Norah had a decent voice, but she hadn’t been the dedicated musical student her father had wished her to be. Still, her singing was fair enough and her ear sensitive enough that she was able to quickly pick up on not only melodies but also harmonies, and pretty soon, she and Phillip were grinning as they pushed pages of music back and forth, arguing (silently on his part) about which song should be next.
At the end of the day, while Norah hadn’t discovered any true secrets–and she very much doubted that she’d found the key to his heart–she felt much lighter as she fell asleep. Lighter than she’d felt since arriving.
Even if it was only music, at least they had a place to start.
Chapter 9
This Man Alone
For the next two weeks, Norah and Phillip spent as much time steeped in music as was possible when he wasn’t sitting in on meetings or trying to work with his sister. Every time Norah saw him, she would ask him how he felt or how his day had been, and he would play a few lines of a song to indicate his emotions.
At first, he always played happy songs. But after a few days of this, Norah grew annoyed.
“What’s the good of being able to communicate this way if you don’t tell me the truth?” she demanded one evening as he joined her in the garden just before sunset.
He stared at her, looking confused.
“No one is happy all the time.” She crossed her arms. “Not even you.”
He regarded her for a long moment, his eyes suddenly wary.
“See?” She pointed at him. “You’re unsure. I can see it in your eyes!” This, of course, made her feel somewhat triumphant and a little bit bold. “You know you don’t feel happy all the time! It’s all right to show it!” She took a deep breath and a step closer. “Iwantto know. It’s why I ask.”
His brows drew together slightly, which only convinced Norah that she was most definitely right.
“Please,” she said, drawing close and taking his wrists in hers… which felt far more intimate than she had anticipated once she was actually holding them. “I’m trying to help you. But I can’t just… fall in love if you don’t let me in.”
Phillip swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He looked slowly down at her hands, still clasping his wrists. And when he looked up at her again, his brown eyes were wide. Norah wondered if she ought to let his wrists go, but a wry voice in the back of her head told her it was too late to go back now. So she simply took a deep breath.
“Please,” she whispered, nodding at his violin. “Let me in.”
For another eternal moment, he studied her. Then, slowly, he raised the bow to the strings and drew out a few long, sad notes.
“See?” Norah said, glad to have her hands free again… but also wishing she could touch him again. “Everyone has a bad day now and then. And now we can work on making it better.”
The days after that were easier. Norah began to see patterns in his behavior–what made him happy and what made him sad. And most interesting to her, what annoyed him.
For example, Phillip hated it when his sister asked where he had been.
“She’s only looking out for you,” Norah said one evening as they walked through the palace toward her room. Since their conversation in the garden, Phillip had begun escorting her there every night. “I was the youngest in my family by far, but I can only imagine how terrified I would be if one of my sisters were never able to call for help if she needed it.”
Phillip played a few more short, minor notes in protest, and Norah couldn’t help but laugh.
Still, she knew that despite their advances, their time was running short. She could see it in the way Lady Freya watched her brother whenever she thought no one was looking. The lady’s beautiful eyes would darken as she furrowed her brows in concern. Whenever she did this, Norah was reminded of how Lady Freya had described him losing more and more of his ability to communicate as time passed.
My greatest fear is that one day we’ll wake up and find him trapped inside himself, with no way to understand or be understood.
Norah chewed on these thoughts anxiously one day as she waited for Phillip to emerge from a meeting with his sister and brother-in-law and their advisers. At first, Norah had attended all of his meetings, but after a few weeks, she had decided that her time would be better spent thinking alone.
Today, she did what neither Nanny nor her mother had ever wanted her to do, and that was to climb a tree.
“The girl’s spirit matches her hair,” Nanny had once muttered to her mother when Norah had climbed so high that they’d needed several of the family’s personal guards to get her down. “And if she doesn’t survive childhood, we’ll know what to blame!”
Norah took care now not to snag her borrowed dress on the bark as she carefully seated herself on the largest, lowest branch in the tree. She had discovered the day before that if she sat on this particular branch on this particular tree, she could see over the palace wall into the city beyond.
Where was Nanny now? Norah sighed. She needed Nanny’s advice more than she ever had, but her beloved Nanny was nowhere to be found. What had happened after she’d fought the pirate? Had he found a way to subdue her? Norah doubted it. But if he hadn’t managed to overpower her, where was she? Surely she wouldn’t simply abandon Norah after all they’d been through.
A squirrel chattered angrily on a branch beneath her, and Norah looked down to find Phillip looking up at her.
