“And you think you were the only one bewitched by moon thistles, my old menace?” she countered. “This is the other side of the story you have yet to learn: I ran home, because you gave me no other choice. You ruined my chances of joining the guard. And when I arrived at my bedchamber, I realized my palms gleamed with thistle needles.” Adaira held up her hands, studying them as if she still felt the sting. “So many I couldn’t count them all, nor could I extract them myself. I went to my mum, because she often remained awake, late into the night. When I showed her my palms, my mum asked me, ‘Who did this to you, Adi?’ And I told her, ‘The lad called Jack.’

“She began to remove them, needle by needle, and she said, ‘You mean the lad who becomes quiet when my music floods the hall.’ I didn’t understand what she meant by that. But on the next full moon feast, I watched you when my mum sat on the dais and began to play her harp. I watched you, but I didn’t see anything remarkable within you. Because you were not the only one who became quiet when she played. You were not the only one who hungered for her songs. All of us did. And yet she saw the flame within you. A light she had been waiting for. She knew what you would become before you did.

“Not many of us on the isle can wield music; it is its own mistress here, and it chooses who it will love. But my mother saw that mark on your hands, heard the songs you were destined to play before you had encountered your first note. And you can say that you were unclaimed here, but nothing could be further from the truth, John Tamerlaine. When you left for the university, my mother was content. As if she knew you would return a bard when the time was right.”

Jack listened to her every word, but he stiffened when Adaira spoke of marks and light, and most of all when she addressed him by his given name, John. He had always hated the name Mirin had blessed his birth with and had soon chosen Jack for himself, refusing to answer to anything else.

“What are you saying to me, Adaira?” he asked, hating the way his voice broke.

“I am saying that my mother chose you as her replacement. She saw you as the future Bard of the East,” Adaira said. “She died before she could see you return in your glory, but I know she would proud of you, Jack.”

Jack didn’t like this, the different angle on his history. He didn’t like how Adaira’s softly spoken words cut deep like a knife, cracking him open.