Chapter 16 #2
“Cadenza. Good, you’re here.” Thomas strolled into the lobby in tangerine frames and an asymmetrical, seafoam-green jacket. “We can get started—”
A snarl interrupted him, and Cadenza started. Drostan crumpled the brochure in his fist. Purple mottled his face, and veins popped out along his neck.
“You,” he spat.
Thomas pulled up short. He drew himself to his full height, face cold.
“Drostan, what’s wrong?” Cadenza looked between the two men, bewildered.
“Guardian,” Thomas said.
“Guardian?” Cadenza’s stomach lurched. Why would Thomas know to call Drostan that?
“Ercildoun,” Drostan growled.
Shock iced through her limbs. “No.” She shook her head. “No, Drostan. This is Thomas Learmonth. He owns the club.”
Thomas sighed and made a shallow bow. “Sir Thomas Learmonth of Ercildoun.”
“What?” she whispered. Ercildoun. Thomas was Ercildoun?
The name she’d so blithely added to her to-do list, like the person on the other side of Taran’s curse would be simply a name to wipe out.
This man was Ercildoun? This man had cursed Taran?
Beautiful, joking, drumsong, ocean, heartbeat Taran. Stuck forever.
Because of this man?
But the advice he’d given—she’d have sworn he truly wanted to help her.
He had helped her. It was his advice that helped her make the lightning shield, that led to her learning she was a Spinner.
But then, he couldn’t have given her that advice without being a part of Taran’s world. Pieces clicked into place.
She let notes slip out in the audition. He’d hired her. She blew the lights in her first performance. He taught her about finding a place in the music. Told her about his dead wife, who would have been a better teacher.
Because she had been a Spinner too.
Cadenza’s breath turned shallow. She had trusted this man. Let him into her head with his voice-lessons-turned-therapy sessions.
“You knew.” She squeezed her arms around her middle, trying to hold herself together. “You knew I was a…” She trailed off, the word still too new to use on herself.
“A Spinner?” Thomas finished. “Aye, of course I knew. How long did it take you to figure it out, Norroway?” He sneered at Drostan. “Or have you yet? The first Spinner in over a hundred years! Right under your nose her whole childhood. And you were too daft to see it.”
Thomas turned back to Cadenza, the winter melting out of his face. “Cadenza, come in, and we’ll talk. You have a gift. I can help you learn it. They can’t.”
“Thomas, take it off.” She clasped her hands in front of her, pleading. “The curse. Take it off, please. He’s stuck. He’s sorry. It’s been so long, you don’t need it anymore.”
“I’d be happy to take the curse off, my dear. Just as soon as they figure out how to restore my wife to me.” He glared at Drostan. “How is the young Master Norroway, by the by? Feeling sleepy yet?”
Bile burned the back of Cadenza’s throat.
Taran had already explained if he changed without intending to wake, he never would.
But he did. She woke him. And Thomas had advised her to leave him behind.
“That was your whole point, isn’t it? You want me to break his heart, so he’ll give up and disappear and your ‘revenge will be complete’ or some other villain bullcrap.
” Her voice rose even as the lump in her throat rehardened. “You were using me!”
“Taran can rot,” Thomas said, teeth clenched. “But you, I do want to help. Cadenza, you can’t go through life without being able to control the music. The Fates—”
“The Fates can suck it!” she screamed. “And so can you.”
“Now you’re talking, Caddie.” Drostan let a fist fly, and Thomas crashed into the wall. “Are you ready to take the curse off now, Tam, lad?” He grabbed Thomas by the collar, fist ready to slam into his face again.
Thomas dabbed at the blood flowing from his nose. The tangerine glasses were broken. “Nora, call the police please.”
The receptionist gawked, staring frozen at the scene.
“Do you think I give a pig’s arse about the police, Ercildoun?” Drostan scoffed. “I should drag you off right now and let Taran beat you to a bloody pulp. See if that breaks the curse.”
Thomas glared at him. “Perhaps you don’t care for yourself, but I’ll wager you’re not willing to let Cadenza be arrested as complicit.”
Drostan glowered, his face turning a deeper shade of violet, and he growled at his enemy, teeth glinting. But he released Thomas’s collar and stepped away.
“That’s better. Never mind, Nora.”
No one moved. The sun beat through the front windows, its heat arguing with the A/C.
Her mother. Thomas. The Fates. They all wanted something from her.
Her legs shook. She felt made of clay, the pressure of their plans pushing and pulling on her until she thought she would implode into a formless heap of shards. They all wanted something, but none of them cared what she wanted. And none of them cared about Taran.
She tugged on Drostan’s arm. “Let’s go home.”
He nodded, yanked the front door off its hinges the way she’d seen Taran rip apart the fence and stalked out.
“Cadenza,” Thomas called after her. “My offer to teach you still stands.”
She didn’t turn back.