way, right?”
I looked sideways at him as he slowed down, found him bathed in the purple light, giving him an ethereal glow, and making his freckles stand out further. I sighed. “Then how do you think of me?”
His eyes darted away, before returning to fix mine in such intense sincerity. “I’d like to think that we are good friends by now. Don’t you?”
As selfish and pointless as it was, I’d wanted to hear something more than that, now more than ever.
Shrugging to hide my foolish, crushing disappointment, I said, “Perhaps, but I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had any friends. No one ever seemed to like me.”
His jaw tightened. “You might be a bit hard to get to know, but anyone who missed out on the chance to get to know you is a fool.”
Everything that was left of me fluttered at his earnest praise. It was my turn to escape his gaze. “Many did attempt to ingratiate themselves to me, but it was never genuine. They didn’t want my company, but the benefits it could provide.”
“Then those you met at court were terrible opportunists. The disparity in your status shouldn’t have mattered. Your brother and I had no problem becoming true friends, neither did he and Lord Gestum.”
“How come I don’t remember you being Leander’s friend?”
Robin rolled his eyes. “Your mother heard that my mother practiced magic, and barred my family from court. But when it was time for Leander to be fostered by a knight, he was sent to my father. Leander believes your father left on some expedition to avoid her demands to get him back.”
Disbelief was like a bucket of ice water down my back. “So if my mother wasn’t so prejudiced, we could have met years ago?”
He nodded. “But I doubt you would have given me the time of day.”
I doubted that. I knew I would have ended up feeling the same about him anyway, even knowing it was impossible still.
Out loud, I said, “Don’t be so sure, you are quite interesting. We could’ve had a few good talks about music.”
He grinned, the blue light from a cluster of crystals making his white teeth glow. “We never did have a proper talk about that. Agnë said she gave you the gift of Song, but gifts are nothing if not practiced and perfected. From the little I heard, you sing like a songbird. Were you also instructed in playing any instruments?”
“I’ll have you know I play the piano quite beautifully, as well as the harp. How about you?”
Robin swept his bow around, and pretended to glide it over an invisible violin. “Ten years of string instruments. But my favorite was the violin. Very expressive for such a small instrument.”
I tried imagining him, younger and struggling to hold a violin under his chin. “I see you traded one bow for another. I wonder which came first, the archer’s bow, or the violinist’s?”
He snapped his bow back with a smirk. “Obviously, the first bow was the one you put in a child’s hair to keep it out of their face.”
I was reminded of the silly jokes he made during our first meeting, when he’d made me laugh out loud.
I found myself grinning at the memory. “I’m being serious here.”
He stared up in exaggerated pondering. “Then I submit the weapon came first. Music is a sign of prosperous civilizations, whereas hunting and warfare existed long before we built any.”
“I’d like to think music has always existed.”
Robin spoke towards the ceiling, raising his voice, “Song is probably as old as speech, with the first ever instrument being our voices.”
I mirrored his action, our voices ringing clearer in this area. “Perhaps song is what began speech.”
“Or we began with whistling.” He whistled a sweet, songbird tune, like he once had what felt like a lifetime ago, before we’d arrived in Faerie.
Aching nostalgia filled me as I did the same, whistling the tune of a ballad that had been on my mind, like some morbid background music to my tragic trials. It was never one I enjoyed. But now it felt painfully relevant to my situation, with the heroine flung into a similar fate to my own.
Recognizing it at once, he joined me. The wordless duet we created was so poignant, I stopped before I choked up.
I gestured with my remaining hand, needing a distraction. “The acoustics here are excellent, better than my favorite music room.”
“I can’t believe your music teacher had you singing Sweet William and Marguerite. Seems like a forbidden topic