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“Let’s get you better. Mirabel will run out for anything we need. I’ll make a list.”
It was kind of nice to be fussed over by two crazy women, even if one of them forced me to consume vast amounts of revolting concoctions that would kill a weaker person. They tucked me in bed and stayed in my living room, playing music and cleaning up the leftovers while I fell asleep.
When I woke up, I felt much better, good enough to walk Pansy to the music hall. It took longer than going alone, but it was one of the few places I could take him, and I wanted the company. The music hall was as depressing and run-down as I remembered, but when I got inside, the whole atmosphere was better. People were laughing, the music felt less forced, and while it was musical chaos in the big hall, with multiple groups practicing different styles with different instruments, they were mostly in the same key.
As I walked through the room, my instrument on my shoulder, Pansy’s leash in my hand, I saw people carrying plates with snacks that looked like a French food film had decided to use the music hall as their set. I followed the food into the dining room, and there was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. They had an entire table just for sushi, platters in tubs of ice, all my favorite kinds and others I’d never tried before. The other tables had varieties of snacks from sweet to savory, and all of them were beautiful and looked edible.
“Libby!” Tiago called, coming towards me while balancing three plates. “Thank you, thank you! And the caterers said that the Saturday snacks were paid for in perpetuity. Can you imagine?”
I picked up a sushi roll and then stopped before I put it in my mouth. “By who?”
“They called him the Marshall of Song.”
My heart sank, and I put down the sushi roll. “It might be poisoned. He’s a vampire who wants to turn me.”
“It’s not poisoned. It was catered by a respectable company, and Mirabel did some spells over it to make sure it was okay, as well as sampling every dish herself.”
“She’s such a conscientious music master.”
He smiled brilliantly. “And you are a most conscientious maintenance musician. You’ve been tuning in Song? No one’s done that for years. I tried once and ended up crying for hours from the emotional harangue.”
“I did notice that it was more emotional in Song than Sing. Why is that?”
He shrugged. “From the moody, brooding, emotional people, probably. Did Mirabel tell you about the night sessions? We have a dozen people coming at midnight to join our guild, all from Song. You’ve been such an excellent ambassador.”
“I haven’t done much.”
“Psh. You’ve tuned at least a lamp a day since you got sick, usually many more. Almost your entire district is in tune. Do you know how happy that makes the city? I walk through your neighborhood just to hear the lamps, and now you’re tuning Song as well in your district, taking responsibility for both instead of just the one? Mirabel is terribly grateful to have you.”
I popped the sushi in my mouth. This conversation was getting awkward. I didn’t do anything besides tune lamps when I took Pansy out for a walk in the morning and in the evening. The lamps in Song had more to do with needing something to do on my date with the Scholar than me being particularly vigilant. Still, it was always nice to be appreciated. It was probably mostly the snacks that made Tiago wax so eloquent.
He didn’t let his happiness stop him from working me particularly hard in lessons that day, solo, and then in our group as we studied without nearly the amount of whining and hesitance as we’d had before the concert when we’d seen and heard our potential.
Walker lady was chummy enough to tell me her name, Naomi, and that she’d tuned a few lamps with Mirabel, and it hadn’t been so bad.
It was a great day, and I played until Tiago sent me home to rest and get completely recovered.
On the way back, I stopped and tuned lamps with Pansy, walking slowly between lamps as I tried to figure out what to do about the book, and the Scholar, and paying my bills. I had a place to live, and I could, theoretically, live off the snacks for a week like Mirabel no doubt was doing, but eventually I’d run out of things to translate in my living room. The Scholar could supply me with an infinite variety of books as well as my old favorites.
When I got home, I stopped and stared at the box of oranges on my doorstep. There was a letter on the top with my name on it, or rather, ‘The Librarian’ on it, which was ridiculous because I wasn’t a librarian of anything other than my private library.
I dragged the box of oranges into my apartment and then unleashed Pansy. He went to the spot in the sunshine in front of the window and collapsed. He’d had a busy day napping in between our walking sessions.
I dragged the oranges to the kitchen and then sat on the counter to read the letter.
Dear Miss Morell,
Please accept these in way of apology. I understand that oranges are very healthy, and that you’ve been sick from my thoughtlessness, flying with you until you were nearly iced over. If there’s anything you would like that I could do to make amends, please let me know. If you’d rather not communicate directly with me, Anna will take a message for you.
~Stead
Anna. Had she gone marching through Song and into the Scholar’s lab to browbeat him into apologizing to me? Of course she had. What were friends for, even if they couldn’t remember you half the time?
I smoothed over the words of the letter with my finger, then noticed the words on the back written in his same clear handwriting, but in ancient Persian. He’d given me oranges and something to translate?
My heart beat faster and my lips ached. I closed my eyes, pressed the letter to my lips, and tasted his words.
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