Sorcha shouldered his violin case and took off. It turned out he was a runner. He ran for pleasure most days, just for the hell of it. I have never been prone to such a masochistic thing. He had said it wasn’t far, but that was a lie. I could only barely keep up with him. I was drenched in sweat, bleary-eyed and lightheaded by the time we got to where we were going. It was an apartment building a few blocks away from an already-bustling opera house called the Barlan. A pair of men sat at the foot of the building’s steps. One was an old red elf, a man with a face more weathered than lined. He had heavy steely eyebrows that furrowed over a pair of bottomless black eyes, eyes so black they seemed not to have irises at all. Next to him, sitting with a matronly, protective hand on the old man’s back, was a middle-aged man with elvish ears and short, black hair. The old man looked up as we approached. “You’re late, Sorcha.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

The old elf pointed at me with a violin bow. “Who’s that? You got a shadow.”

Sorcha grabbed my hand and pulled me forward. I was a disheveled mess, the sweat seeping through my borrowed clothes, my hair going every which way. I’d cut myself shaving, and a trickle of blood wound its way down my neck. I had hoped Sorcha would let me slink behind him, tuck myself out of sight, but I had no luck with it. “This is Ariah. He’s with me.”

“Aye, a blind man could see that. I’ve a set, boy. Music’s a discipline, right, you can’t pop in and out with your conquests. It’s work.”

Sorcha laughed. “No, he’s not…Prynn, it’s a long story. C’mon. Let’s go play.”

The man with the black hair stood up and offered a hand to the old man, Prynn. Prynn refused it. “If he’s not a conquest, why’s he in your clothes, Sorcha?” the black-haired man called.

Sorcha laughed again. He glanced down at his boots. There was an odd tension in him, one threaded with gentleness. When he looked back up, there was a curious half-smile on his face. “I’ll tell you later, Tayvi. I promise I’ll tell you everything after we play, yeah?”