Bone Walker (34 page)

Or rather, one Sidhe in particular.

He's here.

Nervous anticipation rose up in me, tinged with fear. After all, the last time I'd heard this Unseelie play, he'd been working to enthrall an entire bar. No such power was at work now. Without it, as if freed to step out from underneath its shadow, Elessir a'Natharion gave himself over entirely to his music.

His guitar's voice wasn't loud, especially against the murmur of traffic from the freeway. Yet even from a distance I heard the way his fingers called runs out of notes out of the strings, how individual plucked notes stood out like stars against the punctuation of rhythm and chords. I didn't recognize the tune. But as I drew near to the low wall of stone where he'd perched to play, the slow transition from a dour minor to a sweeter yet still plaintive major mode drew dampness into my eyes. Here before me was the living echo of what I'd sensed in his lost wife's memories: that, no matter what else you might say about him, Elessir could
play
.

In that moment, listening to his guitar lament to the trees, I couldn't tell whether I was relieved or disappointed that he had not chosen to sing. His voice rose up to greet me nonetheless, resigned, as his hands stilled his strings and the instrument's last few notes resounded down into silence.

“I'd have thought you wouldn't have been too eager to set foot in this place again so soon, Miss Thompson.”

The trail that had led me here had brought me up behind him, and he hadn't turned to see me coming. Moreover, I'd been practicing the new way of shielding he'd taught me, so at least in theory he shouldn't have sensed any power leaking off of me. But even if he'd lost his ability to manipulate magic, nothing had happened to his physical perceptions. And even if I'd wanted to, there was no way I was going to sneak up on a full-blooded Sidhe with senses far, far more acute than my own.

So I didn't try. Instead I came around the bend of the wall and into his immediate line of sight, offering a crooked little smile as I approached. “I wasn't thinking about that when I hopped the bus down here,” I admitted, “but I guess there's something therapeutic in coming to face this spot and get any lingering hang-ups out of the way.” I paused, and then added a bit more shyly, “And in playing music in the open air, for that matter.”

Elessir considered that, letting out a soft noise too brief to make it to full laughter. “I probably shouldn't keep the guitar out here in the damp, not when I'm not currently capable of enchanting it against the weather properly… but yes. There is.”

I sat down on the wall beside him. “I haven't seen you with that guitar before.”

“It's new,” he agreed. “Mortal-made, but as I lost the last one… well.”

“Have I told you yet that I really like your playing?” That made him start and turn to look at me fully for the first time, direct enough that I felt myself flush underneath his regard. “I mean, when it's
yours
, and when you're not just pretending to be Elvis or whatever.” By ‘whatever' I meant ‘using music to thrall people', but I saw no reason to say that out loud.

His eyebrows went up. “Surely you didn't track me all the way here just to tell me that?”

“Well, no. It's true, though. You play like…” I had to pause, trying to find the proper words. He played like water flowing, like bone-deep longing for something so distant as to be almost unnamable, yet given shape and form in the resonance of strings—enough of a form that I could guess at what I heard in the melodies he'd woven.
Homesickness. That's what he plays like
. But that, too, was something I couldn't exactly say out loud. Instead I finished, “Like nothing I've ever heard before.”

Elessir did laugh a bit at that, with that same resignation with which he'd greeted me. “No, I don't suppose you have.” He looked down at his hands upon the instrument, a black-bodied classical, with nylon strings that would have been spaced a bit too widely for my own reach. In his grasp, though, the guitar looked oddly graceful… or perhaps that was just because of the sounds I'd just heard it produce. “The Court thinks me an anomaly for my love of mortal music, you know. They're right. But it thrives and changes in a way I've never heard ours do in the last five hundred years. It's changed
me
. Now I play neither like a human nor one of my own kind. It's lonely sometimes, Miss Thompson.”

After hearing that I wanted to reach over and hug him, though damned if I knew whether he'd appreciate it. Still, I had to make some kind of contact, and so I touched his shoulder. “Look, about why I came to find you. I don't know what your plans are, but you don't have to be lonely, at least for a little bit. Millicent says you're welcome in Seattle if you want to stick around. I'd like it if you did.” His gaze came back to me, without comment, and the rest of my words came out in a flustered burst. “I need your help. Millie and Christopher can't teach me magic, not like you can. And honestly, I'd… I'd like to hear you play some more too.”

“And Mr. MacSimidh? What does he say of this?” The Unseelie's voice remained cool, but his eyes… yes. Speculation glinted in their depths, and maybe even a bit of hope.

“He still wants to set you on fire,” I admitted ruefully. “But he trusts me. And after how you helped me, I think he's willing to trust you a little, too. By the way… thank you for that.”

I squeezed his shoulder and would have let my hand fall away then—but Elessir caught and held it. “His lifespan dictates the terms of your bargain with the Queen. You will commit to him?”

“That's the idea.” My throat went dry under his regard, though I managed to speak somehow anyway. “I'm going to marry him when the time is right.”

Was that regret flashing across his face? It was gone so quickly that I wasn't sure, not until he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it. The gesture was courtly, entirely contrary to his Southern affectations—and yet it made sense to me now that, like his music, he was defined by the blending of elements that otherwise would never have become one.

“You'll outlive him,” he murmured as he let my fingers go. “I can wait.”

Warmth flooded my hand as the contact broke. Answering warmth surged up in my cheeks.
Oh God
. There were more implications there than I could begin to count, many of which I was certain I didn't like, many more of which I
did
. That right there was the danger of Elessir a'Natharion, and someone wiser than me probably would have shied away from placing herself in its path.

But I had his measure now. It wasn't wise. And many might even have argued that it wasn't kind, keeping someone around to whom I was attracted, when I planned to marry another. Still, Christopher trusted me, and just as vitally, I trusted myself. Whether because I was Seelie or because I was simply
Kendis
, these were trusts I would not break. Nor, it seemed, would Elessir expect me to. Which made me smile as I asked him, “So how about it? Will you teach me magic while you're waiting?”

He shot me his best crooked grin and drawled, “Well, Ah dunno, darlin', Ah might have to put you through your paces first, jes' to see what you can do. Make me a light with those l'il ol' fingers.”

With that, I knew he'd stay.

I grinned brightly back at him, lifted my hand, and let it glow.

Bone Walker
will be my fourth released novel. And after doing a few of these, one of the biggest lessons I've learned is this: no matter how good a writer you are, yes, you
do
need an editor. The ease with which you can self-publish your work these days does not excuse you from the necessity of having eyes that are not your own inspect your work for problems.

With that in mind, first and foremost, I'd like to thank editor JoSelle Vanderhooft for her line editing work on this story—even if her edit pass felt light compared to the wringer Carina Press put me through! But I choose to take this as JoSelle's show of confidence in my prose. And I'd like to also specifically thank her for working with me to reach resolutions when we didn't happen to see eye to eye. That's important, folks, in publishing and in life.

Secondly, even though she'll probably modestly discount this the instant she reads it, backer and fellow devoted Le Vent du Nord fan Susan Moseley gets my warmest thanks for going above and beyond the call in doing a line edit pass of her own. She went old-school on me, printing out the entire
Bone Walker
manuscript and taking an actual red pen to it. Then she mailed the whole thing to me, all the way from Ontario.

Between JoSelle and Susan, quite a few rough spots in my manuscript were duly noted and addressed. I don't often make actual typos. My spelling and grammar are generally pretty solid. But I
do
often leave out words, echo the same phrases if I change my mind mid-sentence as to where I want to deploy them, or replace a word I
thought
I typed with an entirely different (yet still correctly spelled) word. All of these are things I missed when I originally wrote the story, because my brain filled in what I thought I was typing, and I didn't see what my fingers actually produced.

JoSelle and Susan were not the only people to join the cause of polishing the book, though! Many thanks to proofreaders Talya Goodman, Ellen Eades, Cynthia Price, Anne Grey, and Jennifer Barricklow, and likewise to Emma Speagell for sanity-checking the layout of the MOBI on her Kindle.

Credit goes to backers Ellen Eades and Eli Huntington and Facebook friend ChiChi Dango for the Facebook comment thread that led to the choosing of given names for the Asakura family of
nogitsune
. Their family name, Asakura, is in honor of Joe the Condor from
Science Ninja Team Gatchaman
. Relatedly, Dara assisted me with what few Japanese words I used in their dialogue and sanity-checked the proper levels of politeness in Jake's first encounter with Makiko Asakura.

Once again, I'd like to thank artist Kiri Moth for her beautiful cover art. She did a stellar job of giving me an Elessir that struck the proper balance between “Elvis impersonator” and “not actually human.” Likewise, I love how she gave me a color palette for this cover that's entirely unlike the one for
Faerie Blood
. This cover's much darker, and that's very much in keeping with the darker tone of this second installment of the story arc.

Thanks to Angela Campbell, Jody Wallace, and Fraser Sherman for their blurb quotes. Thanks as well to all my fellow authors on various writer groups I'm in for their support, particularly on Twitter and when I put up promotional posts on Here Be Magic or on my own site. These groups are the Carina Press list, the Here Be Magic group, the still-occasionally alive Drollerie Press group, and the Northwest Independent Writers Association.

Dara is thanking all of the musicians who've worked on the
Bone Walker
soundtrack in the liner notes for that album. I'm also going to do that here! Many thanks to the aforementioned Ellen Eades on the dulcimer, Sunnie Larsen on fiddle #1, Sarah Kellington of Pinniped on fiddle #2, Leannan Sidhe on vocals, and Klopfenpop for the
awesome
nerdcore remix of “The Burke-Gilman Troll.” (Seriously, you guys, you should get the soundtrack for that remix alone!)

And before I give the biggest musical thanks, let me tell you a little story.

In 1997, at the Worldcon in San Antonio, Texas, I happened to walk into a room party wherein Joe Bethancourt and Heather Alexander were hanging out and jamming—Heather Alexander, comma, one of my top favorite musicians in the realm of filk music. Whose voice was the direct inspiration for the musical side of my Star Wars MUSH character (and future novel heroine) Shenner. Despite a sudden fit of nervousness, I somehow managed to blurt out a request to hang around and listen to them play.

When she realized I had a flute with me, Heather looked me square in the eye and said kindly, “Play something!”

Those were, at the time, among the scariest words that had ever been uttered to me in my life.

Now Heather Alexander has gone to Faerie, and I amuse myself imagining her going toe-to-toe with Luciriel and the Unseelie Court. In her place, we are blessed to have Alexander James Adams. Alec has graced our soundtrack album with fiddle #3, drums, and his delicious vocals. I've written multiple novels, and I still do not have the words for how beyond delighted I am to hear Alec making amazing harmony with my wife.

By the time you read this, if all goes well, I'll have played my flute on a stage that contains Alec, at Conflikt 2015. Which, I grant, is a very long-delayed answer to that invitation to play something, way back in 1997. Thanks for that, Alec. And thank you from the bottom of my heart for your help on the musical side of my Kickstarter!

Speaking of the Kickstarter, I'd once again like to thank all of the backers who chimed in at $50 or above: Scott Hawley, Daniel Strømmen, Alfvaen, Zeus Esbhani, Cliff Winnig, Lexie, Sally Rose Red Robinson, Stevie Carroll, Vixy, Lauren A. Haley, Yngvar Følling, Matthew McCloud, Lynn Gardner, Octavio Arango, Margaret M. St. John, Anonymous, Heidi, Rax, Beth Moursund, John and Cync Brantley, James Venes, Ann Mittelstaedt, the aforementioned bastion of awesomeness that is Susan Moseley, Sparks, Sandra Crump, Tiggy, Eli Huntington, Cynthia D. Price, Amy and Erin Schram, Glenn Stone, fellow Great Big Sea fan Sara Petersen, Paul Johnson, Juan T. Alvarado, Ellen Eades, Thom Watson, and Maria-Katriina Lehtinen!

To
all
of my Kickstarter backers, thank you again for your patience with my delay in getting this book and the other rewards you're owed out to you. I hope
Bone Walker
is worth the wait.

And to all of my readers, whether of the Rebels of Adalonia books or the Free Court of Seattle, thank you for giving my stories a chance to entertain you. To everyone who's taken the time to rate or review a book of mine or spread the word about it to a friend, thank you very, very much for your support.