Talia cast an irritated eye up the stairs, but Ahned still didn’t appear.
The music wound on as she waited, tugging at her strangely, and after a few more moments she couldn’t stand it any longer. She had to find out what it was. With one last glance at the staircase, she crossed the foyer and stepped into the hall. The music grew a little louder. She passed a doorway that looked into a small dining room and kept going. The hall turned to the right, drawing her past a few more doors, all shut, and then at last to the source of the music—a room in the back of the house spilling light and melody into the corridor. She stopped in front of the door and peered in.
The room was small, but comfortable. A pair of armchairs were pulled up to a small fire; a window in the back wall looked out into the rain. Haphazardly-arranged shelves, overflowing with books and sheet music, lined the walls. Between them hung all kinds of instruments—viols and miniature harps, flutes and recorders of various sizes, a half dozen drums, and more that Talia had no names for.
Underneath the window stood another instrument she didn’t know. It looked like a harpsichord—same shape and strings, same black-and-white keys marching up and down its widest part—but it had a completely different sound.
A young man sat behind the not-harpsichord, lost in creating the mesmerizing music that Talia had heard from the entrance hall. He looked to be about her age, with a wiry build and arms too long for his sleeves. He had light brown hair and skin paler than Ahned’s. The inhabitants of Ryn clearly didn’t spend much time in the sun, although—Talia glanced at the rain running down the window—maybe there wasn’t much sun to spend time in.
She stood there and watched him play, his hands running so easily up and down the keys that she wondered whether he controlled the music or the music controlled him.
And then he lifted his head and saw her in the doorway. His fingers froze over the instrument and the music cut off abruptly. He blinked at her, his bright blue eyes owlish behind a pair of silver spectacles, and he seemed to grow paler than he already was.
He jerked to his feet, still staring, and slammed a cover down over the keys so hard it made Talia jump. “Who are you?” he demanded.
She suddenly wondered what she must look like to him: a half-drowned stranger who hadn’t had a real bath in half a year.
“I’m Talia.” Her voice came out in an undignified high squeak. “Talia Dahl-Saida,” she added, more firmly, “heiress of Irsa.”
“No, no, no.” He shook his head, stepping around the instrument to come over to her. Up close he was several inches taller than Talia, his thatch of hair falling into his eyes and curling a little around his ears. He had a spattering of freckles across his nose and a cravat hung loose around his neck.
He grabbed her arms. “You can’t be here. You have to leave.” He turned her about and propelled her back into the hallway.
She jerked free. “I beg. Your. Pardon?”
He unhooked his spectacles and rubbed his eyes, pacing a few steps down the hall before coming back to her. He shoved his spectacles into his shirt pocket and swore, vehemently, by all nine gods and a handful of spirits Talia had never heard of before. “I don’t believe this.” He finally looked at her again.
She liked him a little better after all that swearing. “Who are you?”
He shrugged. “I’m Wen.”
That was not exactly enlightening.
“But you really can’t stay. You have to leave. Tonight, maybe. Tomorrow at the latest. It’s not safe, do you understand?”
No. No, she didn’t understand. She wanted to strangle him with his own cravat. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through to get here? Of course you don’t. How could you? In the last six months I was arrested, shoved onto a boat, and watched my mother die. I just got here and I am not leaving, damn you!”
His eyebrows lifted nearly to the top of his head and he took an involuntary step backward. “I’m so sor—” he began.
But then Ahned stepped up beside her and offered her his arm. “Ah,” he said, his glance flicking between her and Wen, “I see you two have … met. Miss Dahl-Saida, your room is ready. So sorry for the delay.”
Talia took his arm and allowed him to lead her down the hall, casting a baffled look at Wen over her shoulder as she went.
Chapter Ten
TALIA ALMOST DISSOLVED INTO GRATEFUL TEARS WHEN Ahned deposited her in her room—a bath was waiting there, steaming nicely.
The room itself was small and drab and colorless, a fire licking red behind the grate, a bed in one corner, and an old wooden wardrobe and dressing table opposite. Its best feature was the window looking north over the sea. Talia stared through it the whole time she was bathing, though there was little to see beyond the impenetrable rain running down the glass.
She had just climbed out of the bath and was toweling herself dry, her skin tingling with warmth and the delicious sensation of cleanliness, when there came a knock at her door. It opened a crack, and a woman in her late thirties peeked in, yellow curls spilling out from under her white maid’s cap. “Beg pardon, Miss, but we’ve come to help you dress. Are you finished?”
Talia nodded, tugging the towel self-consciously around her, and the maid slipped into the room. A second maid who looked to be about Talia’s age followed her, a gown draped over one arm. She had dark hair and wide eyes and was fidgeting nervously.
“I’m Lyna,” said the first maid, “and this is Ro. We were told you brought nothing with you from Enduena. No gowns or shoes or undergarments or anything?”
The questions rankled. Talia didn’t care to explain that she was completely penniless—not even a hairpin to her name, now. She thought of her mother, braiding her hair into a coronet down in the hold of the ship, and shook her head. “Nothing.” Lyna tutted and Ro, staring at Talia, fiddled with the fabric of the gown she’d brought. It was beautiful, a pale green silk with silver roses embroidered around the neckline and ribbons shimmering violet and dusky pink under the bodice.
“We’ve brought this for today,” Lyna said, gesturing to the gown. “Dairon is gathering the rest. We’ll bring them this evening.”
“The rest?” Talia echoed. “Who’s Dairon?”
“His Grace’s housekeeper.” Talia assumed Lyna was talking about the middle-aged woman who had first opened the front door. “Right now, we have to make you presentable. The Baron will be downstairs in half an hour.”
Talia grimaced. She didn’t want to meet the dusty old Baron.
Ro laid the gown on the bed, and Lyna pulled Talia’s towel away, slipping her into a chemise that smelled strongly of lavender soap. The fabric was coarser than Talia had been used to in Enduena, but it was clean, and made her feel as exquisite as if she was dressed in hand-spun Itish silk.