“Dry your tears,” Mom would say. “No reason to fear the dark. Morning always comes.”
She has always been so sure of everything. When I’d hide beneath the covers, terrified of my own shadow, she’d reassure me. Morning always comes.
Always.
I stiffen. Could it be so simple?
I slide my feet into my sneakers and head for the door. Yes, morning will come, but this can’t wait until then.
I’ve got to talk to Ky.
I’m standing on a ship’s deck on the East Coast in the middle of winter. Freezing doesn’t even begin to describe the sensation coursing through me. I use the blanket like a cloak, pulling it tighter around me. Never been on a ghost ship before, but my guess is it’s not much different from this. Shadows in nooks and crannies, hiding beneath stairs and behind barrels, play tricks on my mind, seem to watch me. Whispering their inaudible secrets.
I take the steps down, down, down until I reach the main deck. No one stops me or orders me back to bed. I’m a member of the crew now. I’m one of them.
What would Mom say if she knew I was a pirate?
I move across the deck, the rubber soles of my Converse squeak-squeaking over the swabbed wood. It’s damp, smells of suds and pine. Ky keeps a tight ship, I’ll give him that. He’s obviously a no-nonsense captain, and yet there’s a sense of freedom here I haven’t felt in a long time—maybe ever. A feeling like I could be anyone, do anything, and no one would hinder me.
That’s when I hear it. Piano music. Playing softly. The sound is authentic, too rich to be traveling through tinny speakers. The notes transition slowly, an adagio melody flowing from a skilled musician’s fingertips. A melody so familiar and near, I know I’ve heard it before.
It’s the song from my coronation. The song from my dreams.
And then I’m forgetting myself, losing my mind in the upsweep as the notes crescendo.
I take a set of curving steps down into the side of the ship opposite the wheel and the captain’s cabin. A door waits at the bottom, but it’s locked. The music sounds closer belowdeck, but when I press an ear to the locked door, it doesn’t seem to be coming from the other side.
I ascend the stairs, still my breathing, and listen. Then I move left. Below me, waves lap and fold and splash. The music is so close. My pulse slows to keep tempo with each struck chord.
Back and forth, back and forth. My shoulders sag. The door I already tried appears to be the only way down on this side. I’m about to give up when I spot an alcove beneath the ascending stairway, so shrouded in darkness it could almost be a wall. I’m there in a breath, thanking the Verity for the door I find within the alcove’s secret space.
This one isn’t locked.
The second I open it my ears fill with the haunting melody wafting up a spiraling stairwell.
I take the steps one at a time, afraid if I startle whoever’s playing they’ll stop, or disappear, or cease to exist completely. Toe, heel, toe, heel. The process takes eons, but the music continues, beckoning me deeper.
At the bottom, a timid glow pulses from around a corner. I skirt it, and a baby grand piano comes into full view, hiding the musician on the other side. It must be bolted to the floor, been here since the ship was built, since before this otherwise unfurnished room had a ceiling. How else would anyone get it into this cramped space?
So beautiful and sad and touching all at once, the song raises an emotion without a title. I stop, avert my gaze to a porthole stage right, unable to look upon the instrument pouring music into my depths. It takes three controlled breaths before I move again. The closer I come to the piano, the nearer I am to losing it. The way the music entwines with my soul isn’t something I can explain. It’s as if the song was written for me, speaking all my pain and sorrow and loss . . . everything I’ve felt in the past three months to cover a lifetime.
This is it. This song. It’s . . . me.
I tiptoe around the piano, and the composer becomes visible.
I can’t breathe. Can’t move. Can’t think. Of course the song seems as if it was written for me. Because when I stand behind Ky, who doesn’t even look up from the ivories he’s caressing, I catch a glimpse of the handwritten sheet of music before him. The title reads “Ember’s Song.”
I slip onto the bench beside him, don’t make a sound. He doesn’t react to my presence and I don’t speak. My lashes drift to my cheeks. I cinch the blanket around my shoulders. Listen.
I twist Joshua’s ring around my finger, as has become my habit. As if I’m trying to decide whether it fits there or not. This isn’t the way things were supposed to happen. Kiss of Infinity aside, I spent three years falling in love with Joshua. But does my past define my future? Do Joshua’s choices dictate my own? What about my life? My choices?
What about Ky?
TWENTY-FIVE
Joshua
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
The Third Reflection saying haunts me as I leave Rafaj behind. I am simply doing what I must to ensure the Verity is not destroyed by El’s temporary confusion. She has no idea the reason she has feelings for Kyaphus is because of his connection to me. But all will be well soon. Two ingredients? The Unbinding Elixir requires but two ingredients? Obtaining them will be easier than a walk through the Haven. Unfortunately, I must seek the assistance of a traitor in order to secure the first.
As I said, desperate times.
A long-ago memory ascends as I venture deeper into the dungeons, the memory of the day I first saw her. The day my link to her soul became more than a mere complication.
I stood on the back porch of the brownstone beside hers, frowning at the walls and concrete that seemed to spring from every direction. Who would live in such a trap by choice? The Third, from what I had seen so far, was a jungle, but not the kind I had become accustomed to. Trees were present, but appeared artificial, as if included in the landscape for decoration. I enjoy structure, revel in it, but this was too much. Where was the freedom? The pure abandon I felt back home in the Second?
I stooped, collecting a new lightbulb from a low round table. After unscrewing the burst bulb above the rear door, I reached to insert the fresh one in its place, and that’s when I heard her.
Her voice came to me as if out of a dream.
The lyrics were dejected and despondent, crushing my heart, not because of what they meant, but because of who I knew they poured from. It was her, the girl I had felt the entirety of my existence but had never laid eyes upon, not since I was a toddler. Makai urged me to wait until he was present to stage a meeting. It would seem like chance, when in truth everything was set in place. But how could I ignore the heartbreak that was my own? I had to see her. I could not delay any longer.
The bulb slipped from my fingers and crashed to the porch. Her song ceased and my heart raced. No turning back. She knew I had been listening. What could it hurt to greet her?
I moved to the wall between our yards and peered over. And there she was, making a run for her back door. She was short, soft, and pale. Her hair was not dark enough to be considered black, but not quite light enough to be a simple brown. Everything about her was in between. Her voice was too beautiful to be singing such a wretched song, her insecurity out of place among such loveliness.