Page 53 of Unraveling Fate

“Beg your pardon?”

“Nothing. Just checking my flyers.”

The clerk peered at her. “Oh, aren’t you Cadenza Cavalieri?”

“Um, yes,” she said, surprised. “Have we met?”

“Oh no, I just recognized you from the newspaper. You’re Canon Richards’s girlfriend.” The clerk beamed at her. “Such a nice boy. You’re lucky to have caught him.” She pointed at the notice board. “You know, between you and me, I think you’d get more students if you mentioned Canon on the flyer. People just love him around here.”

Cadenza gritted her teeth to keep from screaming. “Thanks.” She spun on her heel and stormed out of the store. She’d yanked out her phone and pulled up Canon’s number before she stopped herself. If she called him about fixing this situation, she’d have to tell him what the clerk said, and he’d use it as evidence of the strength of his proposal.

“Ungh!” She shoved her phone back in her pocket.

The image of Canon’s smug smile at the country club rankled. Her daydream of Taran at the front table instead—Taran in Venice, clapping the loudest—was much better.

No! What are you doing?The tears she’d forced down in the car rushed back. Taran in Venice would never happen. Could never happen. The curse kept him pinned here. But if the curse were removed, what then? Would he still only want a fling?

Cadenza ducked into an alcove between stores and sank onto a stone bench.Breathe. She found her pulse in her neck and timed her breaths to her heartbeat. The lack of drumsong hit her like a punch to the gut. It wasn’t her own heartbeat she wanted.

Thomas’s question came back to slap her in the face.What do you want from the music?

She abandoned the bench and hurried around the corner to her favorite store. It was having a sale, clearance items in the window display—jade necklaces and alpaca wool hats. And a huge Latvian drum that looked deep enough to accompany Taran’s drumsong on sale for one tenth its original price.

What do you want from the music?

She thought of Taran’s bodhran and his pounding ocean, trapped inside the fences of Norroway Automotive. Forever. Cautiously, she allowed herself to look that idea in the face. Stuck in one place, always. No hope of movement or progress. Her mind recoiled, and adrenaline burned through her system as if she could physically flee from the idea she feared most.

Her entire life she’d clung so fiercely to the idea of a stage career as a way to prove to her family she was as worthy as they were, but it had also been a means of escape to Somewhere Else. Was that all she wanted from the music? To show someone else up and to run away?

No. I want to be a part of the music.And I want…She laid her fingers on the window glass, the afternoon sun glowing on the drumhead.I want Taran’s music to be a part of mine.

The earthsong she heard—that she’d always considered half curse before she knew anything of Taran or his world—had allowed her to recognize something of Taran in the Ferrari. Her music had woken him. Her song had reached through impossibility to pull him back from oblivion. Like he said, it shouldn’t have worked.

But it did.

She marched into the store, scooped up the giant drum and plunked it on the checkout counter.

If I can wake an ancient shifter from a cursed sleep, I can find a way to break that curse. And—her stomach fluttered at the scarier task—I can tell that shifter I want more than a fling.

A cacophonyof ringing phones and TV chatter blasted Canon as soon as he opened the door. Interns and volunteers waved orclapped as he moved through his campaign headquarters to his office. He gifted them with his unfailing smile and waved back.

Inside he seethed.

Michael from Drostan’s body shop had called just as Canon parked outside headquarters.

“You still want to know the deal with Cadenza’s car?” the mechanic had asked. “Because I don’t think you’ll like it. It sounds nuts.”

“Why? What was wrong with it?”

“It looks like someone messed with it. I found some kind of explosive device hooked up to the engine.”

Still smiling for his team, Canon shut his office door on the noise of the campaign room. As soon as he closed the blinds, he dropped the act.

“I need your people to look into something.” He turned to where Vasilios reclined on the couch, flipping through a book.

“Look into what?” he asked in his usual unflappable manner. “You seem distressed, what’s bothering you?”

“Distressed?” A vein jumped in Canon’s temple. “Someone is trying to kill Cadenza.” He filled Vasilios in on what Michael had told him. “You remember how she got run off the road after the open house? Now I’m thinking that wasn’t just some drunk hick.”