Beauty and the Werewolf

changed. Nothing would change. She was still a prisoner here, and she still had no idea if she was infected or not!

She’d had her hopes raised, then dashed. She could even have distracted herself with her work in the stillroom and not gotten herself all worked up like this.

Wasted. The entire afternoon wasted, because he couldn’t do his job right!

She wasn’t paying any attention to where she was going; she just stormed through the murder-corridors and a succession of rooms without even looking at them, until she finally ran out of anger and Manor at about the same time.

She found herself in a large room, mostly unfurnished, with one wall of windows and one of mirrors. It had a wooden floor with a satin finish; not so highly polished that it was slippery, but with a warm glow to it. There were a few chairs ranged along the wall on the mirror side. Reflexively, she went to the windows and looked out. There was another of the courtyards; not hers, but that was all that she could say for sure.

What on earth was this room? It wasn’t in use; the chairs were all shrouded in sheets. What did anyone use a room this size for?

Dancing?

That was as reasonable a thought as any. Only the very wealthy could afford to build a room just for dancing and other gatherings.

The proportions were a little odd, however. She’d only seen two ballrooms before, and they had been square. This one was longer than it was wide.

Well, perhaps it wasn’t used just for dancing. Not that it mattered now, since, even if Sebastian was inclined to dance, he wasn’t going to be holding any parties…

Though I really don’t know why he couldn’t, she thought with renewed irritation. He only has to be careful three days out of every month. How difficult is that? An idiot could make sure all the guests are gone in plenty of time.

Of course, there was the small matter of the invisible servants.

Good heavens, the man is a sorcerer! He’s expected to have bizarre servants! People would be disappointed if he didn’t! They’d probably come to his affairs just to gawk! To the attraction of a title, add the exotic appeal of being a magician? Her stepmother and the twins would be over the moon, and so would most of the people they knew. The few who would not be — well, how would that matter to Sebastian? His position in society was assured by virtue of birth.

Being a sorcerer alone would be excuse enough to keep people away on the full moon! All he would have to do would be to mumble some nonsense about dangerous spells, and end with “and anytime I don’t explode something or turn a bystander into a toad I take it as a good sign,” and no one would come within miles of Redbuck Manor on the full moon! He could probably even arrange for something to explode rather messily during daylight hours, if there happened to be a potential witness about, just to lend verisimilitude.

Why couldn’t he think of these things for himself? There was no earthly reason why he had to live out here like a hermit!

Well, unless he really wanted to. There was that possibility… He might just be using his condition as an excuse.

Well, fine, then! Let him! Let him stay out here with no one but Eric for company. And the moment she knew she was not going to break out in hair and claws, she was going home and she was not going to feel sorry for him and she was not going to look back!

She didn’t even realize she was pacing up and down the room until Sapphire stood right in front of her and she would have had to run the Spirit Elemental over to continue. She stopped where she was, reined in her temper and reminded herself that Sapphire and the other Spirit Elementals had been nothing but kind to her. “Hello, Sapphire. Was there something you needed me to know?”

Sapphire had her slate with her and she scratched something on it now that she had Bella’s attention. “Musik?”

“What?” Bella blurted in confusion. “Are you asking me if I want to hear music? Why now?”

“U r in Musik rum” came the prompt reply.

“This is — was — a music room?” Now the shape of it made sense, if you thought of it as a sort of theater with no seats and no stage.

“And dancing. And praktus fighting.” At Bella’s blank look, Sapphire added, “Swords.”

Hmm. Maybe wealthy people didn’t actually have whole rooms just for dancing. It did make sense that if you needed a place to practice sword fighting indoors, particularly with the lighter rapiers that were coming into use, you would want something very like a room made for dancing to do it in. And that wall of mirrors would, of course, reflect light coming in from the windows so there were no confusing shadows.

But Sapphire was waiting very patiently for her reply, and Verte had said that some of the invisibles were musicians. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “I would very much like to listen to some — ”

She didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence; one of the chairs was divested of its cover and was practically thrust underneath her so she had to sit down or fall down. Several more chairs were arranged in a little group in front of her, and before she could take that in, a harp, a flute, a bodhran drum and two fiddles came sailing into the room and perched above each of the chairs. It was, perhaps, one of the strangest things she had seen since she arrived here.

Then the invisible musicians began to play.

She hadn’t been sure what to expect when Verte had said the Spirits were musicians. She wasn’t sure what kind of music that they would play, and to be honest, she wasn’t sure whether or not they would actually be any good. She had a good ear for music and she knew it, and she was afraid that they might be terrible. After all, just because you were a magical being it didn’t follow that you were any good at the sorts of things that humans did. For that matter, just because you were a human being, it didn’t follow that you were any good at being a musician!