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I walked slowly inside, past the ancient wooden cross on the wall with the endlessly blooming roses and into the kitchen, where a woman with ridiculously long hair and wearing a long embroidered robe under a fitted black jacket was sitting on my counter, writing in a small black journal. She looked up with a fierce smile before she dropped off the counter and held out her hand.
“Libby Morell? I’m the new musical magistrate of this city. The name’s Music Master Mirabel, but you can call me Music Master. I’m here to talk about your rent.”
My rent. I hadn’t paid rent since the last Music Master died. No, I’d spent it all on sushi. Would she need back payment? Probably, but it would take me time to get it. I got a glass out of the cupboard and ran water in the sink for a moment while I processed. I was still worked up about the Scholar and didn’t need another frustration.
I finally said, “I heard that the last Music Master passed. I’m sorry about that.”
She shrugged. “He was too lax. Can I be blunt? The city is on the cusp of disaster and no one else wanted to come take his place, which is why it’s been so long. The coffers are empty, the musical positions are at one fifth the required capacity, and your sector is completely stripped. I need musicians, and you need a place to live. Do you play?” Her bright eyes were incredibly intense, like a badger about to rip out your throat.
I stared at her. “You’re looking to recruit musicians? I don’t play.” Not that I couldn’t play, particularly the harp, because I’d used the disguise of wastrel traveling musician to lure evil-doers in my past career, but I wasn’t that person anymore and never would be again.
She smiled. “Then you won’t have any bad habits to break. Why don’t you have any furniture?”
“I have furniture. You shouldn’t break into people’s houses in case they have a vicious guard dog that might rip you apart.”
She picked up her harp from the counter and strummed it twice, the notes making my legs wobbly and my stress suddenly nonexistent. “You’re saying that you’re a dog person? Interesting. Very interesting. You have a bed and one chair, but I suppose that does qualify as some furniture. Look, I’m desperately searching for musicians, and I hate to throw out a perfectly amiable person with excellent tone, but if you aren’t willing to be this sector’s maintenance musician, I’ll have to evict you and find another person willing to exchange rent for music. I don’t think I’ll have to look hard, because we both know what rent is going for in this city for anything with a modicum of security.”
“You can’t kick me out.” I glared at her, for a moment wondering how many people knew that she was here and whether I could send her down into Song where she’d never be heard from again, although it wasn’t like it used to be down there. The last five years had completely changed it from somewhere you would automatically die to something slightly less dire.
She smiled sweetly and played another few bars of music that drained me of my anger. “I can and I will, because I’m dedicated to change, and change requires sacrifice, some from you, but most from me. Believe me, it’s not fun to run around this city pestering people for donations and service, but it’s my job, and I will do it well. So, are you in?” She gave me an optimistic smile that made her look extremely young.
“How old are you?”
“Old enough to play you into paralysis or submission, but I’m much too respectable for that, and so are you. The note about you said that you get this apartment in exchange for service rendered to the city, so I imagine that you are aware of your duty and the need the city has for fine musicians. What do you want to play?”
I was at a loss for words. She was young, or she wouldn’t have come to Singsong City, because she was right, it was a mess from the years when the undercity was in the grasp of a truly horrific monster, and his influence spread to Sing, with only the city’s most stubborn residents clinging to their homes and ways of life while everything crumbled around them. It was starting to come back, and my apartment, the Lydian, had private spellcasters to make it strong and defend against attacks magical and mundane, but not Music Masters, sad to say.
“You know what, it’s late, and you weren’t expecting me,” she said, her tone jarringly reconciliatory. “Why don’t you come down to the music hall on Saturday to try out instruments, maybe take a few lessons before you make your choice?”
“I didn’t say that I was going to become this sector’s musician.”
Her smile grew to manic proportions. “Of course not. You wouldn’t want to make such an important decision on the spur of the moment. You can tell me that you’ve decided to become this sector’s musician on Saturday at the music hall, or you can move out and ignore the city’s problems instead of being part of the solution. Your choice, but I hope that you choose to stay, because you have an excellent voice, good tone, expression, strength, and your hands have fine taper. You like dogs, hm? I’m really looking forward to seeing you again.” With that, she left the apartment, closing my front door behind her and leaving me in the small living room with my everblooming cross.
I touched a satiny petal, and it came off in my fingers, white with streaks of darkest red. That probably meant that my life was about to get messy. When I’d first moved into this apartment, the petals had been nearly black, but slowly, over the years, it had lightened up as much as I had. Now, Michael Stead was breathing down my neck about immortal and infernal fire, and I had to become a barely paid city maintenance musician or find another place to live. How many hours would that take of my life? I liked to spend eight hours a day after work on pet translation projects, but it wasn’t essential. Living close to my work and the sushi place was.
The city did need maintenance, particularly magical, or Sing would crumble into Song, and they’d both be ruined. The city had some physical structure other than magical, but pulses of magic tended to weaken anything that wasn’t bolstered with its own magical defenses. It was a worthy cause, and I had no interest in apartment hunting, but the indignity of trying to learn an instrument at my age? Not that I hadn’t looked younger and younger for the last few years, but that didn’t change how I felt.
I went to bed cranky and woke up the same. The new Music Magister had apparently eaten all of my granola while she’d been waiting for me. Who breaks into someone’s house and eats their breakfast? That was just cruel and unusual, but everything about the woman was unusual. Musicians were like that. Someone really needed to do something about SingSong City, and apparently, someone thought that person was Music Master Mirabel. She’d probably eventually burn out, and I wouldn’t have to do more than the minimum while she either abandoned SingSong or retreated to her personal tower and played her harp for the birds, like the old Music Master had done.
He was the only one who had seen me in the undercity five years ago. He’d helped me out, climbing up those never ending steps and then helping me to the healery, where I’d met Anna. He’d never mentioned who I was to anyone in authority, or I’d have been put on trial at best, been executed at worst. At any rate, he’d known the darkness in the city and been grateful that I’d sacrificed myself to end it. It hadn’t been my sacrifice, but Mother Mercy’s, and she never would have sent me alone into something that consuming.
I shook my head and went to work. I needed to retrieve a book from the sanctum of rareties and spell it five kinds of ways before eleven. I’d told him eleven, hadn’t I? The thought of the Scholar made me less polite to the guard than I usually was.
Once I’d gotten settled in at work inside the sanctum with its three foot thick walls of various substances including heavenly gold, I took my time breaking through the wards that protected and preserved the book the Scholar had requested, dangling from its heavenly gold chain from the ceiling so it wouldn’t come in contact with anything else that might trigger a curse or leach magic. Had Horace really told the monster about the book and could he read Ancient Persian? A text didn’t do much good if you couldn’t read it.
I sniffed and drew the figures around the edges of the book’s cover until they flashed gold and made a note of perfect purity that echoed in the room with its individually protected texts. I glanced over where my book hung, firmly wrapped in chains of gold and obsidian, the only thing I had from my father other than the ever-blooming cross.
“What are you working on today?” Jessica asked directly behind me. I hadn’t heard her come in, which meant that she was wearing soft-soled shoes just so she could creep around the stacks without letting you know she was coming. Or she just disliked echoing footsteps, but who didn’t like that evocative, slightly dread-inducing sound stretching down seemingly endless aisles?
“An order for the Scholar.”
She clucked her tongue. I visualized her dark hair wisping around her perfect oval face while she almost pursed her lips in distaste. She was very beautiful and had been for much longer than me. I was pretty sometimes and ugly at others, depending on my mood. I tried to not have a mood and just stay average in looks and temperament, but sometimes it didn’t work, like last night, apparently, when my gorgeousness overwhelmed the idiot driver who should at least get a ticket for almost running down civilians.
“You poor child, having to deal with those you despise so thoroughly. Why didn’t you pass off the assignment to me like you usually do? I’d be happy to help the Scholar with anything he wanted from me.”
I wasn’t going to delve deeply into those words. I just focused on my spelling, on the pulsing beautiful wards until they were unlinked from this place, and slipped into a different protection spell, specific to the book instead of the room. “Horace personally insisted,” I shrugged.
She laughed. “Oh, that’s sad. You mean, after he made you watch his little monsters, he made you work with the big ones? One of these days you’re going to have to stand up for yourself and insist on a raise and proper respect, that is, if you could get it without losing your job.”
