Marin blinked at him. “What do you mean?” Couldn’t he just… walk outside the conservatory and ask someone? Or read a news bulletin?
“I am working on my opus,” Dax said as if that explained it all. When she just raised her eyebrows, he continued. “After you achieve Master Composer, you are invited to complete a capstone work that encapsulates your vision for the future of music. Or youcanbe invited. Some people are invited.Iwas invited. Regardless, every time I venture out of my rooms or show an interest in anything that isn’t my opus work…” He shook his head and sighed heavily. “It’s not just the grandmasters. It’s all my friends too. Everyone is very concerned about me finishing.”
That seemed foreign to her, to have everyone invested in what shedid. With the exception of Perri, no one knew where Marin was or what she was doing at any given time, and she liked it that way. She had her jobs, as well as her usual routes, but she had the freedom of completing them when and how she chose. Today was her scheduled delivery day for the conservatory and also the Great Library, but outside of Alyssium, her runs didn’t usually come with a set deadline.
Dax tossed a pickled squid, a rare pink one, toward Perri. The sea serpent caught it mid-arc and held it between his jaws, its tentacles dangling out, then he plunged under the surface, rocking the boat and splashing the dock. Dax danced backward with a laugh. “Knew he’d like it.”
“Where did you get a pink eva squid?” She’d only seen them near the island of Kiko, which was only nominally part of the empire. They were isolationist in the extreme, due to how fragile their environment was. Their island was made of glass, created in a lightning-filled magic storm. She’d once traded some tools they’d needed in exchange for rare delicacies, including a slice of pink eva squid, but it was so out-of-the-way that she hadn’t returned.
Dax shrugged. “Leftovers from a post-concert dinner at the palace.”
He said it so casually, as if dining at the palace were an unremarkable occurrence.We lead such different lives.She wasn’t remotely jealous, though. Dinner at the imperial palace, where you were hemmed in by rules and rituals, watched by guards, sneered at by nobles, no thank you. Most likely no one sneered at Dax.But I’d look ridiculous there.Especially in her sailing clothes. “Then you have been outside the conservatory. You went to the palace.”
“Actually, no. Just the grandmasters did. They brought back the leftovers for the conservatory kitchen to use. The grandmasters have instructed us all to keep inside. They say it’s just out of an overabundance of caution. I’ve asked my friends… So far, all I’ve been able to learn is that there’s unrest again. Multiple protests near the palace. But I’m told it’s the same as it’s been. Lots of noise. Very little progress.”
On her last visit, she’d heard of a few protests that had ended with imperial soldiers marching through a farmer’s market and making too many arrests. None of them had been widespread enough to cause people to board up their windows or vacate their homes. “Just near the palace?” As much as she agreed with the protesters, she did not want to get swept up in the arrests.
“So far, this side of Alyssium has been quiet.”
The conservatory was on the eastern side of Alyssium, far from any of the government buildings. If the unrest was only by the palace, then Dax was right—they’d be fine. Their next stop was closer, but still several canals away from any place protesters would target.
“Will the grandmasters let you out if you finish your opus?” Marin asked.
“Who knows? I’d probably have a better idea of that if I’d started.”
“You haven’t started?” She had no feel for how much work was involved in composing an opus, but it sounded significant.
Dax winced. “Not you too.”
“Sorry. Never composed anything. I have no idea how all that”—she waved her hand at the walls with their mosaics of instruments and the sconces shaped like musical notations—“works.”
“Yes, well, that’s a lot of the problem. How all that works. It doesn’t always. Creative work doesn’t follow a set of steps. You can open yourself to it, use techniques to unlock different sounds, experiment, but sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Like lighting a fire in a cold hearth. Sometimes the kindling doesn’t catch.” His shoulders slumped. “I have been trying for three months. My performance is scheduled for the fifth day of the winter solstice celebration.”
“You still have plenty of time left.”
“What if it’s just not in me? What if I’ve created my best already, and there’s nothing left inside me to say? I sit down at my instruments, and all I hear are the same melodies, the same harmonies. I don’t hear anythingnew, and I want my opus to be new! I want it to reach into the heart of everyone who hears it and cause them to stop, listen, and lose themselves in the music, and then find themselvesagain when the music ends. I want them to feel changed. Awakened. Or soothed. I don’t know. I want to have animpact. Everyone up there”—he waved toward the stairs, where the winged cat was licking her paws, the tentacle chunk devoured—“expects it of me. They expect me to produce an opus worthy of the title Grandmaster.”
“Sounds like you’re putting too much pressure on yourself.”
“Or not enough,” Dax said morosely. “I should be in my music room, instead of down here feeding winged cats and sea serpents.”
Perri flicked a fin at Dax. Spray spattered his silken clothes.
Marin smirked. “He does that when he thinks you’ve said something ridiculous.”
Wiping the droplets from his shirt, Dax said, “He’s not wrong. I am being overdramatic. I didn’t come to the tunnel to hide from my lack of inspiration—I came to find it. You.”
She snorted. She wasn’t anyone’s inspiration. She was just… Marin.
“I came to wait for you. I always leave our visits feeling… richer. Fuller. Like I’ve eaten the most delicious meal and am now ready to tackle any problem.”
He’s definitely overdramatic.She knew she could be occasionally entertaining, telling stories of her and Perri’s journeys, especially when she enhanced them for the listener, but she also knew her listeners forgot about her as soon as they went back to their own lives. She was a distraction, a forgettable one, simply a courier for whatever it was they truly needed. Speaking of which, she was supposed to be making a delivery. “I have the instrument that Grandmaster Cheyan requested.”
Dax lit up. “You found one? Fantastic!”
She headed for the cabin.
“Wait, a full-size mayharp?” He crossed to the edge of the dock and peered atSilver’s hatch. “In there?”
