Chapter 167

Sarah POV

At Ms. Glim’s urging, Zane had hired a voice coach for Grace who came three times a week after she got back from school. Grace had wanted to have her every day, but Miss Carmen, as she insisted on being called, worried about burnout and possible overuse of her voice.

“There will be plenty of time for that level of training later,” she said in a rather thick Italian accent Sarah suspected was, while genuine, quite purposeful. But she came from a line of sopranos, hence her name, and there was no question of her excellence.

They practiced in the conservatory, as Ms. Glim said the acoustics there were excellent, and so for about an hour three times a week the villa was filled with music. It was becoming one of my favorite things in life, listening to that young but clear and powerful voice singing opera, which I had no idea I even liked.

Often, Chloe would sit with me in my study during Grace’s lessons while I oversaw funding for the school at the mine or worked on a script for Let’s Talk! I knew she would have preferred to be in the conservatory to watch, but she respected Grace’s shyness. In time, I was sure Grace would be able to get used to an audience.

I suggested to Zane that we should bring the opera more into our lives, and soon we had tickets to Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, which he told me was an excellent first opera for me and the girls. I was looking forward to it.

As though the girls inspired each other, Chloe began preparations for a teak wood carving she wanted to put in the poppy garden. She hadn’t shown me her sketches yet, but I had glimpsed what looked like flames and flowers.

I wondered as I watched Chloe sketch and listened to Grace sing whether both girls might end up as professional artists instead of pack alphas. Zane had said he only cared the girls were happy, and of course I agreed with him.

That night, Zane listened with the girls as I again read from The Little Mermaid. I was starting to wish they’d want to go back to The Nightingale.

“The little mermaid swam close to the cabin windows, and now and then, as the waves lifted her up, she could look in through glass window-panes and see a number of gayly dressed people.

“Among them, and the most beautiful of all, was a young prince with large, black eyes. He was sixteen years of age, and his birthday was being celebrated with great display. The sailors were dancing on deck, and when the prince came out of the cabin, more than a hundred rockets rose in the air, making it as bright as day.

“The little mermaid was so startled that she dived under water, and when she again stretched out her head, it looked as if all the stars of heaven were falling around her.

“She had never seen such fireworks before. Great suns spurted fire about, splendid fireflies flew into the blue air, and everything was reflected in the clear, calm sea beneath.”

Afterward, Zane and I managed a quiet kiss before we went into the hall. I wanted to follow him to his room so much it ached, but if I were going to let him and Melissa be together, I had to stop.

I went to sleep thinking about what a life with him would be like, a simple life where we could be together.

When the dream started, I thought I was just in the jungle again and would perhaps hunt something, but then I realized I was in human form and wearing a tight black dress. I heard something behind me and turned, but a terrible pain exploded in my chest.

I smelled hot blood and fell to the ground while Zane was running toward me, shouting my name. My heart stopped, and I fell up toward the sky and its bright moon. The yellow face of her filled my vision, and I felt powerful, not dead at all.

In a moment, I had fallen gently back down to the ground, wearing white now and feeling completely at peace with the world around me, the lovely dark forest with its smells of wood and frankincense. I was bound by ropes to a tree to hold me up as moonlight spilled from my mouth. I felt transformed into something ageless.

I thought of the girls, and then I was standing not far from the statue I had become, and Chloe and Grace were standing there with me. Zane walked up to us, but he was looking only at me.

My vision seemed to have split. I was standing there in my brown suit, but I was also the statue. I saw Zane from the front and back at he same time, and the girls were at my sides even as they were over there next to the other me and Zane.

“Why do I keep seeing you?” he asked me. “Are you my enemy?”

The version of me that was with the girls spoke, but the words were coming from the statue.

“Never, but I am what your enemies fear,” I said. The words were a mystery to me, but they felt completely right.

“And what’s that?” he asked.

“What you all fear,” I said.

“Which is?” he asked.

It was a reasonable question. I moved so he could see the graveyard and the crying family at the gravesite and the girls running in joy through the graves.

“We all fear death,” Zane said.

That wasn’t what I meant at all, and I told him so. My dress turned to silver in the moonlight, and I held his warm hands in mine.

“If you seek the truth, stop seeking enemies and find the moon,” I and the statue and someone else said, speaking as one.

He looked up at the moon. “It’s right there.”

“But you are not,” I said, and a great sorrow washed over me even as my heart beat in anticipation. “You must walk with me so the moon may reveal herself.”

I woke then, and in a sort of daze I left my bed and walked to the window. The moon was full and seemed to be looking directly at me.

So, what was that? I asked the goddess. Did I just reimagine Zane’s dream, or are you trying to tell me something?

The moon seemed to glow even more brightly but said nothing more.