Page 45 of The Musician and the Monster

“Of course we are worried,” Gwen stepped in. “But going against his orders…” She shook her head. “The steps are warded. He will know if we go up them, even to simply peek into the rooms. Going against his wishes would break his trust and endanger our place here.”

“Or worse,” Kent mumbled.

A stern look from Jackoby caused Kent to flinch. Yet his words sparked more curiosity in Ceridwen than anything else.

Drystan did not seem the type to unjustly punish those around him, not over such a small trespass, especially if done with his best interest in mind. And if he had tried to keep the monster at bay last night and had been injured, he might need help—desperately.

While a silent conversation passed among her companions, Ceridwen eyed the stairs. Her family needed the money that Drystan provided. She needed it. And in a way, she needed him. He’d reignited her dream of sharing her music and freed her heart from its lonely isolation. To risk his ire and lose out on this miracle of an opportunity would be stupid. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong or the mental image of him lying bloody and injured on the floor.

“You all heard the monster last night?”

Reluctant nods from Gwen and Kent confirmed her worries. Jackoby stood stone-faced. For once, he refused to meet her gaze.

“He could be hurt! Worse!” She stomped at their complacency. If he’d fended off the monster and something had gone wrong, he could be in terrible pain. Her whole body vibrated with barely contained anxiety.

They might not be willing to risk their position for the health and safety of their lord, but sitting still was out of the question for her, even if it risked the money her family needed. Surely he would not send her away over this, not something done out of care and concern.

“I’m going up.” She trudged toward the staircase without waiting to see their response, yet a sharp intake of breath teased her ears.

A step away from the first stair, a hand wrapped around her wrist, pulling her to a stop. Her head snapped to Jackoby. His eyes shone with an emotion she couldn’t place. For the first time, his role of butler fell away to reveal the man underneath.

“Don’t.” A soft tug on her arm accompanied his words.

But she shrugged off his grip and stepped onto the wide first step. “I have to.”

Behind him, Kent wrapped his arms around Gwen, a show of comfort, much like a mourner at a funeral. Ceridwen swallowed her nerves and continued on.

As soon as she crossed fully onto the stairs, sound stopped, all but the echo of her boots on the polished stone. Over her shoulder, she could see Jackoby’s mouth moving and Kent saying something to a distraught Gwen, but the words were lost to silence.

Drystan had warded the staircase in more ways than one, but for what purpose, she could not say. Ceridwen followed the twisting steps as they took her up and up into the darkness of the unlit staircase until only a faint glow ahead of her and the residual light from below lit her way in the darkness.

Her pace slowed as the top of the landing came into view. She’d likely traveled at least two floors up into the darkness of the stairwell without passing so much as a door or window. An oil lamp flickered at the top of the stairs, one that burned low. She could barely make out a trace of oil in the well at the bottom. Another few hours would see it burn itself through if left untended.

“Drystan,” she called softly, hoping not to walk in on him unaware.

The door at the top of the stairs had been left wide open, yet no response greeted her.

She gasped, her feet rooting themselves to the stone at the threshold. Beyond the open door, the room lay in shambles.

Papers were strewn across the floor, along with an assortment of accessories she did not take the time to examine. Black ink pooled in a spilled puddle on the floor next to a shattered lamp, its oil swirling with the edge of the ink puddle. Sheets had been partially pulled from a bed on the right wall and lay heaped upon the floor. Little feathers floated near their edges and graced the bedcoverings. A table was upended, a chair’s navy-blue cloth ripped on one armrest. Petals covered the floor around the base of a pot near the window.

The monster came inside.

The thought stripped the heat from her body. Somehow, impossibly, it had crept into Drystan’s tower. Yet no blood marred the floors or any surface she could see. Nor did she find what she most feared—a body.

But the stairs continued upward. Another floor loomed above.

Ceridwen ran up the stairs, desperate to find Drystan.

Please be all right. Please be—

She stifled a scream as the steps ended, dumping her into a room even more destroyed than the one below. But it wasn’t the overturned bookshelf, the scattered dried herbs, broken plants, or even the arrangement of weapons knocked from their displays that caused her heart to clench in fear.

A stone altar stood in the center of the room, covered in bloody designs. A blade as long as her forearm and coated in blood lay poised in the center of the pattern. Unlike the workings Drystan performed in her room, this blood had not disappeared upon casting.

The working drew her like a beckoning call. Without thinking, she crossed the space and stared at the gruesome mess in a chilled daze.Incomplete or interrupted?

She reached her hand toward the altar.

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