?
I shook my head and kept walking. I had to clear up a few things with Rook before I hunted down every musician and figure out when and where everything was supposed to happen, and see how ready they were. I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t prepared my own pieces with nearly enough dedication, as I’d been so busy managing everyone else. The finale of the Jubilee would be Singsong City’s symphony, of course, but I needed to make a special arrangement for the occasion. Or I could have Rook do it, since he was a better composer.
I should be humiliated, but I was too bewildered to really register the pain of being bested by an ogre. I went through the door and then jerked to a stop when I saw Rook, balanced on a scaffolding, holding a massive gold pipe, with his shirt off, showing the play of extremely pretty pale blue muscles as he strained to get the pipe in place before he snapped a metal brace over it and started soldering.
I slowly walked down the aisle towards him, watching his arms, his hands, the perfection, grace, beauty in every movement. Oh, yeah. I was definitely in love with Rook the Luthier. No idea how that translated to the prince heir, but as Rook, definitely, yes. Let me sing all the love songs I’d ever memorized, at the time feeling like they were so obvious and stupid. Nope. They were extremely apt. He was all the breaths of spring, the cloudless skies, the scent of fresh flowers, and the taste of sweetest wine. I was about to break out my notebook and do some notation.
I stopped walking when the view would get worse if I got closer, just stood there staring like an idiot. Finally, he turned to look at me, His sharp cheekbones and soft lips looking particularly perfect.
“Are you okay?”
I blinked at him while his voice rattled something loose in my brain. “No. I slept for a week when I have the Jubilee to prepare for, also an assassin to hunt down. Make that two assassins to hunt down. How did the arrow get through my shield? How did you recover before I did? How long were you down? Where did you get my mother’s bracelet? Why do you have to be such a big stubborn ogre that takes so much magic to make throw up?”
He'd been walking towards me through my whole speech, so when I was finished, I was breathing hard, and he was quite close to me, so close that he could reach down and cup my face in his large, perfectly calloused hands. I know that, because he did, cup my face so I was gazing up at him while he gazed down, and it was the most perfect moment of idiotic romantic bliss the world had ever known.
“Driver is extremely good at delegating, also planning parties. He’s organized your music hall so that you have more time to do other essential things, like work on your own music.” His low voice was barely more than a whisper, and it went over my skin like a silk satin wing.
“And who is going to take over your duties so you can work on yours? Luthiel Slandriil is my favorite composer. I imagined he must have died in a duel or spent too long anguishing over a difficult passage and ended up killing himself from the pain of it, but no, you’re here, fixing my organ. You’re too practical to feel so deeply.”
“I felt very deeply when you burned that poisoned arrow out of my back. They tell me that you saved my life, but did you have to do it quite so agonizingly? I can’t remember the last time I screamed, but there I was, like a brownie getting its toes chopped off.”
I frowned at him. “You’ve chopped the toes off a brownie?”
“No, I’ve heard a brownie get its toes chopped off. I did eat the toes, but we wouldn’t want to waste his pain. The brownie in question was no good. Thought it would be a good idea to play tricks on an ogre. Not me. I am the nicest, most civilized, least violent ogre you will ever meet.”
I stared at him, his hands so gentle on my cheeks as he gazed into my eyes, my heart, my soul. “Most ogres are a lot more honest than you. My compulsion spell has clearly worn off.”
He smiled at me, showing his pretty little tusks. “I’m speaking as Rook, naturally.”
“Unnaturally. There’s nothing natural about being two people, one of whom takes up three times as many as the other. What’s the story with my bracelet?”
“We’re gazing into each other’s eyes, and you can think about that?”
“It’s the angel in me. We are extremely practical.”
“And virtuous. I know. I am hoping that once your hall is finished, and your Jubilee is a success, you will agree to be my bride.”
I blinked at him. “For a marriage proposal, that lacked a lot of romance.”
“Ah. I knew I forgot something. I’m not an angel. No part of me is, but I am the prince heir, so that gives me more flexibility. I can adapt to become whatever you need.”
“Can you? If you could, why would you want to? Surely you can write a new heartsong and not publicly publish it this time for anyone and their cat to play.”
One brow rose over his amused eyes. “No one and their cat could play Luthril Slandriil’s most pretentious, impossible piece, particularly in a way that was so extremely easy to listen to. Not a lot of people like the piece. It’s actually terribly unliked.”
I smiled and patted his shoulder, then slid my arms around his neck while I leaned against him. “That’s why I like it so much. The popular pieces are too overplayed. Were you sad that your heart song didn’t get instant commercial success? Don’t take it personally. Souls aren’t supposed to be commodities. It was pretty bold of you to put it out there when you knew it could be your undoing, undermine your lifelong work of running away from females.”
“It was an accident. Elves are so diabolical. After my Spring tune, you know it, because you know everything music related, I was asked countless times for something new, so I wrote that piece. It took me two hours. I just put something together that I hoped would be hated so much that they would leave me alone, but apparently, I shouldn’t have written it while I was wearing the wrong skin, because…”
“He wrote it?” I stared up at him while his eyes twinkled.
“The experiment proved that Rook is much more commercially viable than the Magr.”
“I knew that was a title. What’s your real name? Arrook?”
“No, that’s also a title. My real name is whatever you want it to be.”
I blinked at him. “Why?”
“I have no name. The Prince heir has no name until he ascends, and then the people name him based on whatever his lifelong work was.”
“Oh dear. You have to be very careful about what your lifelong work is. Runner from women? Hm. It does have a ring to it. Rook. I’ll just call you Rook.”
He smiled at me. “Thanks. Do you want me to call you Miracle, or Mirabel?”
“Miracle is kind of pretentious.”
“No, it isn’t. Playing my song like that was a miracle. Bringing back the falling down music hall in Singsong City when everyone wanted you to fail, an even greater miracle. Saving me with your magic and song when I was dying, the greatest miracle of all. It’s not pretentious, it’s fact. You are a miracle. My miracle.” He frowned. “Was that romantic enough? Can I ask you to marry me now or do I need to wait until after you’ve succeeded in your career?”
I blinked at him. “Why would you need to do that?”
“You made it one of your conditions. You explained, very helpfully, the process that I would have to take to become mated to you in a way that your angel could understand. Part of you is mine, but I want all of you.”
He frowned again and then dropped to his knees, suddenly, like he’d been shot.
I gasped and grabbed his shoulders, leaning over him, searching for a wound while my heart turned to ice in my chest. “Rook, are you okay?”
He smiled slightly. “Of course. I remembered the proposing marriage requires beggary and implied enslavement. Ogres are much more dignified, but I can adapt.”
I exhaled a sigh of relief and then frowned down at him. “You’re implying enslavement?”
“Yes, also allowing you the opportunity to decapitate me. Will you, my beloved song, marry me?”
“I object!”
Rook was on his feet, and I found myself behind his back while he faced off against the intruder who dared interrupt his extremely romantic proposal. If there was music, it would be more romantic. The echoing sound of three separate troupes practicing wasn’t the right kind of music, but how I felt when I’d thought someone had shot him made my feelings abundantly clear. I was smitten. I’d say yes, eventually, simply because I couldn’t say no.
I peered around his broad back and saw my brother Richard posing in the center of the aisle, in the precise spot where an errant beam of sunlight could show off his gleaming golden hair, golden skin, golden armor. His eyes were bright blue and piercing.
“Rich? What are you doing?” I noticed Gavriel behind him, walking around the beam of light, always my brother’s opposite, avoiding the limelight, while Rich accepted it as his due.
“Protecting my sister from this blackguard who dares sully my sister’s reputation.”
“You just used blackguard in a sentence,” I pointed out, because it was notable.
He smiled at me. “Impressive, right?” His frown returned as he strode towards us, focusing on Rook. “You’re the prince heir? I thought you’d be larger.” He shook his head. “I suppose that’s why there are no pictures of you. They don’t want to embarrass themselves by admitting that their rulers are weaklings.”
Rook murmured to me, “Your brother is trying to die. Do you know why he’s suicidal?”
I glanced up at him, then refocused on Rich. My dad called him careless, but certainly not suicidal. “I think he’s just fatalistic.”
Rich continued, like he hadn’t heard us, but he had the sharpest hearing of anyone I knew. “As soon as Gavriel called me up, told me that you were getting entangled with ogres, I did some digging.”
I hissed at him, “Rich, this is so embarrassing. You can’t just barge in here and insult everyone. If I choose to marry an ogre, prince or not, that’s my choice.”
He held up a finger with that odious look on his face, his gotcha look. “Really? Even when he’s already betrothed to someone else?”
We all turned to look at Rook. He stood there, brows raised, opened his mouth to tell Rich how absolutely devoted he was to me.
“So?”
That’s what he said.
No. That word couldn’t have come out of his mouth, but it did, and all my stupid love songs crashed and burned into a wreck of shattered hope along with it.