“People will judge you anywhere you go. I know who I am. Why should I care what they think of me?”

Jaren wished he had that kind of confidence, the kind that only came with knowing who you were. “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, Lupin. I’m not looking to marry anytime soon. I haven’t even chosen a trade yet.”

She ran her finger around the edge of her pint glass and smiled. “Oh, silly boy. Who said anything about marriage?”

Jaren couldn’t sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Lupin’s wolfish grin. And every time he tried to find a comfortable position in his bed, a few notes of the first song he’d heard from Endla played in his mind. Jaren had never had the experience of getting a song caught in his mind before, and he thought it might be driving him a little mad. Maybe that explained Lupin and her strangeness.

Or maybe it was simply that he didn’t know the whole song, just that one little strand of notes, and some part of his brain kept snagging on it, trying to fill in what came next. If he’d had any musical inclination, he could have played the notes out on an instrument and attempted to finish the song. But he didn’t know anything about scales or melodies, and he certainly couldn’t play an instrument. So he was stuck with those same notes replaying in his mind. Yes, a person could definitely go mad from that.

Around midnight, when he was not a whit closer to sleep than he’d been when he first went to bed, Jaren threw back his covers, pulled on his trousers, and crept down the ladder as quietly as he could. As he tiptoed past his father, who generally slept so soundly that not even an earthquake could wake him, Jaren grabbed his boots from the hearth and slipped silently into the night.

An intense rainstorm had passed through this evening, leaving the air cool enough to help clear his head a bit. If he walked for a bit, he might be able to clear the song away altogether. It wasn’t the most brilliant plan to wander alone in the woods at night, but anything was better than slowly going mad in his own bed.

Unfortunately, Jaren had a habit of finding a topic that troubled him and ruminating on it until his thoughts circled around and around, like a dog chasing its tail. And if he wasn’t going to think about the music—and he wasn’t going to think about the music, damn it—there was little to think about other than Lupin.