The intense, yearning arpeggio that represented the kiss she’d imagined happening that day rang through the room. Walker pressed his lips against the back of her neck as her fingers moved against the keys. The sensation of his mouth against her skin shot through her, like the last tumbler of a lock falling into place with an enormous click.
It wasn’t until she realized how completely still Walker had become that Keira’s fingers slipped off the keys.
The click hadn’t been in her head.
It had been an actual sound, as real as the notes from her piano.
Walker stood and Keira spun to face him. Something was different, and it took her a moment to figure out exactly what that was.
Her headache was gone. She wasn’t struggling to keep Darkside out of view. Stunned, she reached for it, looking for the tree that should have stretched over her like a canopy. No matter how hard she battered against the membrane of her reality, she couldn’t see past it.
“It’s gone,” Walker gasped. “I can’t—” He snapped his head around to look at Keira. “I can’t see Darkside. Can you?”
She shook her head.
“Hang on.” He ran for her bedroom as Keira waited in the eerily empty living room. A tiny corner of her mind was amused that she’d gotten to a point where she was disturbed by not seeing strange, dark visions. But it was a very tiny corner of her mind.
The rest of her was freaking out.
“I can still see it in here,” Walker called. He sounded relieved, but there was an edge to his words.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Well, for one thing, I don’t know why I can see Darkside in your bedroom but not in the living room. And for another, the guards are panicking.” He strode back into the living room, his handsome face twisted into a grimace. “They’re all running.”
Keira looked around the room, feeling blindfolded in spite of her sight.
“Running where?” She sat down on the edge of the piano bench.
“Away, for now,” Walker said. “They’re just scattering. But I’m sure they’ll be back.” He shook his head slowly. “Nothing like that has ever happened. I don’t know exactly how, but something pulled Darkside back together. It’s all rippled and thick, like a scar. But it looks more solid than any part of Darkside I’ve ever seen.” His face was white as bone.
“It happened while I was playing,” she said. “Do you think maybe . . . ?” The end of her question died in her throat.
The muscles of Walker’s throat jumped as he swallowed. “If you did that, somehow, then we have a way to save you. The Reformers would never kill someone who could undo the damage the rest of the Experimentals did to our world.”
“But I’ve never done anything like that before—at least, I don’t think I have. If I don’t know how I managed to stitch Darkside back together, how will I be able to do it again?”
Keira ran her hand over the wood trim beneath the keyboard. Besides the scratch from her metronome, the bottom of the keyboard was the only damaged place on the piano. It was scarred by a long row of slashes and crosshatches that had been scratched into the wood. They’d been there when Keira had gotten the piano. She used to rub them when she was nervous, feeling the pattern of them against her fingers.
Keira’s fingers stopped. Her breath hiccupped in her throat.
She hadn’t looked at the scratches in so long, she’d almost forgotten what they looked like. In one swift movement, Keira pushed the bench out of the way and ducked beneath the piano. It felt awkward—she hadn’t sat beneath the instrument since she was a little girl. She had to twist her neck uncomfortably in order to see the scratches. The sight of them made her mouth dry and her palms moist.
“Keira?” Walker sounded worried. “What are you doing?”
“I think you need to see this,” she said simply, unable to find the words to explain.
Walker folded himself into the space beneath the piano, next to her.
“Look.” Keira pointed at the etchings above them. “Is it the same as what was on the outside of those needle boxes in the Hall of Records? It is, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Walker said, his eyes traveling back and forth over the slashes and crosshatches. “It’s writing. Darkside writing.” He looked at her, biting his lip uncertainly. “The message is addressed to you.”
Keira stared up at it. “Who’s it from?”
“Pike Sendson,” Walker said.
Keira wrapped her hand around the wooden post that connected the brass foot pedals to the piano. “Uncle Pike?”
“What do you mean, ‘Uncle’ Pike? Keira, Pike Sendson was the head of the Experimental Breeding Program.”
She choked on the words. “Uncle Pike was the head of the Experimental Breeding Program?”
“Yes. And according to this”—Walker ran his hands over the marks—“he’s not your uncle, Keira. Pike Sendson is your father.”
The cry that escaped her lips was utterly involuntary. Pike was her father? All his mysterious comings and goings shifted in her memory, aligning with her parents’ bouts of fighting. The hugs and good-byes and the promises he’d made to take care of her . . .
He was her father.