Ballad by Maggie Stiefvater Page A

her whatever the hell it was between me and my brain, I pressed the key and recognized it as the first note of the song that had been occupying my brain since I woke up. I stumbled, clumsy, to the next note, hitting several wrong ones on the way—the piano was a foreign language that felt wrong in my mouth. Then the next one, guessing a little faster. The next one, only getting one wrong. The next one, right on the first try. And then I was playing the melody, and I joined in with my other hand, hesitantly picking out the bass line that sang in my head.
    It was clunky, amateurish, beautiful. And it was mine . It didn’t sound like a song I’d stolen from Nuala. I recognized a scrap of tune that I’d played with on and off over the years, an ascending bass line I’d admired on an Audioslave album, and a riff I’d toyed with on my guitar. It was mine, but intensified, focused, polished.
    I stopped playing and stared at the piano. I couldn’t say anything because I wanted it so badly. I wanted what she had to offer and it stung because I had to say no. I squeezed my eyes shut.
    “Say something,” Nuala said.
    I opened my eyes. “Shit. I told Sullivan I didn’t know how to play the piano.”

Nuala
    This golden song on my tongue, melting
    This golden tongue giving song, longing
    — from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter
    I didn’t really know what I was feeling. The song that James had just played swelled in my head, and it was so beautiful I felt drunk with it. I’d almost forgotten how good it felt to have my inspirations made flesh, even without taking any energy from James in return. Suddenly wearing my human skin exhausted me.
    “I’m leaving,” I told James, ducking out from under his arms and standing up.
    He was still staring at the keyboard, his shoulders stiff.
    “Did you hear what I said?” I said. “I’m leaving.”
    James looked up, finally, and the hostility in his eyes surprised me for some reason. “Do me a favor,” he said. “And don’t come back.”
    For a long moment, I looked at him, and I really thought about blinding him, to punish him. I knew it was within my power. I’d seen a faerie do it before; he’d spat in a man’s eyes when he noticed that the man was able to see him walking down the street. It had only taken a second. And James was looking right at me.
    But then I looked at James’ hazel eyes and imagined him staring out on the world with wide, unseeing pupils like the blinded man.
    And I couldn’t do it.
    I didn’t know why.
    So I just left, stumbling a little on my way out into the hall, going invisible before I closed the door behind me. Once out of the practice room, I was in such a hurry to get outside that I nearly ran into a woman coming into the hallway. I ducked against the wall and she turned her head, her pink-nailed fingers lifting like claws. I swear she was sniffing in my direction, which was the sort of bizarre behavior I’d come to expect from faeries, not humans.
    I was ready for this weird day to be over. I spun out of her reach and into the autumn evening, trying to forget James’ eyes looking at me and to pretend that it hadn’t hurt when he asked me not to come back.

James
    I had a love-hate relationship with the dorms. They were independence: the freedom to leave your crap on the floor and eat Oreos for breakfast three days in a row (which isn’t a good idea—you always end up with black chunks in your teeth during your first few classes). They were also camaraderie: seventy-five guys thrown into one building together meant you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a musician with balls.
    But they were also brutal, claustrophobic, exhausting. There was no space to get away, to be by yourself, to be who you were when no one was watching, to escape whoever the masses had pegged you to be.
    This afternoon, it was raining, which was the worst—no one in class, no one outside. The dorm was screaming with sound. Our room was full of