Page 44 of The Musician and the Monster

Ceridwen

The day Malik left for his venture, Drystan did not make an appearance. Not at dinner. Nor after to request her songs.

She played anyway in the confines of her room. After two wistful melodies, she stepped out into the knee-high snow on the balcony, hoping Drystan might somehow appear. The night she’d played for him out there was forever burned into her memory, along with the feel of his lips on hers.

He had not tried to kiss her again, not with Malik’s disturbance. But with him gone, she had hoped things might change. Instead, he was curiously absent.

The lights in his tower flickered, but Ceridwen spied no movement beyond their reaches. As she raised the flute to her lips to begin a new song, a sound cut through her, one more chilling than the biting cold soaking into her stockings and slipping through the material of her gloves.

A moan-like howl pierced the night. Close. Possibly just outside the manor walls.

“Drystan.”

His name was a prayer, a plea.

Ceridwen stumbled through the snow back toward the glass balcony door. Her heart thundered louder in her chest with every slow step.

Another ghastly wail sounded, even closer than before. Her heart leaped into her throat. Her hands shook, and not just from the cold.Faster, Ceridwen.

The balcony door had never felt so far away. She tore toward it like a dead man racing for the Goddess’s loving embrace. When she finally grasped the handle and pushed it open, she practically fell into the room, savoring the warmth emanating from the crackling fire and assumed protection of the walls. In another heartbeat, she flung the door shut behind her, sending the glass rattling in its frame.

She clutched the flute like a shield in front of her, where she huddled in a puddle of damp skirts on the stone floor, breathing heavily. Outside the windows, she could seenothing past the blanket of snow barely illuminated in the cloudy night. When at last her shaking legs allowed her to stand, she pulled all the curtains shut—a final barrier against the monster. They wouldn’t save her. Not from that. But they gave comfort all the same.

When the eerie wails echoed only in her thoughts and no longer in the still night beyond, Ceridwen finally crawled under the layer of blankets upon the bed and willed herself to sleep.

Drystan never came.

But neither did the monster.

Before dinner the next day, Ceridwen came upon Jackoby, Kent, and Gwen arguing in hushed tones in a tight cluster at the base of the winding staircase leading up to Drystan’s tower. The one place that she had been forbidden from entering.

Their conversation halted as her booted steps echoed in the hallway, muffling whatever words had been spoken between them before she appeared.

“Good afternoon, Miss Ceridwen,” Jackoby announced with a short bow as if nothing were amiss and this day was as common as any other. Yet she had a suspicion of what they discussed and why they discussed it in this location. That same concern had driven her to this very spot, unable to sit still and not worry over the missing lord of the manor. Particularly given the monstrous sounds echoing through the night.

“Has he not come down today?” she asked.

Gwen fidgeted with her apron. Kent looked away. Only Jackoby got straight to the point. “No. He has not.”

An invisible hand clenched her heart. “Has anyone been up to check on him?”

Jackoby’s lips thinned. Kent and Gwen both refused to meet her steady gaze.

“Something might be wrong. What if he’s had another attack?” She’d seen that only once, but if it could happen one time, it could happen again.

“We’re not allowed in the tower,” Gwen admitted, finally releasing the apron she’d wrinkled with her hands. Jackoby slid her a side-eyed look, but she ignored him.

“None of you?” She’d thought his rule only applied to her. Why would he prevent his trusted household staff from entering his rooms as well?

“She spoke truly,” Jackoby added. “No one is allowed in the lord’s tower.”

Incredulous, she shook her head.

“No one,” Jackoby echoed.

Ceridwen pursed her lips and closed the distance between them until she stood amid their cluster of bodies. “Are you not worried?” She stared them each down in turn. Was she the only one who heard that monster in the night? Permitted or not, someone needed to check on him.

“It’s only been two days…” Kent began, but his words were unconvincing.

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