Free Stone Song by D. L. McDermott

for a partner and can’t offer her anything less than a full commitment. She and I are bound. I’ll share her span, however long or short that may be. I am not free to be tied to a right hand anymore.”
    It meant he would fight unprotected unless Elada chose to protect him, and out of friendship, Elada always would, but it also meant something else. “Then I am still free,” Elada said, “to bind myself to a human.”
    “And Maire is more than worthy of that honor,” said Miach.
    “Maire refused me,” said Elada. “What we shared was always friendship, nothing warmer. Our affair has ended, leaving me free to bind myself to any woman I choose, and that includes black-haired bards who can wield a cláirseach .” And if Elada was bound to Sorcha Kavanaugh, killing her would take Elada’s life, too.
    Miach’s eyes opened fractionally. “That is a ruthless piece of emotional blackmail. And I always fancied myself the master strategist in our partnership. It would be an effective threat, if you really meant to do it.”
    “I will do it,” said Elada, “if it is the only way to stop you.”
    “You would be throwing your life away for a woman you’ve barely spoken to.”
    “I’m not doing it for Sorcha Kavanaugh. I won’t deny that I want her, but I barely know her. This is about more than that. I’m doing this for you. If you kill Sorcha, you’ll lose Helene. You’ll lose Beth Carter as an ally. And you’ll lose the better, more human, part of yourself.”
    Elada didn’t stay to hear Miach’s counterarguments. He found Helene Whitney downstairs on the phone in the hall, an overnight bag slung over her shoulder. She hung up and turned to Elada.
    “That was one of Miach’s pet policemen. He called to tell us there was a break-in at the Black Rose, and an assault. One of the musicians was just taken to Mass General. They said they were attacked by a Fae.”
    Sorcha.
    “Are you going to tell Miach where she is?” asked Elada.
    “Are you going to prevent him from killing this girl?”
    “I’m going to try,” said Elada. “But I’m not Conn of the Hundred Battles. I’m only the former right hand of a sorcerer.”
    Helene smiled. He was fairly certain she had never smiled at him before. And he was surprised to discover that he liked it, the approval radiating from his best friend’s lover.
    “You’ve kept Miach safe all these years,” she said. “And god knows even I want to kill him sometimes, so one itinerant musician should be no trouble for you.”
    Her confidence fortified him. Of course, it wasn’t the itinerant musician that concerned him. He could have disarmed Sorcha Kavanaugh in the alley if he’d been willing to hurt her. It was Finn and Donal who worried him. Both would be fierce adversaries, for all their cultivated ennui.
    He understood why Helene was leaving, but he hadn’t intended to come between Miach and his lover.
    “Miach is a good man,” said Elada. “He was right when he refused to put the Druid children to death two thousand years ago. And it is his love for his family, and for you, that drives him to contemplate murder now.”
    Helene swallowed. “Do you think it’s easy for me to leave him? It isn’t. But I can’t live under his roof while he plots to kill a woman as blameless as Beth was. And I can’t come back if he carries out this killing.”
    “Then I’ll have to stop him for you,” said Elada.
    He put Helene in a cab and made sure that the driver was a local who knew that he would risk Miach MacCecht’s displeasure if the woman failed to reach her Back Bay apartment safely. Then he set out for the West End.
    When Elada arrived at Mass General, he expected to find Sorcha Kavanaugh in the emergency room, but instead it was the other player, the fiddler, Tommy Carrell who was lying in a curtained bay, doped up on painkillers, bruised and cut, with one arm broken and several fingers in a splint.
    Tommy Carrell screamed when Elada entered, and the Fae was