Angling his jaw out, he headed down the tunnel. And he still had work to do.

* * *

Sid spent the rest of her day exploring the sounds each of the instruments could produce, and mechanically, she went through hand and finger exercises to help bring back the conditioning in her hands. Since she had started the exercises in the prison cell, at least she had a head start, but those exercises weren’t as effective as playing against the tension of a stringed instrument.

Not that her efforts would get her anywhere. Even if she taught herself how to play one of them—and she could—there was no way she could be prepared in enough time to play for the Queen.

The instrument she felt the most affinity for was the lute. It was similar to a guitar, so she thought she should be able to play it well enough to perform informally in a couple of weeks.

Not in three days’ time. Not for a woman who had a sophisticated palate, a demonstrated lack of tolerance, and very little reason to forgive any errors.

Finally she sat down at the table and put the lute to one side. She hadn’t bothered to go to the kitchens to find food. She felt too disheartened to eat.

She recollected all too vividly the sounds her fingers had made as Modred snapped each one, followed by the blinding shock of pain and despair.

She had hoped she would escape the darkness of that awful cell, but it turned out she had brought the cell with her. Every bleak detail lurked inside, waiting for a moment of weakness so the memories could flood through her mind.

Exhaustion weighed her down. Earlier in the evening, she had lit a fire, more for the comfort and light than the warmth, and the flames were dying, throwing the music hall into deep shadow. Intending to only rest her eyes for a little while, she lay her head on crossed arms and plummeted into sleep.

Something roused her, some slight sound of movement and change in the air. A large, broad hand came down between her shoulder blades.

“Sidonie.”

Some part of her knew his touch, even before she recognized his whisper.

Her benefactor. The magic man.

She jerked upright and stared at the broad, tall silhouette of the man standing beside her.

The flames in the hearth had died down completely, but a pale, indistinct glow came through the wall windows from a moon obscured by heavy clouds. The fugitive glimmer gave a rough outline of the room’s furniture and touched on the back of her benefactor’s head and shoulders.

“You found me,” she said stupidly, her voice still blurred from sleep. “I wish I’d been able to leave you a note.”

Something changed. The air grew heavier and sultry, as if in a storm before a lightning strike. The hand he had put at her back pressed down, and through that touch she felt the tension that ran through him.

Then the hard, pressing weight left her back. Lightly, he stroked his fingers over her head. “What happened to your hair?”

The whispered question sounded calm, even gentle, but suddenly she knew it was a lie. He was toweringly furious. She shrugged impatiently. “It doesn’t matter.”

That light, fleeting touch passed along the bare nape of her neck. The sensation of callused fingers caused a shiver to run down her spine. “It matters to me.”

“Isabeau ordered it to be cut off.” Pushing back from the table, she stood. “It was vindictive and childish, and the least important thing that happened today.” Eyes wide, she studied the outline of his head, his shadowed features, but she could only gain impressions.

His hair was short, or at least shorter rather than long, and it appeared to be brown, or even darker, maybe even as black as hers. If he had darker hair, that would mean he wasn’t Light Fae. While she couldn’t make out any definition of his features, he seemed to have a strong bone structure that would be in keeping with his tall, broad-shouldered height.

She still couldn’t see enough to identify him if she were to see him in daylight. She wasn’t even sure about the hair color. Maybe his hair was really blond, just darkened by shadows. If the moon would only come out from behind the clouds, she could get a good look at him.

“Don’t dismiss what happened as quickly as that,” he replied. That gentle touch stroked along her throat to her chin, and he tilted her face up. “Isabeau was trying to take away your beauty, and she failed. You’re quite striking with short hair. She won’t be pleased.”

She let loose an explosive sigh. “That doesn’t matter either. I fucked up. In fact, I fucked up so badly there’s no fixing it. Nothing else matters aside from that.”

He tilted his head sharply. “What do you mean? What happened?”

The events of the day crushed down on her, the unending stress, the fear, and she felt her face crumple. Suddenly remembering that his eyesight was sharper at night than hers, she bowed her head and dug the heels of her hands into dry, tired eyes.

“I did it all,” she gritted. “I told my version of truth and padded it with supposition and questions, and I got past the prison interrogator, past Modred, and I even survived a second meeting with the Queen. I won a second shot at playing for her, and she gave me three days to prepare.” Her voice broke. “It never occurred to me that I might not know how to play anything here. I play five instruments really well. Really well. Not one of those instruments is here in this hall.”

He took in a deep, audible breath, then let it out slowly. Grasping her by the shoulders, he pulled her into his arms. “Okay,” he murmured. “We will figure this out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out,” she said into his chest. “I can’t magically learn how to play a new instrument well enough to satisfy a music aficionado in the next… Today is over. It’s two days now, not three. She’s going to throw me back in prison, and next time I won’t have a nifty story I can tap-dance around to get somebody’s attention.”

“Don’t be too sure about that,” he told her. “It’s going to be all right, Sidonie. Just trust me and relax for a minute while I think.”

To go from such intense isolation and stress to someone actually caring enough to put his arms around her was an almost impossible emotional journey to encompass. Her breath shook in her throat as she fought to regain her composure.

He rubbed her back until gradually, muscle by muscle, she eased into the shelter of his long, hard body and slipped her arms around his waist. He was still wearing the bandage around his ribs, she discovered.