After a quick shower, I headed downstairs to the piano. Sam always gave me a few minutes of practice before joining me, and while I still made plenty of mistakes, he never said anything unless I did the same thing during our lesson proper.
He’d explained about rhythm and dynamics, showed me their markings on the sheet music, and helped me find the best way to reach keys with my smaller-than-average hands. When I made mistakes, I practiced that section until I could do it correctly ten times in a row; for whatever reason, this made him proud. I just wanted to be good.
I played through a short étude, trying to focus on the notes rather than the way Sam and I had danced this morning. But it was difficult.
Stef usually taught me, but sometimes she took a turn on the piano and made Sam get up and dance. He always obliged, but his posture was all reluctance: His shoulders curled forward, he didn’t meet my gaze, and he moved stiffly. Until about halfway through whatever piece Stef was making us practice. Then, he’d be in the dance as surely as anyone who’d known it for a thousand years. During the slow dances, like we’d practiced this morning, he held me as if I was the most precious thing in the world. As if I were someone else.
I blinked and tried to find where I was in the music. My hands had worked without me, but now that I was paying attention again, I couldn’t remember where I was. I glanced at the end—the coda—just as I played the last chord. Hopefully I hadn’t messed it up too badly. Just because he didn’t say anything didn’t mean he wasn’t listening to every note.
A prelude was next on the stack of music. It was one of his recent compositions, merely a hundred years old. It was also my favorite so far, because it had a quirky melody all the way through, even the serious parts. Like a private joke.
He should have been down by the time I reached the end of the prelude—I managed to hit a note I usually missed—but when I let my mitt-clad hands fall to my knees, he wasn’t there. It was a challenging prelude; my success with it should have lured him downstairs. I’d try one more thing, then go up to drag him to the piano bench.
Music was the only time he seemed normal. Forget what Sine had said about Sam sorting it out on his own. I wanted to help him, so if music was the only thing that made him happy now, I’d try something new.
There was music in my head, melodies that made me shiver into sleep. Not Sam’s, and not anyone else’s. Mine. I hadn’t told anyone about the music stirring inside of me, but it seemed right that Sam should be the first to know.
I’d only ever hummed the tune, and only when I was alone. And when no one was looking, I’d played a mute and invisible piano on my lap, or a table, or my desk in my room.
Here at the real piano, yellowed ivory keys firm beneath my fingertips, there was more pressure for it to sound as perfect as it did in my head.
Low notes came long and round, deep and mysterious. High notes sang like sylph. If I was honest, it was music of my fears. Shadows made of fire, drowning in a lake, and death without reincarnation. Giving those fears up to music—that helped.
“Please let it help Sam,” I whispered beneath an arpeggio. “Please let him like it.”
I played as carefully as I could, focused on each note and the way it resounded across the parlor. Hearing it outside my head made it real. Solid. Was this how Sam felt every time he wrote something new?
The last note fell. Still no Sam.
Maybe he hated it.
I slipped off my fingerless mittens and left them on the bench. Upstairs, the house was quiet. No water gurgling through pipes, no clothes swishing around as if he couldn’t find something he wanted to wear. And when I knocked on his door, no answer. Nor the second or third try. I let myself in.
Sam sat on the floor, staring blankly at the wall, not moving, hardly breathing. Sweat wormed down his face; it must have itched, but he didn’t brush it away.
I rushed inside, thumping my knee on the floor as I knelt in front of him. “Sam.”
Nothing.
“Sam!” I shook his shoulders, said his name again and again, but he seemed trapped somewhere else. Somewhen else, like when the sylph outside his graveyard had made a dragon head.
Dragons. That was his fear.
“Sam, it’s okay.” I cupped my palms over his cheeks, leaned close until the scent of him filled me. “Please. You’re safe.”
He blinked, and his eyes focused on me. Confusion for a moment, then recognition. “Ana,” he rasped. “What happened?”
As if I had any clue. “You were just staring when I came in.” I smoothed hair from his face and whispered, “I thought you were gone.”
He closed his eyes and leaned into my touch, and his expression betrayed emotions I had no names for. “Ana.” My name slipped out like he hadn’t meant to say it.