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Callum considers this for a moment.

“Why didn’t he heal your deafness?” he asks.

“Because I didn’t want him to.”

He doesn’t answer that. He looks at me with his mouth slightly agape, then his eyes turn back to the crowd.

I could tell them the whole truth. That they’re not faithful; they’re dependent. That every song he sang for them made the next one harder to live without. I could tell them that nothing they’ve built here was a personal choice, that their ceremonies and their kneeling came out of a sickness he put in them by keeping them alive. That as long as they can hear him, they will never have a single free thought about him. I could tell the women holding their children that the children were born into it.

I don’t say any of it, because it isn’t mine to tell. They’ve built their whole lives around Mordred. If I tell them that everything they love was done to them, I’d be taking away the one belief they’ve built their lives on. Mordred can tell them, if he ever wants to. I won’t.

So, I let them hate me. I think about the ravine and how wrong it all went.

I came out of the tunnel where Mordred said I would. There were trees and a road in the distance. There were also two men waiting. They took the torch out of my hand, tied my wrists, and walked me back through the gate. They brought me to Callum. Callum cut a lock of my hair while they held me bound in front of him. He didn’t tell me why. Then they brought me here and sent word through the city. Within an hour, the House of Voices was full.

Callum told them what they were here to see. Either their god sang, or I’d pay with my blood for failing to be the sacrifice he’d meant me to be.

I don’t know if Mordred will come. I know what this is. They did this to me to force something out of him. He’s hidden under this building for a hundred years. He stayed hidden through a plague and sang without once being seen. He wouldn’t take the mask off for me until the last moment, and even then, he whispered, didn’t raise his voice. I don’t believe he’ll show himself to them because of me. I don’t think anyone could be worth that to him.

The faces in the front rows turn away from me. They turn toward the orchestra pit, a few of them first and then all of them together. Callum’s head turns with them. Then I feel it, up through my boots and into my back, a slow and steady shudder that I know too well. I felt it on the night they lowered me down there. It’s the lift, this time coming up.

The iron platform rises out of the dark, up through the gilded grille that is wide open now.

I see his head first, the long black hair. Then the white mask. His black robes, the high collar, the tarnished gold, all of him, rising into the light of a full house that has never seen him before. He stands very straight, holding the hauling line in one hand.

The shouting stops. I know it because everyone snaps their mouth shut, and the boards under my feet stop vibrating. Then the people in the front row go down onto their knees. The row behind them follows, and the row behind that. It moves back and up into the boxes, until the whole city is kneeling. The women pull their children down with them. Beside me, Callum’s knees hit the boards. He looks up at the platform with his mouth open and his shaking hands pressed together.

Mordred doesn’t look at Callum. He doesn’t look at the kneeling people. He finds me and our eyes lock.

He raises his hands to the back of his head. He unfastens the clasps.

The mask comes away, he lowers it to his side, and the people see him. I don’t look at them. I look at the pale skin, the dark mouth, the fine seams along his jaw that I traced with my tongue before leaving him.

And I’m glad. I’m glad Callum caught me and brought me back.

His mouth opens. It opens past where a normal mouth should stop. The seams part, and his jaw splits wider and wider, until I see the first row of teeth and the rows behind it, more than I counted with my tongue. I see the darkness at the back of his throat, like a void from where godly music spills into the world.

He sings. I can’t hear it. The first notes reach me through the boards and up the pole against my spine, a deep pressure that I feel in my ribs.

He keeps his eyes on me.

Chapter Twenty

Aveline

I’ve felt music through walls, through the pavement, and through the body of a piano. I’ve felt his healing in my flesh and in my bones, but I’ve never felt anything this strong. It’s in my teeth, in my marrow, in the very blood that rushes through my veins. The boards under my boots are shaking, and I don’t think they’ll stop until he does.

I keep my eyes on Mordred’s. He stands on the platform below the lip of the stage with his jaw open wider than any human jaw can open, every row of his teeth showing to a city that has never seen his face, and he looks at no one but me.

I’m the only one who exists in his world.

I make myself look away from him, because I need to know what he’s doing to them.

Their expressions are changing. From angry and confused, they’ve all gone calm. Their mouths are open, jaws slack. Spines that were bent against pain have straightened. Hands that were pressed to hearts, hips, and knees have loosened. Men, women, and children kneel with the same peace on their faces. They look like people hearing the most beautiful song there is. They never want it to end.

This is what he refused them, and he’s giving it to them now because of me.

The vibration in the pole at my back changes, and I can’t say how at first. It has a shape now, a rise and a fall that I could follow with my hand if my hands were free. Then the shape has a height to it, a place where it’s high and a place where it’s low. A pitch. Then there’s a sound inside the pitch. It’s a voice.