Bert pulled out a thick ring of keys and opened the single wood-framed glass door. For the past three months, he had taken the bus to work each weekday and Saturday morning.Īt ten-thirty, Michael met the owners, Bert and Olive Cantor, at the front of the restaurant. The time was not right.Īfter two weeks of job hunting, he had been hired as a waiter in a Nicaraguan restaurant on Pico. Michael had not yet assumed the position of caretaker at the Waltiri house. He kissed Ruth on the cheek and ran up the stairs to change into his work clothes. The stalemate bothered him.ĭelicious, he said as he carried his plate to the sink. John had been through this before Michael had not. Just as clearly, there were things she wanted to tell and could not. She had made it quite clear she did not want to talk about it. And Ruth’s reaction, a stiff kind of panic, voice high-pitched, had shut both of them up immediately. John had asked once, and Michael had shown signs of volunteering. The subject of Michael’s missing five years was virtually taboo around the house. He was less enthusiastic about bacon-or any kind of meat-than he had been before.īut she did not bring up this observation. She regarded her son delicately over a cup of coffee as he ate his French toast and strips of bacon. He had barely worked up a sweat when Ruth appeared in the doorway again. Michael stood in the middle of the yard and began exercising with the stick, running in place with it held out before him, hefting it back over his head and bending over to touch first one end, then the other to the grass on both sides. John wiped the smooth pale surface with his fingers and applied himself to a rough spot. Don’t be too hard on him.īreakfast lingers for no man, she said. I remember him still carrying stacks of books around, John said. My son, the jock, Ruth said from the back steps. He looked up at Michael and forearmed mock-sweat from his brow. Near the upswung door of the converted garage, his father, John, was hand-sanding a maple table top on two paint-spattered sawhorses. The morning was grayed by a thin fog that would burn off in just a few hours. Michael returned her smile and picked up a long oak stick from beside the kitchen pantry, carrying it through the door into the back yard. French toast in fifteen minutes, she said, smiling at him. His mother, Ruth, was reading the newspaper in the kitchen. There had been no candles on his cake, at his request. He descended the stairs in a beige sweatsuit, a gift from his parents on his most recent birthday. There would barely be time for his exercises. With a start, he held up his left wrist to look at his new watch. He caught a glimpse of white vapor spread like wings, but it could easily have been the fog of sleep. Michael’s eyelids flickered, then opened. It was a surprise even to us, the tallest of the three said. The fourth figure, shaped like a bird, said nothing. One of the forms reached down to squeeze an arm with long fingers. Michael rolled over onto his back, pulling sheet and blankets aside to reveal his broad, well-muscled shoulders. He is pretending to be normal, one form said without words to her sister, hovering nearby. It took him away, however briefly, from thoughts of what had happened in the Realm. Sleep was a habit he had reacquired since his return. Had he been awake, he would have recognized three of them, but he was in a deep and dreamless sleep. The pale, translucent forms bent over Michael Perrin once again. This follow-up to The Infinity Concerto is a work of fresh, out-of-the-ordinary fantasy by an acclaimed winner of the Nebula and Hugo Awards, the author of The Forge of God, the Forerunner Saga, and other reader favorites. To repair the rift between Earth and Realm, man and fae, he will have to wield the magic he wished he never learned-and complete an unfinished symphony linked to the ethereal melody of Waltiri’s Opus 45, the Infinity Concerto. The streets of Los Angeles are haunted by uncanny beings, strange bodies have been discovered in a dilapidated hotel, and an ancient creature calls to Michael from the waters of a loch in Scotland. The song of power has weakened the veil between the human and faerie worlds. He wants nothing more than to live a normal life-but the unearthly music of Arno Waltiri continues to play on. Īfter five years trapped in the Realm of the Sidhedark, Michael Perrin has returned home. From the New York Times–bestselling and award-winning author of The Infinity Concerto, the fantasy saga continues.
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