“You’d guess right. It’s like the beating of our hearts, which is an echo of the heartbeat of the world. It’s a serious music, the rhythms are strong, the melodies deceptively simple. Whether we play it on our own, or in a group, it connects us to the whole of the world, not simply the little piece of it that we inhabit in our minds.”

“That’s how it is with the music I play, too,” she said.

“It’s different. Our music has a sacred quality to it.”

“Then you’ve never heard a slow air played by a master musician when he totally feels the music.”

He cocked his head. “I thought you didn’t try to change people’s minds about subjective things.”

“I guess I lied.”

“I know you’re joking,” he said, “but you should know that the truth is also something we hold sacred—both fairy and my people. Your promissory word is more valuable than gold.”

“I’ll remember.”

Not that she planned to have anything more to do with either fairies or spirits. At least not if she could help it.

“I should go,” he said.

He dropped his cigarette butt onto the gravel and ground it out under his boot before picking it up and stowing it in his pocket.

“Be careful,” he told her. “This music of yours calls to fairy, and you know from last night that they’re not all sweetness and light.”

Thanks for that, Lizzie thought. She really needed to have it put in her head.

“It’s what we do,” she said. “And we’ve never had trouble before.”

“You never interacted with them before, either.”

“Well, I don’t want to,” she told him. “And I don’t want to get caught up in any animosity between you, either.”

“Sometimes you don’t get a choice,” he said. “And when that happens, you have to take a side.”

She shook her head. “That’s not going to happen.”

He regarded her for a long moment, then shrugged. He was good with the shrugs, she found herself thinking.

The silence between them stretched, but not comfortably the way it did when Lizzie was hanging with Siobhan or one of her friends. She wondered why he was still here, having said he was going a few moments ago.

“So, you’re like an Indian, right?” she asked just to be saying something. “I mean a Native American.”

It made sense, considering his dark good looks, and his description of the music of his people, which sounded like what you’d hear at a powwow.

But he shook his head. “No, the cousins come from an older race than that.”

Silence fell between them once more, but this time Grey broke it. He kicked at the gravel before turning toward her.

“I liked those tunes you dedicated to me,” he said.

“Even though they were busy and frivolous?”

“Even though.”