They clung to my features, lovely, perilous strands of melody, and I scraped at them until I realized that they were nothing and that I was ruining my boyish good looks with my fingernails. Nothing. Music from a dream. Music from Nuala. I leaned the back of my head against the wall with a brain-cell killing thunk. I was beginning to hate mornings. And the phone was ringing, sending an army of militant miniature dwarves with hammers to work on the inside of my head. I hated the phone at that moment – not just the phone in my room, but all phones that had ever rung before noon. I fell out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans. Paul’s bed was empty. I smashed my hand over my face, still caught by the music, by sleep, by sheer friggin’ exhaustion, and relented. “Hello?” “James?” The voice was pleasant and ominously familiar. My stomach prickled with the feeling of imminent humiliation.
