Chapter 21 - Notes of Blue
The night was still. Water gently lapped against my ears, carrying a gentle voice with it.
“ You should be all better now. The poison is gone. ”
My head swam, but my eyes slowly peeled open. Dark green tones filled my blurry vision. A soft pillow was beneath my head. A warm quilt covered my shoulders.
I must have been in my bedroom.
I blinked and found Annalisa asleep in my ivory armchair. Her curls were a blonde bramble. She wore nothing but her undergarments and her golden Thornebow pendant that gleamed in the hazy afternoon sun.
Slowly, my eyelids grew heavier and heavier until they closed.
“ Are you dreaming, Sera? Are you dreaming of the life you could have had without me? ”
The voice disappeared as water dripped across my eyelids. I slowly opened them to a dark room.
Someone tenderly dabbed a damp rag over my forehead. The smell of warm herbs hit my nose. A gentle hand rubbed medicine on my chest.
“Mother?” I murmured.
Then I tumbled into the blackness again.
“ You should have killed me. Then you never would have ended up here. ”
I chased the voice, but awoke to another golden afternoon. Freya’s drunken warbles echoed through my door as she sang:
“The sand is running down, but we dance all through the nights,
For the lioness loves the viper, even though she bites.”
She retreated to her room and left me in peace to fall back asleep.
“ Wake up, please! It’s been two days! Wake up! ”
Riyan. The voice was Riyan. How was he reaching out to me again? Why did he sound so desperate? Why did I need to wake up?
I pushed against the dark veil over my mind. Riyan was speaking to me for a reason. I needed to wake up.
“ Wake up, Serafina! ”
My eyes popped open.
Two days. I had consumed so much at the party, my body took two days to recover.
“No one is sure how you are still alive,” Brietta said.
She sat in my armchair with her hands folded in her lap. A cup of spiced cream warmed my hands as I sat in bed. I took small sips to calm my hunger pangs as she explained what had happened at the ball.
My cheeks burned with embarrassment and I gripped my cup so tightly I thought the ceramic might crack. I thought letting go would have made me feel more at peace, but all I had done was make my situation harder by sniffing that damn dust.
Brietta told me faerie dust was a notorious substance at the Duke’s parties. It was a fine white powder that caused hallucinations and memory loss along with heart-racing euphoria. Faerie wine came from mixing a small amount of the dust with clear maiden wine from Pebblebrooke. The wine was mostly harmless, the dust however…
“Derrick should have never gotten his hands on it,” Brietta said bitterly. “He collapsed right after you did. Luckily your mother had an antidote on hand to keep his heart from bursting. Everyone is trying to guess how you are half his size and survived after getting dusted, especially now the whole Dukedom knows you had no blood bond to protect you.”
I hissed out a breath. I was so fucking stupid. Faerie dust or no, how could I have spilled that secret in front of everyone? Hopefully the gossips could invent a better explanation for my iron constitution than magic in my blood.
Worst of all, everyone knew the North was vulnerable.
I was stupid, stupid, stupid!
I shifted my legs under the blankets, my Nordingaard crystal catching the linens. Annalisa had tied the crystal onto my leg after the palace guards carried me into bed—she had wanted me to feel better, apparently. Maybe I would not have acted so foolishly at the ball if I had the crystal to keep me calm and in control.
“Do you think we still succeeded?” I asked. I needed some good news, if only to feel some sort of ease in my soul. Hopefully the party was so good that Duke Hyton would lower his hackles.
“ We did just fine.” Brietta scoffed. “Derrick was the one who embarrassed himself again. Anders is worse than ever, trying to fix it all.”
Well, fuck.
She rose, saying she needed to confer with Freya again. She reached the door before she put her hand on the frame and looked over her shoulder. “He calls for you in his sleep, by the way.” She looked down. “You are playing your role well.”
The door clicked shut. I stared at the willow leaves on the wallpaper, letting my mind spin until the afternoon faded into darkness and starlight crested the bedposts.
At least my cycle had finally ended, but the new moon was nigh and I was no closer to getting Fraleigh out of her enslavement.
Maybe I was wrong about Ilsa being the answer. I was a powerful sorceress, what if I just lit Duke Hyton on fire until he released Fraleigh? Or used magical bonds on his wrists like Daigen had used on me? Maybe I would even get angry enough to turn him into a toad.
But my magic was barely strong enough to ignite a bathtub without me collapsing. If I tried and failed, I would kiss the chopping block before the sun rose.
My magic could not answer any of the questions around Riyan, either. Was I really hearing him in my sleep, or was I just dreaming of his voice?
I wanted to pull my quilt over my head and hide, but I had wasted enough time in bed. I needed an answer, any answer.
“Now would be a good time for a gentle hand of guidance, old man,” I said into the air.
Nothing responded. Maybe Daigen was lurking in the walls somewhere else.
I chewed on my tongue. Daigen seemed just as desperate for me to arrive at the right conclusion as I was. If I were not close, he would not have let me languish in bed for two days without at least invading my dreams.
Maybe I already had direction.
With nothing else to rely on, I closed my eyes and channeled my magic. My crystal warmed against my leg.
My mind and my heart spoke to the magic within my body, searching for what I might have missed. I asked for direction, for an answer, for anything.
And then I heard music.
The music was soft and low, like it was far away. The melody tugged on my heart and before I knew it, I had shoved off my quilt.
The music in my mind pulled me into the hallway. The blue damask wallpaper surrounded me like a dark forest as I crept along the hallways with only the dim light of the sparse sconces lighting my way. The flame in my heart pushed me forward, though I did not know where I was going.
But the music in my mind was getting louder.
Silent as a phantom, my feet slowly dragged across the soft carpet runners until they pressed against cool marble.
I blinked and looked around. Somehow, I made it into the ballroom. I dragged my eyes to the dance floor in the center of the room, immediately finding the crack like a bolt of lightning amongst the black and white tile.
My knees kissed the cold tile and my fingers traced the break in the ceramic where Riyan’s head had hit the tile when we fell while dancing.
I had not noticed the crack when the room was full of people, but how could I have forgotten it? I had been so angry with Riyan for dropping me because he had gotten too drunk to hold me.
I had screamed at him in the garden over a simple accident just for me to make a worse intoxicated mistake a week later.
I wished I could speak to him. I would apologize for being so hateful before and…for continuing to fuck up even more now.
Then the music started again. The thinnest sliver of the crescent moon cast its soft glow over the tiles of the dance floor. The faint blue luminescence looked so magical, so inviting…
So I danced.
I moved my feet in time to the song in my mind as my heart warmed. My arms swept through the air as I weaved around an invisible partner. No one was around to grab me, or critique my steps, or force a drink into my hand. The lovely song filled me from head to toe, and I was safe.
My breath was calm, a smile lifted my cheeks…
Then the faint notes left my mind and traced my ears. They were slow and soft, like feathers in the air. I looked around—no one else was in the ballroom.
I was not even sure if I was hearing the same song that was in my mind, but my feet dragged across the tile as I followed the music. I slipped past the ballroom doors and the music got louder.
A gentle run of notes up the scale sent a pleasant shiver down my arms—it was a harp.
I traveled down the hall, following the notes to a door that was left ajar. I wrapped my fingers around the door and slipped into the small room behind it.
The drapes were pulled over the windows. The modest furnishings and decor were visible only from the light of a single candle in the far corner of the room. In the glow of the candlelight was Derrick, strumming a large ebony harp.
I let out a relieved breath. His face was sallow and his cheeks too sharp, but at least he was all right after collapsing.
Derrick’s eyes were half-lidded as he played. Blue starlight danced along the strings and crested his features. He moved with the harp in time with his breaths and with the slow, sweeping song.
I quietly stepped closer. His hands moved up the strings, the notes getting higher and sweeter, and then a floorboard creaked under my foot.
Derrick’s hands stopped and he looked up with wide eyes. My heart missed a beat as we looked at each other. I had no shoes and wore only a nightgown, I must have looked ridiculous.
“Serafina, what are you…?” he asked breathlessly. He looked to the floor. “I did not think anyone would…”
“I liked it.” My cheeks warmed and I stroked the tail of my braid. “I heard it outside and…”
I let myself trail off. What was I doing? Why had my magic not led me to Ilsa’s vault? Or maybe evidence that Riyan had been more than a mere executioner?
Why did my heart’s desire push me to Derrick?
He rested his hand on the black wooden frame. “Did you just wake up too?”
I gave him a tight lipped smile and nodded.
He looked down and started strumming again. “Your mother assured me that you were healing fine, but I was still worried. I thought the music would help ease my mind.”
He plucked a few strings. I fidgeted with my braid as he played, but my white flame stirred, urging me to keep talking. “I was always so impressed that you could play the harp. I never could. My arms are too short and my hands too small to reach all the strings.”
His hands fell from the harp and he shot me a disbelieving look. He silently beckoned me and I tentatively stepped over.
Derrick gently wrapped his arm around my waist, guiding me to sit on his left leg. “Never say you cannot do something, Serafina.”
My cheeks blazed, but I heard Brietta in my head saying, “ Play your role. ”
Was this what my magic was trying to tell me? Was I only supposed to keep Derrick occupied so Brietta could uncover the truth of Ilsa and win our liberation? Would the General eventually open up about Riyan if I acted like a good, complacent Hyton?
Was I really that useless as a sorceress and a healer?
Derrick placed his left hand on top of mine and then lifted it to the taut harp strings. “All right, you are going to be my left hand.”
I swallowed at the feel of the strings beneath my fingertips. The memories of the other girls mocking me for being too small to reach rang in my ears.
His lips grazed my temple. “When I play this…,” His right hand played a short, high-pitched melody. “…pluck these to complete the phrase.”
He directed me to hook three strings using my fingers and my thumb. He placed his left hand around my arm, trusting me with my part in the song.
Derrick played the short melody and then I tentatively strummed the final three notes.
He let out a short laugh. “You can do better than that. Listen to how the music is feeling and try to match it.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. His nonsense sounded similar to Brietta’s. I could not match a feeling using my hands.
He played again. The melody was a sweet and hopeful tune, but not exactly triumphant. Like the first star of the evening, a tiny red ember in my heart glowed. I channeled the warmth from the ember into my fingertips and strummed the last three notes to match.
The final note vibrated in my ears and the warmth from the ember intensified.
Derrick smiled against my skin. “Just like magic. I knew you could do it.”
My hand dropped into my lap. A small flicker of triumph made my own smile appear again.
He wrapped his arm around me and started playing, surrounding me with a slow, lovely tune. “The poems in your letters inspired me to play, you know.”
The poems Brietta wrote. I swallowed all the lies I could never tell again. “How?”
He was quiet for a moment, letting the music fill every empty space in the room.
“When I was younger, words would often fail me.” The melody dipped lower. “Music was the only way I could be heard, so my hands would say what my mouth could not. And when you sent me the most beautiful lines in your letters…I loved them so much that I wanted to hear them for myself. Even though we were separated for seven years, I heard your voice reciting those lines in my music.”
I bit my tongue. He had imagined my voice speaking Brietta’s words.
The music picked up tempo. “I used to be so terrified of even opening my mouth. But then I started practicing your lines in the mirror.”
His breath warmed my neck as he recited:
“For you I hope for, for you I yearn,
If I do not have you, the whole world will burn.”
I held my breath. Damn, Brietta.
He laughed. “I recited that one over and over until I no longer tripped over the words. Even Father was pleased that I started speaking better. Your words were my salvation.”
I was a damn snake.
I shifted in his lap. The truth that I had not actually written the poems bubbled up in my throat, ready to spill.
“But I fell in love with you long before the poems.”
He what?
I tried to make the question sound easy, like banter between old lovers, but it came out shaky. “When did you fall in love with me?”
His hands slowed and the notes were long and spaced out. “Ravenwood Manor.”
My plan for seven years had been to trap him into falling in love with me so he would choose me as his future Duchess. If he had been in love with me that whole time, all that plotting had been for nothing.
My hands began to tremble, but Derrick’s melody became long and light, like a dewy meadow in the early morning haze.
“It was my last night there,” he said. I was in the garden and you came around the iron gate with a sack full of treats that you stole from the kitchen. You had this determined glint in your eyes and a wicked little smile. And just like that, my heart was yours.”
I still could not breathe. My mouth went dry as I whispered, “You love me because I am wicked?”
“No, I love you because you are powerful.” He kissed my cheek. “Your disregard for someone else’s rules proved you could hold your own as the Duchess.”
He plucked a low note that reverberated in my chest. “Besides the practical aspect…every time I remembered that sly little smirk of yours, my heart fluttered. Thinking of another boy holding your hand made me feel sick. I dreamed of you nearly every night.”
I slammed my eyes shut to stop the incoming tears as the claws of guilt shredded me from the inside. I had lied to Derrick for nothing.
“I only learned romantic lines to match yours,” Derrick said with a hollow mirth. “I just wanted to impress you. Sure, the Selection Night choice was mine, but I wanted something no Duke of Lycaster had for generations…”
A tear rolled onto my lashes as the music swelled.
“…I wanted a wife who was in love with me.”
The sob that rattled out of me was a sour note in Derrick’s melody.
He set the harp down and placed his hand on my cheek. He wiped my tear away with his thumb. “I know. None of this is fair.”
I shook my head. Nothing was fair because the world was cruel and so was I.
He had no idea how much I had used him.
Derrick gave me another sorrowful smile as he wiped away another tear. “Midnight just wanted to be with Birdie.”
Midnight and Birdie—our code names in our letters. We had both played roles, sending romantic fluff back and forth. Though underneath the syrupy prose and coy banter of Midnight and Birdie, there was still Derrick and Serafina.
And Derrick loved Serafina—sneaky, wicked, and powerful as she was.
The white flame seeped through my chest, forcing up every ounce of my shame, my sorrow, and my guilt until I could not hold back.
Is this what my magic was compelling me to do? Purge my guilt?
“I hate this,” I sobbed, wiping away a tear with the back of my hand. “I hate what I have done.”
Derrick’s eyes glistened. “Do not be ashamed of what happened at the ball. I…I know what it is like to wake up confused and sick, but none of it was your fault.”
Even after all my manipulation, he was still only concerned for me. I was worse than a snake.
“I embarrassed myself,” he said, “and my father will see to it that I mend my reputation in front of the Barons.” Revulsion dripped off his words. “I would rather cut off my own hand than go to the Darkest Night tomorrow. I do not know if he will sneak more Cupid’s Blood into my drink and let that monster loose on the crowd or if he will force me to fuck your mother while everyone watches.”
My stomach turned. “Cupid’s Blood?”
Derrick swallowed and looked away. “The potion that forces you to forget everything you are and fixate on only one thing. I have retched it up enough times to be very familiar with it.”
He leaned away from me, his eyes still downcast. “Ever since…what almost happened to Brietta the other night, I am too scared to even eat or drink anything.”
I turned toward him as much as I could with how close we already were. “Derrick…you have not eaten in four days?”
He shook his head, but still refused to look at me. “I cannot do it. Even still, Father could still trap me and force something down my throat like he did on my birthday. I can do nothing about it.”
The fear and anger that cut through his voice made my skin crawl.
“I will go with you,” I blurted out. “I will go to the Darkest Night with you.”
Derrick had said my letters had made him brave. If I could just give Derrick that small bit of security back, a small amount of his power back…maybe I could start to heal the wounds guilt left within me.
The white light brightened in my chest and I followed its energy.
“It might be a masked ball, but you will find me,” I said as the fire swelled within my soul. “Look for the Midnight Dream dress.”
Derrick lifted his eyes and a small smile flicked up his cheek. “I would know you even in a mask, Serafina.”
His hands found the harp strings again and he started strumming a slow and sweeping tune.
I shook my head. “How many songs do you have memorized? I do not know what this one is called.”
“You have no way of knowing,” he replied as the melody picked up. “No one has ever heard it before. I wrote it just for you.”
The ache in my soul deepend. “You did?”
His right hand plucked the higher stings near his face while his left hand crawled along the lower strings. “I call it Musica Trans Sepulcrum Amatores. ”
He must have noticed the lift of my eyebrow. “I named it from the language of my ancestors,” he explained. “The translation into Lycastrian is not exact, but it means ‘Music will carry my love beyond the grave.’”
Then Derrick played his heart for me, his eyes closed, fully leaning into the music as he embraced both the song and my body.
That little ember flickered in my chest, flaring four times.
If my affinity was healing, maybe healing all the wounds on Derrick’s heart would finally make me happy, truly happy.
I just had to get him through the Darkest Night.