Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
Thomas hefted a moving box from his desk to the floor and scrubbed at the stubble on his face.
He’d get no sleep tonight after Cadenza’s ridiculous invitation.
Not that the wedding invitation lurking on his desk was the reason.
Just like the nightmares about small, winking lights on the cave chandelier weren’t the reason he hadn’t slept the last two nights.
No, he told himself. There’s just so much to be getting on with before the new owners take possession of the club.
He gathered up a stack of sheet music from the keyboard to drop into the box, and The Flower Duet fluttered to the floor. A hollow ache seared his chest. He kicked the sheet music aside.
Don’t think about it. Don’t waste a single thought.
The wall that had transformed into the cave entrance wase bare, bookshelf contents already packed. The wall stared at him, impassive, dispassionate.
Thomas threw a metronome at it.
“Now, now, you don’t want to leave a dent for the new owner,” a voice chided behind Thomas.
Thomas rolled his eyes. No doubt it was another legal gopher with more papers for him to sign. Gone were the days of an easy exit. This modern age monitored everything in triplicate.
“Tell your boss his wall will be fine.”
“My boss does not care about your wall.” The voice changed, muffling the room, absorbing all ambient noise. The quiet thickened around Thomas, pressing against his arms, his chest, till turning to see the man at the door was a struggle.
The face was new—Thomas hadn’t met this reincarnation before—but the presence was the same.
“You.”
The new-face-old-presence laughed and strolled into the office to sit in Thomas’s chair.
“Vasilios Pearce.” Pearce nodded by way of introduction. “I’m actually a member of your little club. We were almost in the same room at the same time, but I managed to avoid it. Although I shouldn’t have worried.” His lip curled. “Your sight has grown dim, Seer of the Fates.”
Thomas didn’t argue. He’d managed to drive away the only people he’d cared about in centuries and apparently failed to see the High Priest of the Silence in his own house.
“What do you want?” Thomas asked. The Fates had sealed the cave against the Silence ages ago. Even Thomas lacked the power to let them in, Pearce had to know that. “You can’t get in, no matter what words you throw at me.”
“Oh, believe me, I know.” Pearce rummaged through loose documents on the desk.
The muffling effect of the High Priest’s presence swallowed the dry rasp of paper on paper.
“Why else do you think I spent so many years positioning Canon to go in for me. He was supposed to meet me here today, but he didn’t show.
I can only assume he came to see you early.
To have him run off on his own only to fail. Such a disappointment.”
Thomas’s pulse pounded. This monstrosity of a man was the one responsible for planting the idea of being the Crown in Canon’s head. He’d sent him to his doom. “You would have made Canon your puppet,” he spat.
Pearce bared his teeth. “You would have made him the servant of chaos.”
“If you know you can’t get in the cave, what do you want?” Thomas demanded again. “I’m of no use to you.” If they were going to kill him, he wished they’d get on with it. He’d finally see Harriet again.
“Oh, don’t sell yourself short.” Pearce waved a piece of paper in Thomas’s face—Cadenza’s wedding invitation. “I think I can find a use for you yet.”
A curve of orange hovered above the western sky, a brassy song trumpeting the sun’s descent as Cadenza waited by the Ferrari. Her heart stuttered out of time like a broken metronome.
“Maybe twenty minutes?” Reyna watched the sky from the other side of the car. The sunset gilded the lines of muscles in her arms. She’d accessorized her bridesmaid pantsuit with her tuning fork and smith hammer hung on a belt.
Earlier in the evening they’d decorated the trees around the field with fairy lights.
Half a dozen folding chairs formed a short aisle for Cadenza to walk down.
Drostan and the boys were in the field now, finishing an arch for the ceremony.
Taran’s formal kilt waited in her apartment. He’d change after he woke.
Cadenza ran a hand over the roof of the F12. Her other hand found the cool ridges of car keys in the pocket of her wedding dress. After the curse was gone, she planned on gifting the keys to Taran. To throw away.
“If this works, you’re gonna have to get a new ride,” Reyna joked.
Cadenza gave a short laugh. “That’s the plan.” She glanced at the text thread open on her phone.
Thomas, the wedding is in two hours. See you there? Sent an hour and a half ago. He hadn’t responded. Same as when she left the invitation on his desk.
“We’ve got time. He might still come.”
Reyna watched her, face somber. “He might.”
Thomas wasn’t the only one who wasn’t there. Miss you, Babbo. Cadenza’s stomach turned somersaults. Babbo would tell her to pay no attention to the stage fright. If she wanted it, make it happen.
That’s what I’ve been trying to do the whole time.
Build an opera career. Find how to break the curse.
Convince Thomas to come back. So far none of her actions had borne fruit.
Her relationship with her mother was worse than ever.
Thomas ignored her pleadings. She didn’t know if the handfasting would work.
If it was the way to break the curse, Thomas had given nothing away to confirm it.
The Fates aren’t just a pretty notion for poets, Taran had said. They weave the destiny of every person on earth.
They wanted her to Spin, and of all the things she’d worked so hard for since arriving at Norroway Automotive, that was the only thing she’d managed. Outside of her time with Taran, Spinning with Elspeth had also been her most peaceful moment in months.
She stamped her foot, still unwilling to believe that everything in her life was predestined. The wrongness of that idea clanged against her bones.
On the other hand, if the Fates had nothing to do with the pattern of her life, that meant her return to Sonora and meeting Taran was a complete coincidence.
Her friendship with Reyna, a fluke. Meeting Thomas and Elspeth, all completely random.
No. That felt just as wrong. The two wrongs clashed and brayed against each other.
She couldn’t make those two extremes—all Fate or all chaos—meet.
They were like two notes on a keyboard waiting for a third to resolve them into a chord.
Where was the resolving note?
The earthsong rose with her agitation. The brass of the sunset, the windchime of the first stars, cello in the wind and the trees.
Sun, wind, and stars surged in her chest, burned her throat.
But she knew how to handle it now. She found the heartbeat deep in the earth and anchored.
Her fingers brushed the frame of the Ferrari—a few more minutes and Taran’s heartbeat would be there for her too.
Cadenza Spun the earthsong into Thread, looping it around her wrist.
“It’s beautiful.” Reyna gazed at the Thread with a smile.
“You can see it?”
She nodded. “It looks like how I imagine my will to look when I fill the tuning fork.”
Cadenza tilted her head, thinking. “That makes sense.” All the possibilities and patterns. She and Reyna organized them differently, but possibility was possibility. Did that make Reyna a Guardian—and a Spinner? So many questions. Maybe eventually she’d find all the answers.
A car engine, quieter than the cars she usually heard on the estate, came from the road. “Do you think that’s Thomas?”
Two Audi A8s surged up the estate road and braked hard. A knot of men jumped out to block the garage door, long daggers gleaming in their hands. Their feet made no noise on the pavement. Their faces were devoid of expression.
“In the car!” Reyna dove in the Ferrari’s passenger seat.
Cadenza followed and jammed the keys in the ignition. The Ferrari snarled to life, and she smashed the gas pedal to the floor scattering the group of Silence worshippers.
“Go, go!” Reyna urged.
“Call Drostan.” Cadenza steered the Berlinetta towards the racetrack and the field. The Audis followed.
“He’s not answering.” Reyna leaned sideways as they took a corner. “I’m guessing they’ve got visitors of their own.”
One of the Audis abandoned the road to cut through a corner of grass, and headlights glared at Cadenza in the rearview mirror.
“There isn’t enough road to outrun them. We need to get to the field.”
The sky to the east hung dark and glittering with stars, but orange and purple still burned their trumpet song to the west. Ahead, the asphalt ran into the dirt road through the woods.
“Watch out!” Reyna pointed to another set of headlights shooting out of the trees to cut them off. Someone fired from the passenger seat. The shot thwacked against the front of the Ferrari.
Cadenza yanked the wheel towards the racetrack, the backend of the car floating through the turn. The earthsong pounded beneath their tires. Cadenza called it to her, aimed at the farthest Audi, and let go. The car flipped, a chunk of the front end shearing off.
The Ferrari smashed through the racetrack’s locked gate, blowing it off its hinges. The gate sailed through the air and crashed into the second Audi’s windshield. Headlights spun through the near-dark and hit the barrier.
Reyna whooped, bracing herself with a hand on the roof of the car.
“Yes!” Cadenza’s gloat turned to chagrin as the lemon-yellow Lamborghini that had cut them off at the woods pulled alongside the Ferrari.
“That’s the one from the showroom! They must’ve stolen it,” Cadenza said in indignation.
At least Drostan had let the staff go home early this evening due to the wedding.
There wouldn’t have been anyone for the Silence to harm.
“Why didn’t that trigger the alarm?” Reyna asked. “Where are the police?”
“Vasilios made things go quiet when I was around him. Maybe he stifled the alarm somehow?”