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This is an old part of the palace. A quiet part of the palace. Lonely, desolate.
I wonder why Cal has brought me here — until he twists the iron doorknob and the door opens, allowing me to catch my first glimpse of the room. And when I do see it, my breath hitches and I cannot look away.
“Wow.” I step into the room. The walls are tall and the vaulted ceiling soars high above us. A glittering glass window stretches from floor to ceiling on the far side of the room, overlooking a garden of brightly colored flowers. It is a grand room, yet so simple. The floor is dappled with moonlight and —
“What’s under that sheet?” I ask, my eyes falling on a plain white sheet draped over something large. I take another step closer, my feet leaving prints in the layer of dust coating the floor. If I kneel in it, I could make out the legs of —
“A piano,” Cal says quietly from behind me. He’s closed the door behind but remains in front of it — to let me observe the room on my own, I suppose. The moonlight does not touch his face, so I cannot see his expression, and his tone does not reveal anything.
“Whose?” I can’t help but ask. “Is it yours?”
There is a beat of silence. “You could say that,” he says, but now his voice is thick with…emotion? “Ma — we learned to play on it when we were young.”
My tongue feels like a brick in my mouth, heavy and dry. I swallow back a fresh wave of…I don’t know. There is no way of perfectly encapsulating this dark, twisted web with any number of words, so I do not try. “You both learned,” I say softly, “but do you remember anything?”
I might be poking the wrong buttons and I half-expect Cal to refuse. But instead, he inches forward, out of the shadow of the door, into the broad expanse of moonlight, where I can see the frown on his face. “I — I don’t know. It’s been a long time. I hardly remember anything.”
Biting my lip, I make a decision. I seize the sheet between my hands, ignoring the dust, and yank it away in one swift — well, two swift tugs. The sheet falls in a heap to the ground.
Now the piano — a grand piano — seems to loom before us, magnificent and almost too big for the room. It’s as though a hush has descended over the room, and when I turn to face Cal, the memories are written all over his face. None of which I can decipher.
Slowly, as though in a trance, he shuffles to the bench. His bronze eyes seem to have taken on a sheen. When he sits, his fingers are already stretching towards the keys, as if they’ve been waiting to reunite with a long-lost lover.
As if they’ve been waiting to come home.
The first few notes are clumsy, halting. Cal’s lips purse and he tries again. It comes out a little more smoothly, but Cal still doesn’t seem satisfied. I wait as he tries, tries, keeps trying, and once or twice I glance out the window, towards the moon. It’s starting to sink.
I’m just about to suggest to Cal that he stops for the night — it’s wearing at his patience and his mind — when one single note cuts through the silence, loud and clear and…
Cal is focused now, his fingers dancing over the keys, building up to a crescendo. I lean against the piano, watching him intently. I think I’ve heard this piece before, though it is a faint memory.
And then he hits one chord and it all comes rushing back to me. The Stilts. The Reds on street corners, worn fingers plucking brittle strings. Gisa tucked against my side, her hands digging into the pockets of her threadbare coat, searching for any spare coin.
Had…had Cal learned this from…from…?
I don’t know what it is in my expression that causes Cal to smile slightly when he looks up. “I think you know this one,” he says, his voice barely louder than the piano. “I didn’t learn this from my tutors.” He hesitates. “Often, whenever I snuck down to the Red sector, I would visit this one street corner, where there was a man playing music. Every time I came, I stopped to listen, and when I returned here, tried to replicate what I remembered and turn it into sheet music, into a piece which I could perform on a piano. My tutors had no idea. I hid the music from them, and I only played it a handful of times for…him.”
My heart thuds painfully in my chest. I can’t wrap my head around either scenario. I’d known that Cal had routinely snuck down to the Red sector, it’s how he and I had met, after all…but the idea of Cal, disguised, standing off to one side and drinking in as much as he could so that he could play something for his brother.
I wonder if we’d seen each other, if we’d perhaps passed by each other and not recognized the other person. I know Cal would not have recognized me; I had been a mostly anonymous figure back then. Just another Red.
And then, frost creeps over my heart as I think of Cal actually playing the beautiful music for Maven. Maven had been here, in this room, probably leaning against the piano as I am now, wearing a similar expression.
Had he been truly untainted at the time? Had his mind not yet been warped?
I feel sick. Maven taunts me in my mind, his ghostly fingers encroaching on my brain, his baleful eyes staring at me. Is this what you wanted, Mare Barrow? To tread where I have, in my shadow?
“Play something else,” I request, but it is not a request, it is a desperate plea.
The music comes to an abrupt halt. Cal must see the panic on my face because he does not oblige. Instead, he stands up quickly and comes to my side, hands grasping my shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he says over and over, pleading with me. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have, I’m sorry.” The solid, unyielding pressure of his hands against my shoulders is the only thing keeping me upright.
But he knows. He knows what is going on in my mind and yet he doesn’t.
Cal pulls me into his arms and I let him, and we stay like that for a while. We do not move, we do not speak, and we wait until my heartbeat is in tandem with his. Until my breathing matches his.
“I’m okay now,” I mutter, though I am unwilling to let Cal go — but he doesn’t. Instead, he shifts so that he still has one arm around my shoulder and guides me to the piano, sitting me down on the bench. I open my mouth, about to protest, but he silences me by leaning around me and kissing the corner of my mouth. The intimate gesture seems to push Maven a little further from my mind.
“Have you ever tried?” he asks, sitting next to me, oblivious to my slightly warm face. “Playing an instrument, I mean.”
I laugh cynically before I can stop myself. “I didn’t exactly have access to those,” I say bluntly. But Cal doesn’t deserve this tone, so I soften it. “Sometimes I wished, though, so I could replicate that same melody for Gisa. My brothers never had an ear for music but…I would have liked to learn.”
Something flickers in Cal’s eyes — perhaps because of the longing in my voice — but it’s gone before I can identify it. “It’s never too late,” he murmurs. “I can teach you. I won’t teach you that piece but…I’m sure I can dig up some old sheet music.” He taps a key, which emits a single, crystal-clear note. “I’m not the best teacher, but…”
But nothing. Maven still lurks in the outskirts of my thoughts, but I do not let him invade. I throw my arms around Cal and beam. He seems taken aback by my sudden exuberance — and I can’t blame him, nor can I feel embarrassed by it. There are so many things I want to say to him, but the first one that comes out is… “Thank you. That would be wonderful. You’re wonderful. I mean…”
Now I’m embarrassed but Cal, recovered from his period of surprise, merely laughs. “Of course, Mare,” he murmurs, smiling sweetly and tucking a loose lock of hair behind my ear. Then, in a whisper that I can barely hear, he says, “Anything for you.”
My heart skips a beat, and I’m once again reminded that I love this boy. I love this boy more than anything. I love him.
(I still don’t know where this burst of emotion is coming from, but I let myself ride it. It’s exhilarating — Cal kisses me — and rewarding too.)