No.
It was too horrible to consider: That her mother had been trapped in that cellar. That she’d been the one to pick the locks of those chains. Thatshehad slept on that moldy bed.
Emeline recalled Aspen’s words about the Vile:She was desperately in love with him. But he spurned her; he loved another.
“My mother,” Emeline murmured aloud. “He loved my mother.”
So she killed him,Grace’s voice seeped up in her mind. TheVile killed the Song Mage because he loved Rose Lark and not her.
Did the Vile lock my mother in that cellar to punish her for being the one the Song Mage chose?
The world fell away beneath Emeline. But no—it was just the papers in her hands, slipping through her unmoving fingers, scattering across the floor.
And that’s when she saw it. There on the cracked cement.
Sheet music.
Four pages of it.
Emeline’s hands shook as she bent to retrieve them. One, two, three, four pages. She stared down at the first one. In the same script as all the other songs she’d been learning, the Song Mage had written the title of his very last song:Rose’s Waltz.
It would have been the last song he ever wrote before the Vile killed him.
Is that why …
Was the man Rose loved already dead when those photos of her, hollowed out and pregnant, were taken? Did she look so lost because her heart was so utterly broken?
Was the reason she never came back for her baby because the Vileimprisonedher?
If so, where is she now?
The sound of shattering glass jolted Emeline out of her thoughts, followed by a shrill scream. Both came from inside the house.
Emeline’s heart beat swift and hard.
Pa.
Her mind ran through every worst-case scenario. With the sheet music gripped in her hand, she ran for the front door and flung it open.
She found Joel standing in the middle of the living room,backing slowly towards the wall, staring wide-eyed into the kitchen.
Pa stood between Joel and whatever lay in the kitchen.
“Stay back, Emeline.” Her grandfather’s voice shook, even as he tried to sound strong.
Emeline moved past them to find Maisie backed against the sink, a wineglass smashed at her feet. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she stared, horrified, at the thing before her. As if caught in some kind of awful trance.
A shadow darker than midnight rose above Maisie, hunching over her, as if about to feast on her. At the sight of its elongated form and claw-like hands, Emeline’s footsteps halted.
A shadow skin.
What was it doing in the house?
Get Maisie out of there.
Emeline moved towards the horror. A broken shard of glass sliced her heel, sending a stab of pain through her foot. She grabbed her neighbor’s arm, pulling her away from the monster and stepping in front of her like a shield. “Go, Maisie.”
Maisie shook her head. “W-what …?”
