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The room goes still as the kids watch him avidly. For the first verse, everyone’s too cool to react, but by the second, heads tip, and I see a couple mouths move as they recognize the refrain. A fox-tailed girl wraps her tail around her own leg and rocks in time with his strumming. The stone-skinned boy in the back looks bored, but his foot taps the floor anyway. Even the teachers don’t pretend to be busy as they hear his voice raw and emotional.
When the song ends, the room stays silent for a beat, as if they’re not sure if it’s over. Then the applause hits, and even the seniors in the back can’t help themselves.
Our royal rockstar just grins, shrugs, and says, “That’s nothing—who here plays?”
Three hands go up fast, and I roll my eyes to the ceiling.
He’s going to be forever now, and no one will be able to pry him away.
Fifty-One
FIADH
I’m not sure what time it is, or if it even matters anymore—inside Thornwright’s music room, time melts like wax under a heat lamp. I lean against the back wall, watching my mates fan out around the room’s perimeter like they’re running silent security for a visiting head of state. Which they kind of are, except the royal in question is currently sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by a heap of teenagers, all of whom look like they’ve never seen someone with money, title, or level of give-a-shit about them before.
Sadly, they probably haven’t, and that’s why this is so special.
Most of the kids are crammed in with their knees up and heads bobbing for the best line of sight. A couple of last-minute strays are wedged in back behind the invited students, which I respect—kids know a good time when they see one. Every available surface is spoken for, even the weird little plywood shelf by the window, which has two goblin twins balanced on top, sharing a chipped harmonica between them. The glow from the cracked neon clock on the wall throws odd shadows, and the only source of warmth is the body heat of forty-odd teenagers plus one superstar, but it works.
Revelin is in the eye, kneeling on a scuffed-up riser with the ancient acoustic in his lap. The guitar’s frets are so worn you can see the bare wood, but he makes it work, rolling out a simple progression slowly enough that the gremlin girl in front of him can keep up. She’s got hands the size of a sandwich, and every time she tries the F chord, her pinky pops loose and the whole thing goes twangy. But instead of giving up, he gently puts her finger back, hums the root note, and waits until she tries again.
“Not quite,” he says, his voice low with no trace of mockery. “Try flattening your wrist, like this.” He demonstrates, and the girl mirrors it, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration.
Damn, if the rest of the world could see him now, Oliver would be so fucked.
The other kids are watching with the full-body attention that only comes from always being treated like an afterthought. Even the fox-tailed kid in the back, who wore boredom like armor before, is sitting forward with his elbows on knees. I wonder if any of them have had a teacher—or anyone—who’d let them mess up a dozen times without yanking the instrument away.
It’s a small thing, but I feel my throat go tight—I was that kid when I tried to learn magic at school. The impulse to pick up strays is coded into me at the molecular level, but this isn’t my gig; it’s his. And watching him do it—not for a camera or a mayor or the wretched mothers at Silvergate—makes something hot and sharp press behind my eyes. If only my sister and I had teachers like him when we struggled, maybe we would have figured out our secrets sooner rather than live with shame for years.
The goblin girl finally nails the chord, and for half a second she just gapes at her own hand. Revelin lights up with genuine, unfiltered glee and says, “There you go. That’s the one.” He nods once, like a secret handshake, and strums it again so she can hear how it fits into the song.
Around the room, a wave of emotion passes—first confusion, then disbelief, and then a ragged, spontaneous cheer. His student grins so wide her ears fold, and the two kids on the shelf nearly fall off in their scramble to clap for her. Fidget, who’s been dozing in my hair, shakes himself awake and chirps approval, as if he’s the judge on a baking show and this chord is good enough for a handshake.
This is so fucking magical that I can hardly stand and not a single person is actually using magic.
The rest of my mates are posted up watching as well. Tiernan is by the door, arms behind his back, every inch the alert sentinel but with a softer expression than usual. His eyes sweep the crowd, but not for threats—he’s just making sure nobody gets left out. There’s a tiny pull at the edge of his mouth, like he’s fighting a smile, and I’d bet my last drink ticket that he’s remembering something from his own shit childhood where nobody cheered for him, too.
Khol is at the far wall, half in shadow, with his chin tucked down. He looks like he’s brooding, but there’s this weird fondness in the way he watches Revelin—like he’s recalibrating how much of his schtick is front and how much is the real deal. It’s grudging, sure, but it’s there, and when the room erupts for the goblin girl, he doesn’t roll his eyes. He just looks at her with a smirk, then at Rev, and then back at her, and I see him nod his approval.
My ancient vampiric grump is propped against the windowsill, utterly motionless except for his eyes. He doesn’t blink much, and right now, he’s tracking the room not for danger, but for how the kids talk to each other, who sits where, and who flinches when attention lands on them. He’s not hunting; he’s just… observing like a botanist with a rare, delicate flower. It’s so outside his usual mode that I take a minute to realize how much more at-ease he is finally. I wonder if he’s remembering his own school days, if he ever had any, or something else.
I tell myself to stop overthinking and enjoy it for a while. The sound of the off-key strumming, the muttered jokes, and the little bursts of laughter when someone misses a cue are adorable. It’s realer than anything I’ve experienced in Faerie so far, more real than most of Briarvale, and for a second I want to bottle it and bring it back for Fer. She would love it—at least, she would have the last time I saw her. Based on what Ro’s communicated, she’s had to mature a lot and get harder, so it might not be her jam anymore. That would be sad, but also, that’s what happened to me when our folks died and I had to rocket into being the responsible one so she could stay soft.
I don’t resent it—I never will—but I’ve been more aware of the distinction with the distance from our trip.
Rev plays two more songs, both by request, and he gets the room singing on the second one—a barely in-tune, lurching chorus that fills the space and makes even the window glass hum. When he finishes, he stands and hands the guitar back to its owner, who takes it with reverence, as if it’s now permanently luckier than it was before. I close my eyes and savor the sense of being both seen and invisible, in a good way. I file it away deliberately, like a pressed flower between pages. I want to remember how it felt to see a room full of people who’d written themselves off—and who’d been written off by everyone else—sit up a little straighter because someone bothered to make space for them.
The second we leave this building, it’s straight back to the bus, the portal, and whatever waits on the other side of the Veil. We’re still being hunted, and the world will keep trying to shove us into roles that don’t fit. But I have this lovely moment now, and I’m going to keep it. I don’t have many memories that don’t burn; I’ll take new ones that glow with a fierce happiness.
My prince laughs as the moth-winged girl tries to teach him a three-chord progression he clearly doesn’t know, and when he messes it up, he makes a face so over-the-top that the whole front row loses it. I catch his eye, and he winks at me, as if he can see exactly what I’m thinking. Maybe he can, or maybe he’s just that good at reading a room. Fidget nudges my scalp as he settles in with a tiny, satisfied chirr. My wrists buzz under my sleeves, but it’s a contented energy, the kind that wants to make rather than break.
I let myself have this because I want to come back to it someday, even if it’s just a fantasy.
Which it is, because by the time we come back here, it’s going to be the start of a coup, not a cozy jam session.
After a while, the afterglow of the visit fades a bit. Everyone’s still a little giddy and tired, but reluctant to be the one who breaks the spell by saying it’s over. Revelin plays just quietly enough that conversation can sneak around the edges, and the kids closest to him have begun passing a guitar around, daring each other to pick out the first phrase of a melody before the next kid grabs it. Laughter and the last trailing notes bounce off the walls and somehow manage not to disturb the dust or the lived-in hush of the space.
I’m still against the wall, not because I have to be, but because I don’t want to shatter anything. Some moments are better left untouched, and I’m content to observe.
