Ballad

               Ballad is the continuation of Lament. In this sequel to the story, Deirdre is not the main character but her best friend James. A Leanan Sidhe (a faerie breed) named Naula comes to take James’ soul. She does this because it is what her race does and since she is the last of her faerie breed, she finds that she has nothing left to live for. She is despised by regular faeries because she is closer to being human than a faerie.

               James and Deirdre are both students at a music school named Thornking-Ash. James discovers that the school keeps secrets from students a teacher named Sullivan. The secret they keep from the students is that they know of the faeries evil. Naula makes an offer to James after having him bring her to Thornking-Ash for no reason so that she can make her offer. Her offer is to make him the best bagpiper known to people. She makes the offer so that she can get close to him and eat his soul when they became close.  James then declines the offer because he does not want her help to get better. She wants to use his own skill. After declining her offer, she stays close to him so that James will change her mind at some point.

              Naula lives for eternity by burning every Halloween. She lives for sixteen years then burns again with no memory of her previous lives. James finds it hard to save Deirdre at the end because he wants to stay with Naula until she stops burning. However, the world is in jeopardy since the faeries are getting a new king. He does save Deirdre, but Naula starts a new life again, and James continues with his life.