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“That’s a Gray Society official, Libby,” she hissed once we were far enough that he couldn’t hear us.
“I don’t care. What is he going to do, report me to the library and get me fired?” I snorted, but it hurt. Oh it hurt so much to remember how much I’d already lost.
Her fingers tightened on my wrist with a different kind of pain. “No, he’ll report you to the Music Guild, and then you’d have to sit trial, and I’d probably have to fund it, and that would make everyone I’m trying to make work together hate both of us. Why didn’t you stick to insults?”
“I’m not so great at insults, and he’s probably too stupid to understand them.”
“He didn’t understand you punching him, either. I hate that kind of pansy. No offense,” she said to my dog, who wagged his tail at her. “But he’s not worth injuring your hands over. Next time, let me handle it.”
“What would you do?”
“I’d suggest that he join musical maintenance and then I’d start talking about his duty as a citizen of Singsong City.”
“And how bad the snacks are.”
“You’re coming to rehearse tomorrow,” she said, ignoring my subtle criticism. “You need it.”
I nodded and led her into the Cat’s Pause, waving at Rynne who was wearing her rollerblades indoors, which drove her mother crazy, which meant that she was out for the evening, probably to visit her mother on the other side of the city.
“Oh, good,” Rynne said, coming up to us. “Anna’s getting melancholy and singing really, really loudly.”
“Singing?” Mirabel asked, ears pricking up like a spaniel. Not literally.
Rynne frowned down at Pansy, who had his head lolling and drool was pooling on the floor beneath him. “Does he bite?”
“No, he’s a service animal,” Mirabel reassured her. “Singing?”
“It’s a piano bar,” I said, leading her deeper into the room, past the first bar and then towards the table and the bar around the piano. Ma’am Granite was the finest octogenarian pianist in the city, and she was getting ready to play for Anna where she stood next to the piano bench, hands clasped at her waist as she got ready to sing her favorite song, the one that made her cry and weave while she sang her heart out.
She had a voice like rain, soft, delicate, but when she got like this, it was rumbling thunder and heavy beats that made you hurt with her. She’d suffered a lot of trauma she didn’t remember, but it still weighed on her soul.
Anna sang, and the piano’s interpretation of heavy metal was deeply confusing to Mirabel, but she took my guitar, pulling it over her shoulder and walking over on the other side of Anna. She did some hard riffs that would have worked better on an electric guitar, but even with my nice, soft stringed instrument, she could make music do what she wanted it to do. All of a sudden, it was a performance, and lines of gold spread out through the musicians, through the bar, and out into the streets around us.
I found myself singing along, and Pansy took up a howl, until the whole bar rang with voices, singing that hard raucous riot until the windows trembled with the sound. When Anna finished the last bit, the slow, sad, drowning in misery, my heart ached with her, the rending from the library making my chest ache until a few tears fell from my tired eyes, and then the song was over, Anna sniffed, blew her nose on a napkin and then came over to me with Mirabel behind her.
“Anna, you met Mirabel. Mirabel, Anna the healer. She works at the small healery two blocks north. Mirabel is the new Song Master of Singsong City, and will probably try to get you to join the guild.”
“A healer?” Mirabel said, raising a brow skeptically. “How good a healer are you?”
There was a beat of awkward silence before I put my arm around Anna’s shoulders. “Anna is the best. Come on, we need sushi before the kitchen closes. I promised to buy Mirabel enough to tide her over until tomorrow, when she has all day of thankless manipulation to get the guild in fighting shape.”
“I’m asking because your music is a different timbre than most healers,” Mirabel said, sliding into a chair across from me, but studying Anna with that slight frown.
“The metal comes out when she’s melancholy, which is very rare. Usually Anna’s a ray of sunshine. Do you remember what’s bothering you?” I asked her.
Anna sighed heavily. “Gabby works so hard at the academy, doing janitorial duties while she sees all the rich people taking classes. Does the music guild do scholarships at universities?” she asked, looking at Mirabel hopefully.
“Nope,” Mirabel said flatly. “I’m sure we would, but we’re broke. Why do broke people attract one another? It’s one of those mystical cosmic things that is truly tragic. Is the server going to bring us menus?”
“No, she’ll bring out whatever the cook makes. I am also having a melancholy day,” I told Anna. “I was fired, actually they rendered the library from me, so if I start crying all over the place, that’s why. The Scholar put some spells on me to help with transition, but it’s still awful.”
Anna gasped and grabbed my face in her hands, staring into my eyes. “Who did that to you? Your soul is raw and bleeding like crazy!”
I ducked out of her grasp. “The board. It’s my fault, because I didn’t tell them that the Scholar was going to turn Horace, and then he came back as a vampire, and ripped apart my shoulder, and then terrorized the library until he was recaptured. It was drama, bad publicity, and unprofessional, so I got cut. I guess they had to blame somebody. I didn’t have benefits.”
“Corruption’s everywhere,” Mirabel said with a scowl before she jabbed my shoulder, the one Horace had ripped apart. “I wondered why your form was so bad. Still, that’s good work if you’re back to playing so soon. Who paid for your surgery? You said that you didn’t have benefits.”
Anna’s eyes got bright and mischievous. “The Scholar is very interested in her good health. He stopped a car for her and hired the most competent sorcerer I’ve ever met to heal her. Not that I’ve met a lot of sorcerers.” She made a face before she continued. “Speaking of poor people attracting poor, the Scholar’s loaded, isn’t he?”
