She had thought she was in love with him, and had slept with him before dusk, but a few days later she realized it was the music she had loved. What she heard in its music: a coaxing, an invitation to remember, to disclose. Perhaps because her voice was small and high, she couldn’t project, and she imagined it would be more gratifying to play music than to speak. Mercilessly she pestered her uncle to circle back and buy her the domingon; she’d been surprised when he obliged.

Candle was not simple, not in the least, but her debility had made her a still person. She listened to church bells, when they pealed, trying to translate; she watched the way the paper husks of an onion fell on a table, and examined the rings of dirt that onion mites had left in parallel rows on the glossy wet inside. Everything said something, and it wasn’t her job to consider the merit or even the meaning of the message: just to witness the fact of the message.

She was therefore a calmer person than most, for there seemed no dearth of messages from the world to itself. She merely listened in.

For a week now she’d been playing the domingon until her fingers ached, watching and listening for the language of Liir’s recovery. It wasn’t unusual that she had had experience with men; Quadlings were a casual sort in matters of sexual prudence. The carnal experience had neither scarred her nor much interested her. Through it, at best, she had learned something of the human body, its hesitations and reservations as well as the surge of its desires.

In the infirmary, as her eyes moved from the instrument to the invalid, she felt she was picking up some news. Was it some minor language of olfactory signals, an arcane pattern of eye twitches, a hieroglyph etched in the beads of his sweat? She didn’t know.

She was sure of this, though: Liir’s body seemed the same in temperature, comportment, and color. But he was going through a phase of crisis, and would either awaken for sure or die at once: no middle ground.

She didn’t know if she should go get the Superior Maunt or if she should stay at her post.

She was afraid if she left, if she dropped the domingon on the floor even for the twenty minutes it might take to find the Superior Maunt and get counsel, she would lose Liir for good. Wherever he was, he was lost, and the music of her instrument was his only hope back.

So Candle stayed seated and played till her own fingers bled, in ripples of waltz, as if nothing were wrong. The blue of the sky thinned till it was pierced with star prickers, and then the jackal moon rose and slowly lumbered over till it could look in the window and watch for itself. Watch, and listen, as Candle played Liir through his memories.

“SHE’LL BE THERE,”said Liir.