“Jack? Did you hear me?” Adaira was saying.
“Mm.” He suddenly didn’t want her to know. He didn’t want her to know he was in agony, that he was bleeding. But the truth hit him like an axe: playing for the spirits required him to spin magic with his craft. It was devastating to realize this was how his mother felt after completing an enchanted plaid.
“She made it sound as if the spirits want nothing to do with our children in their realm,” Adaira was saying. “But I struggle to believe such a claim.”
“Then we must ask ourselves what mortal children can do for them in the world beyond ours,” Jack said. “Surely the spirits have uses for us, even if it is only to entertain them.”
“Yes,” Adaira said in a distant tone. “What do you think Ream meant about others being higher than them?”
Jack swallowed. He could taste a clot of blood, and he cleared his throat. “Who can guess? We should have known the spirits wouldn’t speak plainly.” As if they heard him, a wave broke hard on the rock and splashed him in the face. “Thank you for that,” he muttered, irritated.
The bleeding was easing. So was the strain behind his eyes, but the pain lingered in his hands. He flexed his stiff fingers, full of worry.
Adaira herself was lost in thought. Eventually, she said, “I think she meant that the spirits of earth and air are above the water. I never realized that.”
“Neither did I.”
Adaira fell quiet. Her back was still pressed against his, and he felt her draw a deep breath.
“Jack? Could you play my mum’s ballad to summon the spirits of the earth?”
He went rigid. “Your mum composed a ballad for earth?”
“Yes.”
“And what of fire and wind?”
“She never composed music for them. At least, not to mine or my father’s knowledge.”
Jack was silent. He stared at the foaming water surrounding them, at the harp in his hands, at the bloodstain on his plaid. He didn’t know how to tell Adaira what he was feeling—about his overwhelming sense of wonder, fear, intensity, and agony. To play for the spirits, to have been found worthy. To sense the power that hid in his hands and his voice. Even now, the lingering heat of magic still coursed through him.
It was a dangerous feeling. He wondered how quickly his vitality would wane.
It was also apparent that Alastair had failed to inform Adaira of the cost. Or perhaps Adaira simply didn’t know. She didn’t know her mother’s health had been stolen, bit by bit, every time she played for the folk. Lorna’s untimely death had come from an accident five years ago. A fall from a horse, not a slow wasting sickness fueled by wielding magic. But her fate—had she lived out her years singing for the spirits—now hung like a constellation in the sky, and Jack could read it clearly.
To be the Bard of the East was an honor, but it came with a terrible cost. And Jack didn’t know if he was strong enough to pay it.
“The folk have to know where the lasses are, which spirit is offended and hiding them,” Adaira said, speaking her thoughts aloud. “They see nearly everything. The answers must rest with them. And if the water spirits have had their mouths sealed from speaking truth … we need to summon and speak to the others. But what do you think?”
“I think that’s our next step,” Jack agreed. He didn’t say out loud what he and Adaira had both realized, although he knew she was thinking it too. If the earth spirits couldn’t help them, he would have to compose a ballad for wind. He had no idea what that would do to him. “I’ll need time to study your mum’s music.”
I’ll need time to recover from this.
“Come to the castle later today,” she said. “And I will give it to you.”
They sat in companionable silence for a while longer on the rock, until the moon had started to set and the tides had calmed.
Adaira eventually slipped into the water and swam around the rock to look up at him. “Are you going to sit there all night, bard?”
He tensed, hearing the mirth in her voice. “I don’t think it’s wise to swim in the sea at night.” He nearly added that this was not just a mainland opinion, for the ocean was never safe. But Jack suppressed those words, thinking Adaira would wield anything mainland against him.
“So do you plan to sit there all night?” she asked.
“Until the tide goes down, yes,” said Jack.
“Which is at dawn, you know.”
He ignored her and the taunting invitation to join her in the water, holding his harp close. His gaze wandered up to the sky, seeking to read the time. But from the corner of his eye, he watched her as she continued to bob in the waves, waiting for him. And then she was gone, vanishing beneath the dark surface. Jack’s full attention returned to where she had been wading.