Chapter 57

I exhale slowly, much of the tension leaving me as soon as I feel the coolness of the keys beneath my fingers. Because this, in so many ways, is…home.

God, why have I waited so long? Why haven’t I been playing in my room?

Because the boy is there, my wolf says, and you like to keep it a secret. She trots back and forth in my soul, her tail raised high as it always is when I get ready to play. She, too, loves the music.

I smirk a little. He’s not just any boy, he’s our Anton, I murmur to her, taking a deep breath and straightening my back, my shoulders setting into the muscle memory of our pianist’s stance.

Yes, she sighs, happy. We can play just for him sometime. Maybe.

Maybe, I agree, shrugging a little. But then I close my eyes, not letting myself look to the right where hundreds of people are waiting and watching in silence. Not letting myself think about them, about anything but me, and my wolf, and the songs.

Play the soft one, about the misty mountain covered in clouds, my wolf urges, still trotting around, her voice wistful. Or, no! The one about the battle – that one always makes me want to bite –

I smirk, loving her just now, and begin to play something else entirely.

Oh yes, this is a good one, she says, spinning in an eager circle and then beginning to run. And run and run through the landscape I conjure for her, that exists – I know – only in my soul.

Softly, I begin to lose myself to the music.

This song – it’s an old one. A warm up for me now, honestly, though I remember it took me years to master when I was around thirteen. It’s a complex sonata that was written – I suspect – to challenge the player. It certainly challenged me, because despite my affinity for music I am still small, and my little hands struggle, sometimes, to reach all keys at once. I don’t think about that now as my fingers work nimbly over the piano, producing music that begins to fill the silent hall.

I smile as I play, the music getting louder as I find my rhythm, as I become more relaxed. Because I remember the dozens of times this piece made me slam my keylid in frustration and storm away from my piano. Despite the frustration, I persisted in mastering it – and then committing it to memory – because it’s so beautiful. So precise in its mathematic symmetry, which is calming and appealing on its own level, but the world it conjures in my mind…

The music swells around me as I get lost in it, my eyes completely closed as I play, a little smile taking its place on my lips. My feet work in tandem with my fingers, pressing on the pedals by my feet, eliciting forward from the piano an incredible melody that speaks of anticipation, and of longing, and of fear and hope.

In my mind a wide ocean conjures, and on it an incredible ship. My wolf – as impossible as it is – yips with joy as she runs across the tips of the waves as they begin to crest in white, pulled towards a storm growing at the horizon. The music begins to ring around me and throughout the hall as I imagine myself on that ship, living the music, becoming the story of a sailor heading into that storm. Wondering if he has courage enough to face it.

As I conjure the vivid image in my mind to match the incredible music that pours from the instrument, I add to it – little tinkling riffs and improvisations that compliment the melody, pieces that aren’t in the written notation of the song but which make it so much more beautiful. I add bold, eager notes of an elegant seal skimming below the surface alongside the ship, lending her energy and her will to the sailor.

I add light, tinkling tones in a vivid blue, conjuring stars in the sky that are the color of a ghost, laughing with joy and encouragement, telling the sailor that it’s all possible. That it can be done.

Joy rushes through me as I continue to play the song out, my entire heart in every single press of the key, every single resulting pitch and sound. And even though I know that no one in the audience can see what I’m seeing in my mind, can even begin to experience it with me, I know that I’ve created something incredible here.

That the music, as it always does when I play, has responded to me like a being called from the dark spaces of the world. Has come to my hands and helped me tell an incredible story.

I almost regret it when the song comes to its end. It’s not a long one – not really. I have some that last an hour or more, but this one is relatively short.

Still, as I approach the final notes of the song, not even having to concentrate on them because I’ve played them so many times that my fingers move on their own, I risk a glance to the side.

Laila and Anton stand there, staring at me, their mouths hanging wide. Laila presses a hand to her chest as Anton stands with his hands slipped neatly into his ghost pockets, his weight all on his back foot like he needs to stand back to look at me, to encompass all that he’s seeing.

I grin at both of them, pleased that they sense at least part of it – what this means to me.

My eyes shift, though, just as I come to the end of the song.

And my heart goes cold as I see Orion…chatting. He stands turned towards the wicked blonde who has worked to be so cruel to me these past two weeks, his drink still held casually in his hand. And he…he chats with her. Amiably, quite lost in the middle of a casual conversation, as if the music that I’ve been playing is nothing more than something to fill the silence at his cocktail party.

My song comes to an abrupt end as my fingers clang against the keys, as my wolf yelps and then falls – falls through worlds, the vivid musical hallucination abruptly ending, her paws banging hard into the rough dirt of my soul.

Orion’s head snaps towards me, his eyes going wide, as I slump on my stool, just staring at him, my heart feeling like he’s taken a sharp knife to it and drawn a single ragged cut.

Because I know I’m being ridiculous – that not everyone feels about music the way that I do – that Anton was right and for some people it is boring…

But…

Seriously? Seriously, I bare my whole heart here on the stage before him – before everyone – and he can’t take ten minutes out of his life to just…listen?

Is flirting with the blonde that much more interesting, more important, than everything that I am laid bare?

My wolf pants, rushing to press herself warm against my heart, to nuzzle warmth back into me as cold hurt and fury race through my veins.

Orion stares at me, confused, not knowing what’s wrong as the little concert comes to its abrupt end and I begin to seethe.

Because I’m hurt by it – my feelings just…snapped to pieces. Is…is this part of me, this most intrinsic part, just…not interesting enough for him? God, is…is the person that I truly am in the depths of my soul…dull?

Rage.

I settle on rage, letting it burn through my veins, because it’s easier –

Easier than all this hurt, and all these horrible questions.

Orion’s eyes go wide as my mood immediately shifts, as the hurt and agony are wiped from my face and replaced, instead, with fury.

“Oh, shit.” Anton’s whisper is vividly audible in the room, which is otherwise entirely silent.

I stand, slow, letting my anger carry me to my feet, my eyes locked on Orion’s. The piano stool scrapes loud against the floor as I push it back and slowly step away.

“Apologies that my musical skills are not more scintillating,” I say, raising my chin as I cross to the center of the stage, looking at Orion as every click of my heel sounds audibly in the room like the snap of a gun’s hammer. “I never wanted to bore you.”

Orion’s jaw clenches and his eyes narrow, his head giving a single, slow shake.

I just narrow my eyes, glaring hard as I raise one open hand, gesturing casually to the piano. “I promise, sir, not to pain you with the repeat of that same sin. Because you’ll never hear me play, ever again.”

I snap my fingers together into a fist, rage burning through my heart as I stare into Orion’s eyes, letting him feel every inch of it.

At the same moment, the piano bursts into furious flame.

I turn sharply around as gasps fill the air, and then screams, alongside the smoke. But I don’t look back as I cross to the back of the stage, heading for a stage door that I somehow know is there. When I push through it, Nic is waiting for me in the hall.

“Take me back, please,” I say, my voice wavering against my determination to stay calm, my chin still held high.

Nic sighs and takes my hand just as a blue shining figure appears at my side.