“Ah, that makes sense.” It had had the feel of a scam, but she’d witnessed the flutes playing. She just hadn’t known how the effect was achieved. “They should advertise the name of the musician when they sell the flute. They could charge higher prices for flutes enspelled by better musicians.”
“Can you go back to telling me about dragons? Have you ever met one?”
Marin grinned as she untied the knots around the canvas. “Once we met a dragon who had a crush on Perri.” That much was true. It hadn’t been on Ilreka, but it had been hilarious.
Perri blew bubbles in the water.
“He tried to impress him with his ability to swim.”
Dax raised both his eyebrows.
“Yeah, Perri wasn’t impressed,” Marin said.
The sea serpent bobbed his head in agreement.
A muffledthudshook the walls of the tunnel, and the water vibrated. Perri ducked underneath. Marin looked up. “What was that?”
“Drums?” Dax guessed.
“You have drums that large?”
“We do.” He frowned. “I didn’t think they were out of storage…” Dismissing it, he pulled the canvas off the mayharp to reveal it, and he smiled broadly. “Ah, it’s beautiful!”
The mayharp was carved from a deep red wood. It was nearly Marin’s height, with a curved stand and an array of golden strings. At the top were horns with finger holes carved into the wood with so much precision and delicacy that it looked as if it must have taken a master craftsman years to finish.
“The seller said it’s designed to be played by musicians with multiple arms,” Marin said as Dax ran his fingers over the holes of the flute while he plucked at the strings.
“It is,” he agreed. “We have a student with four arms. Grandmaster Cheyan has taken her on for private tutoring, and this will be her instrument, once she’s proven herself proficient enough on harp and flute independently.” This, however, didn’t stop Dax from blowing gently into the horns while he played the harp strings. His fingers moved faster over the strings and the flute holes, and music poured out of the instrument.
In the water, Perri swayed his head back and forth, his eyes closed as he listened.
Within the tunnel, the lovely tune echoed, turning in on itself, and Dax used those reverberating melodies as if they were other musicians, harmonizing with them. He played with the echoes until the tunnel was filled with beauty.
The music washed over Marin, and she breathed it in. She’d never heard anyone play a mayharp before, and the way Dax took a simple tune and then expanded it until it filled all the senses… It was like being subsumed by gentle waves. With a final chord, he broke off the tune, and they were all silent while the echoes of the harp and flute music faded, slowly, swallowed by stone and water. She wondered if he knew how much his playing was like being surrounded by the sea.
Still staring at the mayharp, he handed her a bag filled with her payment. She checked to be sure it was the full amount before sliding it into one of her many pockets. Her pants were another gift from her parents: a supply runner’s pants with many waterproof pockets that could hold coins, emergency supplies, and whatever else shewanted to keep safe. “Thank you. That was…” Words popped into her head: exquisite, transcendent, cathartic. “… nice.” She winced at herself, but the word was out there already.
“I’ll alert the dockworkers that this needs to be brought upstairs,” Dax said, as if unaware she’d downplayed his music so much that it was almost an insult. At least he wasn’t offended. Distracted, he was frowning at the stairs. “I don’t know where they all are. Yours wasn’t the only delivery expected today.” His forehead creased again—he was, she thought, more worried than he let on. “Regardless, they’ll see that it’s transported safely to Grandmaster Cheyan.”
She supposed that was her cue to leave. She did have another delivery to make this morning, and she’d lingered longer than she should have. She didn’t know what it was about Dax that made her want to linger. He was a unique man. Usually she didn’t dock for longer than it took to load or unload.
“Thanks for the music,” Marin said.
“Thank you for the story,” Dax said. He then raised his eyebrows. “Just ‘nice’?”
“You know it was beautiful.”
With mock gravity, he agreed, “I do know.”
She hesitated for a moment after untying her boat from the dock. “Listen, Dax, I don’t know what’s going on in Alyssium, but… be careful, okay?” She thought of the boarded-up windows. “Stay in the conservatory.”
His lips twisted. “Always. Don’t worry. Everyone will ensure I do.”
Marin waved as she poled away, back down the tunnel. Perri trailed behind her, blowing sad bubbles toward Dax. Glancing back, she saw he was watching them, his hand resting on the mayharp, with the orange winged cat curled around his ankles.
As she reached the end of the tunnel, anotherthud, this time louder, shook the walls and the water. It didn’t sound like a drum.
CHAPTER THREE
