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How fortunate for her that she had one. She’d promised to sing with some of the musicians from the Fool’s End tonight. She knew that all they wanted from it was a simple test—to see if she would meet them on the streets, in the community she claimed to want to be a part of.
That was what she had promised and it was, initially, all she’d planned to do. Then Alaric had happened. Alaric, who had made her feel as if she’d escaped one prison only to have stepped halfway into another, and if she wasn’t careful, she would fall wholly through and the door would slam shut behind her. Alaric, who had threatened to send her back to him. Like it was nothing.
Alaric, who had said, They love you when you sing, and, Love is power.
Alaric. Alaric. ALARIC.
His name was a curse buried beneath her tongue, was the vitriol burning through her veins, was the fuel that had her urging Kialla faster toward the city.
If love was power, then she would make them love her. If love was power, then she would be more powerful than he could ever be.
But it wasn’t love that had her walking into business after business, every one she could find that might ever need to hire a singer or other musician. It wasn’t love that drove her into the normal businesses after that. It wasn’t with love that she delivered, to every person in those establishments, the black diamond in her ear on full display, the same message: I’ll be singing tonight, in the city park, at the nineteenth bell.
By the time she walked into the Fool’s End, her rage had subsided to a steady simmer—manageable, but ready to return to a boil at a moment’s notice.
The bar went briefly silent at her entry—possibly because of the look on her face—before Marcus, the brother of the woman who’d asked Clare to sing the night before—broke it. “Told you all she’d show.”
The groans and shuffling of coins told Clare a fair amount of betting had taken place on whether she would or wouldn’t appear this evening. She ignored it. “There’s been a change of plans.”
Marcus’s sister snorted. “And I told you she wouldn’t actually sing with us.”
Clare ignored that too, taking in the packed bar. “I’m going to need all of you. And we’re going to the park.”
A hush blanketed the room.
“The law doesn’t forbid us from playing in the park,” came a soft voice, from a girl who looked perhaps fifteen, “but they don’t like us there. They always find a reason to make us leave.”
“They won’t make me leave.”
An older man spoke up next. “There’s a reason we don’t all get together and put on a concert. There’s not enough money once you split it that many times.”
“You’ll all make a night’s worth of Musicians Guild wages, or I’ll pay it myself. Now”—she found Amarrah, standing by the bar, and flipped her a coin—“you need to hire me to Songweave. On behalf of everyone here.”
Amarrah turned the coin over, but her eyes were on Clare. “What am I hiring you to do to us, exactly?”
Clare smiled. “To show you exactly who you are.”
Amarrah contemplated it, reading the room before tossing the coin back to Clare as payment. “Then show us who we are.”
So she did.
Songweaving was a resource Clare had once made use of daily, in that lawless place where the only curbs on magic use were those put in place by whomever was stronger than you. She realized she’d missed it, having not exercised the power since she’d made the king feel heartbreak. The twist and lull of the magic in her voice, how achingly good it felt to use it. Like stretching a muscle that had been begging for use only to be ordered to rest.
She worked it now, sussing out from each person in this room what had drawn them here. What made them unique, what the one thing was they brought to their art that no one else could bring, and she reminded them of it.
Nothing could be won without confidence, so for this one night, she gave them the confidence of who they were. Of who they could be. And when they were ready she led them out of the Fool’s End, through the streets to the park, where already so many were gathered.
She’d counted on her name, on her novelty, to draw the first crowds, and she was not disappointed. She sang, and the musicians at her back played. The crowd swelled around them, until the city guard did indeed make an appearance. But they, like the crowd, only listened as she poured herself into the music, and every person with her did the same.
She knew she’d accomplished what she wanted when she spotted Madame Aria at the edge of the crowd, flanked by two red-clad Hounds. But there was nothing for those Hounds to find as Clare sang. Her magic was tucked away, her voice only her voice. She smiled at Madame Aria as one of the Hounds shook his head.
The look the woman gave her in return promised that this wasn’t over, that she could be every bit as vindictive as Numair had warned. Clare welcomed it. She was going to need something to occupy her time.
Chapter Fifty-Four
I Know Bad Men
Clare didn’t even pretend she should return to the palace that evening. If Verol thought it wouldn’t be a problem that she wasn’t with him now, as the apprenticeship’s terms stated she should be, then she couldn’t see how it would be a problem if she stayed here, rather than in the palace suite. And after today...well, she wanted to stay as far away from Alaric as possible.
