Page 109 of The Musician and the Monster

Malik advanced on Adair, who hastily stepped away, but Ceridwen bolted between them. “Wait.” She whirled on her brother. “Adair, how many men do you know in the castle guard here?”

The headstrong fool notched his chin higher. “Quite a few since that’s where my regiment is stationed this time. Why?”

Ceridwen… Don’t…

Malik spoke the warning racing through his mind. “If word gets out…”

“Trust me,” Ceridwen said to Malik, and then stared past him at the mirror, straight at Drystan, where he hovered in the gloom.

Trust you? Certainly. Your brother?Something popped in Drystan’s jaw as his teeth ground together.

Ceridwen turned to her brother. “Swear on the Goddess that what we tell you will never leave this room.”

Adair stood straighter, his gaze flickering between his sisters. Eventually, he said, “I swear it.”

Chapter 49

Ceridwen

Ceridwen explained the plan to Adair, who turned pale and nearly lost his supper on the rug. Drystan’s sudden reappearance from the mirror didn’t help matters. But at the end of it all, once they laid bare in minutes the truth it had taken her months to uncover, his shock and disbelief transformed into a sullen silence so uncharacteristic of her brother that Ceridwen worried the revelations might have broken something in him. Eventually though, he stared between his sisters in a silence so full of words she could taste the unspoken apology in the air.

“Get me a sash, a mark of the king’s guard, and I’ll do it,” Adair promised. “If I can help at all, I will. For my sisters.”

“It’s settled then,” Malik said, rising to his feet so quickly, Ceridwen would wager he’d been about to do that anyway if Adair had kept quiet a moment longer. “Now I need to find blood. It will take more than my own and my stores for the workings to be wrought.”

Adair paled further at the mention of blood. They’d explained a bit of that too—vaguely. He didn’t like it, any of it, but where their brother had always been a little carefree and quick, he was the opposite in this, and that, if nothing else, gave Ceridwen the confidence that he was fully on their side.

Bronwyn turned to Malik. “Take mine.”

A small gasp slipped from Ceridwen, and she sat a little straighter, gaping wide-eyed at her sister. Malik stared her down as well, perhaps searching for sincerity. His eyes dilated as he watched Bronwyn, emotions Ceridwen couldn’t quite place flashing in those green depths.

“It’s the best way I can help.” Her sister shrugged. “Everyone else has a bigger role than me.”

Neither Malik nor Bronwyn looked away from each other. Silence lingered heavy and thick until Adair coughed, rising to his feet. The sound snapped the invisible cord strung taut between them.

“Well, I need to go look up some of my old training buddies if we’re going to make this work. Wish me luck. And you two”—he looked between his sisters, his throat bobbing—“stay safe.” Adair showed himself out.

Shortly after, Malik and Bronwyn excused themselves, leaving Drystan and Ceridwen alone once again.

He wrapped his arms around her from behind, resting his chin upon her head.

She sighed and eased into his warmth, savoring every fleeting moment.

“I promised to remind you how clever you are.” His whispered words drifted over her ear with the warmth of his breath, sending a shiver down her spine.

“Clever. Or very, very foolish.” She’d either signed their death warrants or discovered the key to the prison of their lives. Only, she didn’t know which. Unfortunately, the first was more likely.

“Either way, you’re very, very brave.”

His arms loosened ever so slightly. “Don’t leave, not yet.”

“They’ll be wanting to close up the opera house soon, and I need to get back.”

Logic did nothing to calm the need humming through her. “A few minutes more. Just like this.”

He tilted her chin up and to the side until his face was a breath from hers. “I have a better idea.”

Drystan’s kiss was far from chaste. He kissed like a man on the way to the gallows, one last taste of sweetness before his doom. Perhaps he was. Perhaps they all were. So Ceridwen kissed him back the same, giving everything she had to the man she loved.

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