“You cannot hear that?” Idris wheezed from the comfort of a free inn room.

Lila shook her head, glanced at Riette, who also gestured in the negative. Kurellan, standing by the door, tapped his foot, his arms folded. Willard, sitting on the foot of the bed, pursed his lips.

Desperately, Idris motioned for Riette to close the velvet again. The noise was unbearable.

“It is like an aria played at maximum volume by the most incompetent orchestra you have ever heard,” whispered Idris, each word tasting like iron in his throat. “Like… musical screaming. It cannot stay in this room. It will drive me comprehensively mad.”

On the road, he had just sobbed and arched away from it until Riette wrapped it back up again as tight as she could. Kurellan looked like he had been slapped by Idris’s reaction.

“What is it?” said Lila. “Metal? Precious stone?”

“It is hard to say,” said Riette, squeezing the velvet closed. Even with that, the racket was only muffled. Idris put a hand to his brow and tried to stop the room spinning. “It came off his dagger. The whole blade was made of this.”

“Is it making Sir Idris sick because it is broken?” said Kurellan.

“With respect, Your Honour, the fragment is not making my master sick,” said Lila. “The aria he used was tainted.”

“So the spell he used made Sir Idris sick.”

“Sir Idris is fine,” croaked Idris, “except he superheated the ghost of his own foot.”

It was nauseatingly silent, then, save the ragged melody pushing through the velvet.

“Please take it outside,” he said, putting a hand to his temple. Riette nodded and stood.

“Excuse me.”

She slipped out of the room, closed the door softly. Kurellan frowned, put a tongue in his cheek.

“It was a good plan,” Lila said.

“It was a good shot,” said Idris, with a small smile her way. She shrugged.

“There was no fault in the plan. We executed it as expected,” said Kurellan. “We merely underestimated what our quarry can do.”

“He spoke to me,” said Idris. “Through the aria that linked us, I think. He said I was too early.”

“He felt you looking for a way in, most like,” said the old judge.

“I did not even know that was possible.”

“Rest your voice,” he said, his tone gentler than usual. “You worked hard.”

“Next time,” Idris said, his voice squeaking with the strain, “I need weavers to protect me.”

“Next time, you will have them. Lila. Willard. Excuse me.”

Kurellan left. Willard, who had been strangely quiet the whole time, turned to Idris and said, “Let’s see that leg now.”

Idris kicked his right leg out of the covers and let Willard unravel the bandages, which were slightly singed from the heat.

“When did you learn to do that?” said Lila, pulling her stool closer.

“War,” said Idris. “Self-defence.”

“Don’t look like you hurt yourself,” said Willard, examining the skin. “King and Circle, he pulled hard, though. Look at those bruises.”

“Lady Riette probably saved your life,” said Lila quietly. “He could have dragged you into the lake and held you under.”

Idris nodded. He did not want to think about it.

He drank the brews and ate the mashes that he was given, and he lay down to sleep, questions bouncing in his brain. Every single one, though, seemed to herald the same answer: he thought he knew necromancy, and it was apparent now that he did not. He did not know about the communication through arias, or that another necromancer could sense and seize control of his dead foot. He had no idea how weaver magic held the other necromancer at bay or what the green dagger did, or how he seemingly created tainted, tingling death arias from nowhere at all.

He knew next to nothing.

It was an uneasy sleep, but his body needed it. He dreamt of sounds, sensations and smells, rain on his skin, mud under his throbbing hands. When he woke, he was alone, and his crutches rested beside the bed.

Slowly, he gathered them up and took himself outside. In the dawn, the lake created a thin, cool fog that soothed his skin; the villagers had returned and were living their day-to-day lives as normal. Bread baked somewhere close by and a farrier shoed a horse with tuneful clangs.

But Idris removed himself from it. He needed focus, still. He limped to the lakeside, sat in the grass by the black water and hugged himself tightly in an attempt to stop shaking.

After a short while of doing nothing but sitting with his eyes closed, Idris heard, “Sir Idris?”

“Good morning, Your Honour,” Idris said, his voice still wispy from the spell.

“We are preparing breakfast. A hearty, homecooked meal,” said Kurellan, settling beside him. “It will do you the world of good.”

“I am sure. Thank you.”

They did not speak. The water lapped at the shore; ducks chattered to one another.

“Are you cold?” said Kurellan at last.

“No. Tired.”

“No doubt.” The old man gazed out across the ripples, through the fog. “I think that girl of yours is worried about you,” he started, and at that sentiment, Idris burst into full-body, wailing tears.

If Kurellan was shocked, he did not show it. Idris was shocked. Mostly, he was mortified, and the more he thought about what he must look like, the worse he felt. Instead of scolding him, though, Kurellan put a steady, confident arm around Idris’s shoulders and rocked him from side to side while he howled out all of his fear and rage and confusion. It should not have felt comforting or welcome, but Idris knew that if anyone was going to tell him the truth, to placate him without platitudes, it was Kurellan.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he sobbed at last. “I… I thought I knew. But there is nobody to teach me, nobody to help me. I hate it. I hate necromancy. I hate how it burrowed into me like a… like an awful, life-sucking parasite and it won’t go. They call me a hero, like I did something special, and now, when it matters? When it matters, I am useless. I do awful, evil things. I hate the noise, all the time. I want to scratch it out of me. I am stupid, that is all there is. I am too stupid for this.”

Kurellan snorted. “Stupid? Hardly. Twenty-three years old and doing this all on your own? No teacher, no other peers to guide you? Black bells, Idris, that’s a burden that will crush you if you aren’t careful.” He laughed. “The stuff you read in those books of yours is far beyond anything I could understand. You’re too hard on yourself.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“I am supposed to protect these people,” Idris said, waving a hand back to the village.

“We did. No casualties last night.” Kurellan pulled out a black handkerchief, offered it to Idris. “Wipe your face, boy. You’re better than this.”

Idris did as he was told. Kurellan was quiet for a minute, and then he spoke.

“I was eighteen when I was knighted and sent out on the King’s business. Thought I was the toughest, smartest man around. Life in barracks makes you believe that kind of foolishness. When you rise to the top of that small world, you think you’re the biggest fish in the pond.” He tutted, shrugged. “Hadn’t been out for ten months when my whole party was ambushed and left for dead. Watched my best friends have their heads cleaved clean off their shoulders and couldn’t even cry out for them. You should have seen me then. Beaten and bloodied and crying on the floor. It was a hard fall and I felt it, keenly.

“But I realised then that I was still a boy, Idris. I knew nothing. No amount of drills or book learning or tourneys was going to make me ready for the world outside of the barracks gate.” He twisted his mouth, stood up. “I think,” he said, “you just took your hard fall. That’s all.”

“I feel like all I take are hard falls,” said Idris. Kurellan raised his eyebrows.

“Oh? Then dusting yourself off should be second nature to you. I don’t see you lying in a bed, lamenting your lost foot. You got up from that, didn’t you?”

Idris thought of those first few days after he woke up, the armchair by the window, the blanket, the swirling feeling that everything was collapsing around him and the pain that still throbbed in an ankle that no longer existed. Uncle Haylan did not leave his side until he saw Idris take up the crutches for the first time.

“I suppose.”

“The strength of the one is in the strength of his many,” said Kurellan. “I know you know what that means.” Idris nodded. “Come on. Breakfast. No more of this crying and feeling sorry for yourself. You’re a man. A member of the Queen’s court. We have a puzzle that I intend to solve, and I find I need your particular parasite to do that.”

Idris laughed, once, and Kurellan smirked and picked up Idris’s crutches.

“Here. Watch your step.”

“Thank you, Kurellan.”

“Let’s get to work.”

“Do you really think so highly of me?”

“Don’t push it, whelp.”

But he smiled, and Idris knew he did not mean the insult at all.

*

While Kurellan’s pep-talk had stopped Idris feeling miserable, it did not solve any immediate problems. Over breakfast, the group discussed their next steps. Idris told everyone about his struggle with the necromancer, how it had felt and sounded, what he did to combat him. Riette chewed her eggs and pulled a face.

“He felt like he was trained in combat,” she said. “The way he moved. I am sure he was wearing armour.”

“My arrow went in,” said Lila.

“It was a bloody good shot,” said Kurellan under his breath.

“Did anyone see how he raised the green faces?” said Idris. “Did you hear him sing the aria?”

“Not explicitly,” the old judge said.

“I… I hate to say this,” said Idris, shuddering even as he thought it, “but I need to see the shard of his dagger, again. Perhaps I can piece together the aria, what it is. It was not so terrible out on the road, I do not know why.”

“Whatever we do, we need to move, and soon,” said Kurellan. “If he is heading for Veridia, as we suspect, we need to be there to face him.”

The party agreed. Willard, still, was uncharacteristically quiet, as if he was contemplating something beyond anyone else’s understanding.

Lila brought the shard to Idris’s room in the velvet wrap, and sat opposite Idris on the bed with it in her hands. Already, he could hear the weird, screeching music from inside the fabric.

“Black bells, it is hideous,” he said. “It makes me feel nauseated. Like… like someone is scraping at my bones.”

“Yuck,” said Lila, wrinkling her nose.

“You can hear nothing?”

“Nothing. Maybe we should get some bells.”

“To amplify this?” he said, gesturing to the fabric. “No. Please, no.”

Willard, making poultice at the desk, said nothing, his head bowed.

“I am going to need to handle it, I think,” said Idris, rolling up his sleeves.

“Yes, sir.”

“Ready.”

Lila opened the velvet.

Just looking at it seared right to the back of Idris’s brain. His eyes watered; the music pounded inside him. Wincing, he reached out for it, but his hand shook before it was even close to the shard.

“No,” he said at last, tasting bile, cradling his hand to his chest. Lila smothered it once more. “Black bells, Lila. And you swear you hear nothing?”

“I hear something,” said Willard, very quietly.

Both Lila and Idris turned and stared. Willard cleared his throat, sat up, nodded to himself.

“I hear something,” he said, louder.

“Willard,” whispered Lila, her face white.

“What do you hear, Willard?” said Idris.

Willard visibly swallowed. “Nothing as… as horrible as you say, Idris. It… maybe I don’t hear nothing, maybe…”

Nothing was as important to Idris as this. It was fantastical and strange, but plenty of those things had happened to him over the last week. If Willard could hear it, then perhaps…

“Describe it to me,” said Idris, patting the bedsheet beside him.

The hedge witch crossed to the bed, perched on the edge of it and cast a wary eye to the velvet.

“Aye, it’s right loud,” he said. “But it’s… a cold sound. Up and down and spiral-like.” He hunched his shoulders, put his hands between his thighs. “I… I weren’t sure. Maybe I told myself I weren’t sure because it’s weird, but… it… it sings to me, somehow.”

Idris wet his dry mouth, patted Willard comfortingly on the shoulder.

“Can you pick it up for me?” he said.

“I can try.”

Lila opened the velvet.

The jumble hit Idris once more, but Willard did not even flinch. He reached out, picked up the shard and held it between two fingers, looking down at it. Carefully, he began humming a melody, vastly different from what Idris heard – quick and playful and spritely, but cold and odd.

When Idris put his fingers in his ears, Willard looked guilty and swaddled the shard again.

“It…” His big brown eyes were filled with tears. “Idris,” he said, “what’s wrong with me? Why do I hear this? And why’s it so different from yours?”

“Lila,” said Idris quietly, “take the shard. Willard and I need to talk.”

Willard sat, slack and wide-eyed, on the edge of the bed, while Lila hurried out with the shard in her bundle. Idris waited a while, trying to think of the best way to broach the subject.

“Willard,” he said quietly, “your herbs? Their effect has never wavered. You said to me that any old herb would not do, but we have been out of your forest for several days now. Why do you think that might be?”

“I… I dunno, Idris… I’m a really good hedge witch.”

“I know healing herblore. The mixtures you have been giving me should not be as effective as they have been. Or, at all.” He tried another tack. “When you lived in the forest, did you hear… songs?”

“Songs?”

“Songs without words.”

“Well… well yes,” said Willard. “The fae, they make music all over the place, and if I listen right hard, I can hear ‘em. It’s real easy to tell…”

Slowly, like a steadily-worsening rainstorm, the truth dawned on Willard. Idris knew that feeling, a sinking, deep falling, as if the floor was crumbling in slow motion. It was how he felt when he first heard the word ‘necromancer’.

“You don’t hear ‘em,” said Willard softly, “do you?”

“And you don’t hear my death arias.”

“Am I… am I well?” said Willard, gripping Idris’s hands tightly. “This ain’t normal, is it? What… what am I?”

“Steady.” Idris squeezed his fingers. “Take a deep breath. Listen to me very carefully.” The hedge witch nodded, eyes firmly shut. “You are well. In perfect health. But I think you can hear fae arias, which in itself is… peculiar.”

“Peculiar?”

“Only the fae can hear fae arias, Willard.”

“Then what does that mean?” he said, panicked.

“It could mean anything. Keep breathing. That’s it. You know, there are no necromancers in my bloodline?”

“None?”

“None. Just me. Aria aptitude is a strange thing. Healers for three hundred years,” Idris added, with an extra squeeze to Willard’s clammy hands. “Then here comes Idris, necrotising himself. Perhaps your mother was adept and never knew it. Or your grandmother. She said she learned the songs from the fae, correct?”

“Yeah.” Willard nodded slightly, comforted by this. “Yeah, she did. Maybe she heard them too.”

“Here is what I propose. We lean into this. Clearly, the shard has some fae magic in it that does not disagree with you the way it does me. I would like to take you on, Willard.”

“Take me on?”

Idris smiled. “As an apprentice.”

Willard blinked. “Oh.” The statement seemed to shock him out of the anxiety spiral he had been falling into. “Like… a-learning the things you do with your hands?”

“Yes. Other things, too, but that is a good first step.”

“Is that allowed? I ain’t a dead-talker. Or courtfolk.”

“I was taught by an earth magician and a sea magician, and a very patient uncle. I do not know everything, but when we get to the palace, we can get you a real tutor.” Idris pursed his lips, fighting to hide the excitement rising in his heart. “How do you feel?”

“I… to be right truthful, Idris, I don’t know,” said Willard. “I’ve been a-listening and a-watching everything you do, and… maybe some things make sense, now.” He frowned, scratched his head. “Thought living on my own had made me crazy.”

“If the music keeps you awake at night, I find sleeping with my head beneath the pillow tends to help,” said Idris, and this time Willard barked his earthy laugh and beamed.

“Right. I might try it.”

“Also…” Idris lowered his voice and hid his mouth with his hand, like telling some terrible secret. “Wine.”

Willard snorted, nudged his ribs. “That’s your palacefolk life talking.”

“No, really. Something in grape-based alcohol cuts the aria clean off, mutes it almost. It is fascinating. I read a book about it once. Beer and mead does next to nothing.”

Willard wanted to tell Lila on his own – he said he felt he owed it to her, for her kindness – so Idris broke the news to Riette and Kurellan.

“That is rather fortuitous for Willard,” said Riette, “but how does that help us?”

“If we can reach a weaver blacksmith,” said Idris, “I can tell you for sure.”