“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Jor Jor,” he answered as his fingers grew more confident and wrapped around the strings.
I carefully unwrapped his fingers and used both my hands to splay his fingers and strum more gently. “Jor Jor, we want to be careful when we play the lute. Like this.”
“Jorlan,” Koan said softly. The boy didn’t even glance at him. “His name is Jorlan. He doesn’t really talk, and I don’t know how much he understands. But sometimes he runs off. His parents are probably frantic about him missing right now.”
I helped Jorlan isolate one finger to pluck with while turning a wry smile up at Koan. “I don’t think you’ll survive taking him anywhere.”
He huffed. “No, I wouldn’t dare try that again. He likes you well enough though.”
I shook my head. “I’m not leaving this room without permission. Maybe you could bring his parents up here?” I tipped my head toward the center of my room. “I bet he’d follow me in and then we could close the door sohe doesn’t run off.”
“No.” Koan still spoke softer than normal, as if he was afraid of spooking Jorlan. “His parents would kill you if they thought you’d trapped him in there with you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I keep forgetting that I’m an evil fae.”
“You shouldn’t joke about things like that,” Jolter whispered. “Someone might overhear and assume the wrong thing.”
I sighed. “So what’s your plan?”
The two brothers looked at each other. “We don’t have one,” Jolter admitted. “Maybe I’ll go look for his mother and Koan can stay here with you.”
“The little stinker hates me,” Koan grumbled.
I glared at him.
“What?” he hissed.
“You know what,” I answered. “If he doesn’t like you, it’s because you say things like that.” I wrapped an arm around the boy who was now tapping the body of the lute like a drum. “Jorlan is a wonderful boy, and I’m glad he came to meet me.”
Koan rolled his eyes and plopped himself down in the middle of the hallway, a solid ten feet away from us.
Jorlan found the lute so fascinating that we sat and played with it for almost half an hour. Every few minutes I shifted the instrument so he could explore another sound or shape on it. He tried plucking one string at a time, then each string, then different combinations of them. He drummed on every surface of the body.
I did have to stop him from adjusting the tuning pegs, but once he realized they were off limits, he explored the rest of it with more focus than I would have guessed achild his size was capable of.
Koan sat in the hall like a bored guard, but he couldn’t trick me anymore. I saw the sobriety behind his levity. Jorlan might annoy him, but he wouldn’t risk letting the boy get hurt.
Eventually, a dull thunder rolled down the corridor. I stayed behind my door frame, but my stomach started to tighten when the noises approaching us sounded like dozens of angry conversations.
Finally, a woman—elf—strode into my view. “Jorlan!” she cried.
The boy looked up, dropped the lute on the ground next to me, and ran to her arms. “Mar Mar!” he sang as she picked him up. She dropped a quick kiss on his head and then passed him into the crowd of elves behind her.
She turned and faced me, spreading her arms and gathering an eerie green magic fluid into her hands. It looked like a cross between a poison and liquid fire, but it coalesced out of nothing. Venom dripped from her voice as she hissed at me. “You!”
I stood and clutched the lute to my chest. It made a pitiful shield.
“Woah, woah, woah!” Koan’s light-hearted, nearly laughing voice intercepted her as he spread his arms and stood directly in front of her. “Lady Carmine, let’s calm down before anyone does something we’ll regret. You heard the king’s announcement about her, right?”
Jorlan’s mother practically yelled. “It won’t matter. When the king finds out what she’s done, he’ll be glad that I disposed of her.”
Koan’s humor disappeared. “She did nothing wrong.”
“She certainly won’t do anything more when I’m done with her.”
“Lady Carmine!” Koan sounded more anxious now.
