A chance to hear Gareth play again, perform again? :No-brainer!: Niall chuckled at the ethera’s enthusiastic agreement as he followed Gareth out of the house.

Then, face to—:Grill!: —with an enormous black metal box—:SUV!:—he balked. Logically, he knew he must have ridden in this monstrosity to get from the gate to the bed where he’d awoken, but to do it consciously?

“Niall?” Gareth peered at him from across the hood of the vehicle. “Are you all right?”

“Do we have to ride in this?”

Gareth shrugged apologetically. “The rehearsal studio is too far away to walk. I suppose we could take the MAX train, but—”

The next house over, the garage door slid up, and a small, silent car glided out, David waving to them from inside on the way past. The glowering, dark-haired, bespectacled man behind the wheel must be the druid. Niall shivered, but then he caught sight of something else in the garage.

:Harley!: the ethera caroled.

Niall pointed as the bay door began its descent. “Can you ride that?”

Gareth glanced over his shoulder. “Mal’s bike? Yes. But I’m not supposed to take risks on concert days. Besides, your back—”

“Never mind that.” He grinned, feeling like himself for the first time in two hundred years. “Come on then. Let’s give it a go.”

Gareth’s eyes widened and his shoulders hitched, but then he relaxed and grinned back. “All right.”

He led the way through a side door, locating helmets and jackets for them both. As they mounted the bike in the garage, Gareth gave Niall pointers about the ride that he really didn’t need with the ethera whispering gaily in his ear.

Then they were off, and it was glorious—wind and sun and a speed Niall had never experienced on his swiftest horse. The ride was over almost too soon, but once they were inside the studio and Gareth had introduced him to the rest of Hunter’s Moon, Niall surrendered to a different kind of thrill.

The band rehearsal was bloody fascinating. He’d never seen Gareth as anything but a solo performer—just him and his harp or sometimes the lute. But being with his band, working out the balance in a song, arguing over the set list, trading cues with the other musicians, put him in a completely different light. It made him seem . . . human.

“Ah, shite, Gareth. Can’t we change this bloody set list?” The drummer—Hamish—bounced on his stool behind the drum kit, flipping a stick from one hand to the other. “You’ve had us mired in this love-lost-woe-is-me crap for so long I need a Xanax just to rehearse.”

Spence, the keyboardist, sauntered out from behind his equipment. “Have you seen the Twitter feed lately? The fans are starting to get whiny. It’s been too long since we released something new.” He slung an arm across the other guitarist’s shoulders. Josh, the guitarist in question, glanced at Niall and blushed, although he looked pleased. Spence shot a sly glance at Niall. “Maybe now you can get out of your funk, Gareth, and you and Josh can get back to work on something that isn’t so fucking depressing.”

Gareth stayed hunched over his guitar, fingering a few chords, and Niall could tell by the tension in his shoulders that he didn’t want to have this conversation. Maybe it would be easier if Niall weren’t there. He had learned in his years wrestling with Unseelie politics that difficult negotiations were made more awkward with an observer—especially one who might be construed as critical.

This was Gareth’s business, the band’s business. Niall should let them have their privacy. He got up from his chair in the corner—a hard, wooden one that was murder on his arse but allowed him to sit forward without pressure on his back—and slipped out the door of the practice room into the hallway.

The rehearsal space had two other studios, but neither of them were occupied at the moment. Niall wandered down the hallway into a small dingy kitchen with a battered table and chairs. It also sported several large, brightly lit machines full of unfamiliar food and beverages.

:Vending machines! Coca Cola! Cheez-Its!:

Niall peered at them, bemused. He wasn’t hungry—the breakfast at David’s house had been both delicious and filling. Coffee. He’d never had any that tasted quite that good. He glanced at the machine on the counter, which had one glass pot with a burnt crust at the bottom. He doubted seriously whether he’d get anything similar here. Maybe he should try the Coca Cola—although he had no idea how to get one out of the machine.

:Money!:

Well, he didn’t have any of that, so he’d make do with water.

As he was slurping from his hands at the sink, Tiff, the bass player, walked over and handed him a cup made of paper. “This might make things easier.”

He took it, flushing. “Right. Thanks.” He might have the information at his fingertips, but changing behavior that had been ground into him over centuries would take time.

Tiff leaned one hip against the pitted counter, toying with the giant hoop that hung from one ear. Her dark hair was cut close to her scalp on one side but hung down to her chin on the other, one long lock—dyed blue—hanging over her eye. “What was Gareth like back in the day?”

“I—I don’t remember.”

She lifted an eyebrow—which had a smaller hoop threaded through it. “Oh right. Amnesia. Very convenient.”

“I’m sorry. What?”

“Look. I’ve known Gareth since 1969—”

“But that’s—you can’t have been born back then.”

She stared at him, and for a moment, her brown eyes flashed gold. “Let’s just say Gareth isn’t the only one with a foot in the supernatural. Niall—” She leaned toward him, lowering her voice. “I can call you Niall, right?” Niall nodded, mesmerized by her gaze. “You’ve spent a loooong time around the freaky-ass shit in Faerie, so you won’t be surprised to find out that there are other freaky-ass things in the world, right?”

“Uh—”

“Well, this band is full of freaky-ass, and we’re not afraid to capitalize on it.”

“And that means?”

“Gareth has been brokenhearted over you for as long as I’ve known him. If you’re pulling an amnesia stunt to keep from having the tough conversation, from having to tell him you don’t feel that way about him and never did? If you’re too much of a coward to just tell him he was wrong to mourn you all this time, well . . .” She flicked out a finger, and her fingernail grew and grew, losing its purple polish until it was a very long and very lethal-looking claw. “Let’s just say some of us might take it . . . badly.”

Niall raised his eyebrows. “Is this how you greet all of Gareth’s visitors?”

“Gareth has no visitors. That’s the point. You’re either the best thing ever, or the thing that’ll destroy him for good.”

“So you’re saying I should pretend to remember things I don’t, just to make him feel better?”

She scowled. “No. I just mean— Shit. He’ll kill me if I scare you off. But tell the truth, man. One way or another. Just don’t fuck with him.”

Niall nodded. “Understood.” He crushed the cup in one hand and tossed it in the bin. “But just out of curiosity—say I never remember. Say I move on. What will happen to Gareth?”

“If I were you, I’d worry more about what will happen to you.”

“Yet you just said it didn’t matter as long as I didn’t fuck with him.”

Her scowl deepened. “Damn it. This threatening bodily harm shit is more complicated than it looks.”

“How about this? Even if I don’t remember, I’ll do my best to get to know him now. For all you know, he may not be interested in me anymore. It’s been a long time. I’m probably a different person.” He rubbed his wrist absently where the healing shackle scabs itched. Tiff glanced down at his hand, and her eyes widened. He checked—and pulled the sleeve of the sweatshirt down where it had exposed the scabs.

“Damn,” she breathed. “I—I didn’t know. I guess you haven’t had an easy time of it either.”

“No. I don’t suppose I have.”

“Okay.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Look. Sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten all up in your grill.”

“No, it’s fair. You want to support your friend and I respect that.”

“But I shouldn’t have done it at your expense.” She held out her hand. “Truce?”

“Truce.” He shook her hand. “Do you suppose it’s safe to go back inside?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. If you’re around much, you’ll find out our rehearsals can get a bit lively.”

“Is that what you’d call it?”

She grinned. “Nah. I’d call it a fucking circus, but who wants a quiet life, eh?”

When they stepped inside the studio, Gareth glanced up from where he was scribbling notes and smiled briefly before handing the paper to Hamish. “That’s the set list then. Is it sufficiently cheerful for you?”

Hamish shrugged, then passed the list on to Spence. “Beats a poke in the eye with a drumstick, but it could still use a little lightening up. When are you and Josh gonna write something new?”

Gareth glanced at Niall and then away. “You can’t force it.”

“What the fuck? You’re a bard. Isn’t that what you do? I thought this stuff just shot out your ass like rainbow farts.”

“Nice, Hamish.” Spence wadded up the list and bounced it off the drummer’s head.

Josh smiled a little tentatively. For a musician, he was awfully shy until he got lost in the music. “There’s something we could work on.”

“You been holding out on us, Joshie?” Spence kissed his temple. “I didn’t know you’d written something solo.”

“Well I didn’t. And it needs work. There’s something . . . missing. It’s hard to define, but I think it would be a perfect close to the first set.” He picked up his violin. “This is a little rough.”

“Don’t worry about it, mate,” Hamish said. “I don’t care if it limps along like a wounded wildebeest, as long as it’s new.”

“Okay.” Josh took a deep breath and launched into a reel that could have been played at the eisteddfod where Niall had first met Gareth. In fact . . . Niall frowned. It sounded almost familiar. Not the whole thing, but a phrase here and there, as if he’d heard bits of it from another room.

He looked at Gareth—who’d gone stark pale, muscles bunching in his jaw.

“Stop. Stop now.” He strode forward and snatched the sheet music off the stand in front of Josh. “How dare you—”

“Hold up, there.” Spence stepped forward, in front of the cowering Josh. “Out of line, Kendrick.”

Josh’s eyes were huge in his thin face. “I’m sorry. You left it in the notebook in the studio last week. I thought you were ready to—”

“No. I’ll never be ready.” Gareth wadded up the papers and slammed them into the bin. “And you had no right to play that without asking.”

Josh hugged his violin to his chest. “I just wanted to surprise you. It’s the start of a good piece, Gareth. We could work on it. I’ve already got some ideas for lyrics—”

“I said no.” Gareth snatched up his guitar. “We’ll end the set with ‘Clancy’s Fancy,’ just as we’d planned.”

The other band members glanced at one another, but made no move to pick up their instruments. The tension was thick enough to slice with a blunt sword. Niall knew how much Gareth’s music meant to him. He couldn’t let Gareth bollux up this relationship. And Josh—poor bloke looked as if somebody had just drowned his dog.

But the music, that aborted song, tugged at Niall. As the band members glared at one another, tension so palpable it almost colored the air, Niall drifted unnoticed toward the trash bin as if in a trance and pulled out the paper, smoothing it until he could read the words scrawled at the top of the music. “Lover’s Reel.”

The memory tumbled over him—lying in the bed at an inn in Aberystwyth, with Gareth, naked, sitting cross-legged next to him, his harp in his lap. He’d smiled down at Niall.

“I’m writing a song for you.”

“For me? Nobody’s ever thought I warranted a song before. A bit of doggerel, mayhap, and here and there a curse or two.”

Gareth played a snatch of the tune—sprightly and martial, with a hint of slyness. “Maybe nobody’s ever loved you like I do.”

The memory punched Niall in the gut. It had been the first time Gareth had told him that he loved him. But he’d never heard the full song. Gareth wouldn’t play it for him until it was finished, and before he’d finished, Niall had been chained underground.

Maybe he could do something to defuse this imminent implosion. For Josh. For Gareth. For all of them.

Niall ran a finger over the writing. “I remember.”

Gareth’s head cranked around. “What?”

“You were writing this for me. You played me a bit of it once. In an inn.” He glanced at Gareth, who was gazing at him with a mixture of hope and despair. Niall shot him a cheeky grin. “You were naked at the time.”

Gareth laughed as if the sound had been wrenched out of him. “I was. So were you.”

Niall walked across the room and pressed the pages to Gareth’s chest. “I think you should play it. Don’t you?”

Gareth placed his hand over Niall’s for an instant before taking the papers. Don’t go too far. He’ll still hate you when he finds out the truth.

Gareth studied the notes marching across the page—incomprehensible to Niall, but a native tongue of everyone in the band. “Maybe. But Josh is right. It’s missing something.”

“So finish it. It’s what you do, right?” Niall glanced around at the other band members. “It’s what you all do.”

Josh nodded, and Hamish whooped.

Tiff just picked up her bass. “Then I suggest we get down to it. We’ve got six hours before sound check, and if we’re going to slot this in, we need to move our fucking asses.”