“Yes,” Erik said again, the repeated one-word response fanning the flames of my frustration. But then my mind derailed, flying off in the direction of something else he’d said.

“That music couldn’t have been yours,” I insisted. “The paper was old, but the notes were fresh.”

“That is because I had just written them.”

“No,” I argued. “That’s not possible.”

“I’ve come here to tell you that it is.”

“Then what are you saying? That the details of the curse, the things that Lucas told me, are true?”

Sudden anguish swept over his expression. “I confess I don’t quite know where to begin. So much of what the boy told you . . . I admit I didn’t want you to know. It never occurred to me why. Not until yesterday, when it all became terrifyingly clear. I know I can’t expect you to understand why it has come to this. Not when our moments together have been so few and brief. Yet, after decades of solitude, after so much silence, how could our interludes not have become as music to me?”

I blinked several times, my blush flaring anew.

Sometimes the way he phrased things, like poetry was an actual language, made me want to second-guess his meaning. Often, the things he said did seem to have two meanings. But had he just admitted to . . . caring about me?

That still didn’t explain why he was having so much trouble saying what he came here to say. But if he wasn’t going to tell me outright, maybe I could guess.

“He plans to target me specifically in order to get at you,” I said. Though that didn’t strike me as something he should have difficulty saying. “Because we’re becoming . . . friends.”

“Is that what we are?” he uttered through a dry laugh, like he didn’t believe it. “How ever did I manage to earn something so precious? And yet . . . I cannot accept. For it is too reckless a thing for me to allow.”

I frowned at him and, suddenly, not giving a rip about any demon, made my way to him, past the smattering of furniture to stand just in front of him, as close as we had been the night before last when we’d stood together in front of the fireplace. When he’d almost touched my cheek. Now his scent, one of lavender and honey—and something more caustic that I couldn’t name—fought with that of the roses.

“We’re friends if I say we’re friends,” I told him.

“And so you speak music as well as you sing it” was all he said, a rueful almost-smile tugging at his lips.

Peering up into his face and into those sad eyes, so beautiful, I couldn’t stop myself from reaching up to him. My fingers hovered close to his jaw, closer than his own had come to mine that night. But then, before I could make the connection, he caught my wrist. Not roughly, but with an abruptness that suggested my touching him was something he legitimately feared.