Her hands gripped the frame so hard, her fingers hurt.
She and Tom never spoke of it, but Emeline knew it all thesame: Tom and her mother had history. Once, when Emeline was younger and baking pies with Maisie and Eshe, she overheard Maisie whisper to Eshe that Tom and Rose dated for years. Everyone thought they were solid—until Rose broke his heart, getting pregnant by another man. A man she refused to name.
Back then, Tom was constantly on the move, traveling from place to place, taking photos forNational Geographic. When he heard the news, he took on a project halfway across the world and didn’t come back for a long time.
No one had seen or heard from Rose Lark in nineteen years. Not since the day she walked out on her newborn baby, leaving Emeline wailing in her crib.
It used to make Emeline sad, that story. Now she was numb to it.
What was this photo doing on her bedside table? It should be in the garage, with all the other personal items she’d boxed up before putting the house on the market.
Her gaze fixed on Tom, remembering how quiet and withdrawn he’d been last night. It was Tom who’d described the King’s City to her as a child, Tom who taught her how to tell a shiftling by their shadow.
If Tom had spent time in the Wood King’s court, he might know something about the Song Mage’s missing music. It was a long shot. But even if he didn’t, he would know other things. Things that might help her.
Red letters blared on her old alarm clock: 12:13. After noon.
She’d slept through the entire morning.
Surging from the bed, Emeline threw on a fresh pair of jeans and a floral button-up, then hooked Sable’s sheathed knife onto her belt. After creeping past the washroom where Joel was showering, she went to find Tomás Pérez.
THE DIRT PATH WASwarm beneath her bare feet as she followed it alongside Pa’s vineyards, carving across the back of Eshe and Abel’s farm. It was the path she’d trod as a child, running back and forth to her neighbors’ houses, and it faithfully delivered Emeline to her destination: a white clapboard house at the edge of the woods.
Tom’s garage door gaped open and the metallic, oily smells of his shop wafted out. Emeline started forward, pivoting when she saw a figure standing out behind the house and heading towards him.
At the sound of her footsteps, Tom turned. His chest rose from the breath he drew in, as if he were seeing a ghost.
“Emmie.” He shook his head. “For a second, I thought …” The wind had swept back his dark hair, and his cheeks were ruddy with cold. “You remind me so much of your mother these days.”
Emeline wrinkled her nose. She didn’t want to remind anyone of the woman who walked out on her baby without looking back. So she changed the subject.
“When you were in the king’s court, did you ever meet the Song Mage?”
Tom’s shoulders tensed. “Of course, kiddo.”
“What do you know about him?”
Tom rubbed a hand across his eyes. “That he’s invaluable to the Wood King. That he isn’t just a minstrel, but a kind of magus. If the king needs something done, the Song Mage does it using the magic in his voice.”
It was strange how Tom spoke as if the man weren’t dead.
He turned back towards the woods.
“But he sacrificed something precious in exchange for his power. He tithed his voice to the woods, and if he ever wants to return to this world, he’ll be mute. A shade of his once-famous self.”
“How do you know all this?”
Grimacing, he looked away. “Your mother told me.”
Emeline stared at Tom. “Mymother? What do you mean? How would my mother know anything about it?” And because he was still talking as if the man were alive, she added, “The Song Mage is dead, Tom.”
He turned sharply to look at her. “Dead?”
“A witch called the Vile killed him.”
His brow creased. “Dead.It can’t be. Are you sure?”
Emeline nodded and pressed on. “You said my mother knew him. How is that possible?”
