We were hurried like a time-sensitive delivery from the limo through Royal Residence hallways. It was a strangely familiar routine: entering a grand building through its most industrial passages, flanked by a passel of staff. One went over the details again—this was just like any other Tiny™ Concert. The King particularly enjoyed that viral song, it was part of our set, yes? And as a heads-up, the No-Name process that transformed the King sometimes went a bit—far. And they hoped—

The younger suit saying this cut the sentence off before their superior even had time to glare. And now, there was a tension as we waited for a final door to be opened. Nowadays, monarchs were mainly ceremonial, still needed for certain national magics, but secluded and limited in scope. I was wondering why the tenor here was sad, why they had worked so hard to make this concert happen on short notice, when finally we moved in, a starburst of suits around our nucleus of musicians.

And I saw the King.

The overall impression was that they were smiling, welcoming—I don’t know how. Instead of a face, a transcendent halo emerged from a uniform collar, the depths of light suggesting the frame of curling hair. Maybe the posture, gloved hand on hip, a slight angle to the glow in place of a head. I didn’t know if this was transformation gone too far, or the usual way magic blotted out identity in a monarch so they could truly stand in for their people. Was their term limited because at some point they vanished entirely?

I was grounded by the sound of a cable going live in one of the electric guitars. Seated close between Keys and Sticks, the amp serving as my seat now humming behind my calves. And at a nod from the Senior Suit, I counted in.

Building this setlist had been terrifying. Of course we’d debated our Tiny™ Concert set over the years, but never pictured this. “Apple Blossom Fury” had unexpectedly blown up on us after being used in a controversial series finale, spawning a million parody videos. Which is why we’d also suddenly oversold our tour and been tapped for a Tiny™ series. But did you start with the song everyone knew, end with it?

And when it was a King, missing face and name, bringing you into the Residence to perform? How would you tell reception if your audience had no expression? Click-click-click, twang: We were into the ballad people mistook for an acoustic version of “Apple Blossom Fury.” It was haunting, sweet—there was no real way to tell but the King seemed attentive. Tapped a knee a few times during the bridge’s wailing water, wailing water, drink me down until I drown.

I didn’t signal any change to Keys so we arpeggio-ed right into the second. “Lake of Lost Herons” was deceptively up-tempo, a classic folk sucker-punch. The entourage showed appreciation, but somehow I knew we weren’t reaching the King yet. Why were we here, anyway?

We let the fading strains of “Herons” die away. Then bass came in with the too-familiar riff that ran ahead of the piano, swiftly followed by the guitars. The King turned alert, as if straining to stay inside the suit. Here was a magic I’d never guessed at, in all my years of chasing music and stages. The power of a song that people knew better than even I did, bonded to it almost without our involvement.

Like the King’s face, sometimes being the voice of “Apple Blossom Fury” began to eclipse my existence as anything else.

I started singing, and the words felt more strange and twisted than usual, in the presence of that blurred glory of a King.

You said, turn the sun down for me
Take the world off its axis
I don’t think you can love me
If you love the world’s richness

What riches, I asked you, All I have is sunset
Trade, you said. Trade your sunset for fury.
All these apple-blossom rains blind with beauty
But no love can replace what we’re losing.

It felt so strange, that a King would want to hear this—but as the second verse built out of sunrise and poisoned oceans, something was happening to the King’s face. The light seemed to distill, reform itself. When the last chorus was beginning, I saw their face—real enough now to have tears streaming down it, shoulders slumping heavy in the confines of the chair. Still too much light to look like any regular human, but for a moment brought back from an annihilation into glory.

I made a signal to Keys. When I heard the bridge transition, I leaned over and said, “First verse.”

And we played “Fury” as long as I could make it last. But the suits began to shuffle during a third repeat, so I signaled again. And we melted into “Love Song for Crickets,” and concluded with “Coral Bleach”—skipping the fourth track, since we’d made “Fury” last twice as long. And I watched the light eat away the features of the King’s face again, the unfamiliar songs losing grip against the magic that ate their personhood away.

We were applauded, a few of the officials even tearing up as they cheered, but were soon ushered out, hallway to hallway. Into a limo, windows dark to conceal us, where I could see just the edges of my own reflection. I wondered if we’d accomplished any of the hopes that staffer had stopped from speaking aloud—wondered why it felt like I might have failed us both.

What happened when the last thing you did with your real face was cry for a world you wouldn’t rule long enough to save? Or when you sang a song about the sun blotting out the seas to a crowd who thought it was about romance over and over until the edges wore off it? The glow of streetlights erased my image from the glass again and again.

Editor: Hebe Stanton

Copy Editors: Copy Editing Department

Accessibility: Accessibility Editors