To her surprise, he didn’t pull back. Instead, he rose to meet her. Their gazes locked. Their voices mingled and fused, growing into a crescendo. But as their voices became one, so did other things.
A startling warmth flooded her, heady and strong. With it came feelings of happiness and pride.
She isn’t only learning this song; she’s transforming it into something beautiful.
Emeline faltered. It was his thought—spilling into her. Like a tipped cup of hot tea.
Her voice knows its shape better than the notes on the page.
She should have let go right then. Should have broken off the song, for his sake.
But she didn’t.
Emeline dug deeper, to the thing buried beneath his thoughts. Something with bottomless, thirsty roots. Something one pruned and cut and tried to dig up—but never got all of. So it kept coming back, thirstier than ever, until it was a bitter, unquenchable yearning. An ache with no balm …
“Enough!”
Hawthorne wrenched himself out of her thrall. The sudden shock of it made the room spin. Emeline reached for the music stand, gripping it until her knuckles whitened, trying to steady herself.
A heavy cloak of exhaustion fell over her, as if breaking down his defenses had taken more strength than she realized.
Hawthorne stepped back. Away from her.
Emeline’s gaze lifted to find his eyes wild and his breath coming fast. Spots of color appeared high on his dusky cheeks as he blushed the way magnolias bloomed, realizing what she had done.
Her voice had stripped him down. Peered straight through his skin to his core.Stolensomething he hadn’t wanted to give her.
“Hawthorne …”
The room shrank around them. Too small and crampeddespite all the space. It was dark, she realized. The moon was high.
How long have we been here?
“I think I’ve reached my limit today.” His anguished voice tore at her like a jagged knife. “You’re ready, and it’s nearly mid-night. You have no further need of me.” His face was unreadable. “I wish you luck tonight, singer.”
Before she could stop him, Hawthorne turned.
“Wait …”
The desperate thud of his footsteps rang out through the dome as he moved past her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
But he was already gone.
EIGHTEEN
BEFORE HER DEMONSTRATION, EMELINE’Sattendants braided her dark hair into a crown, then wove garlands of silver stars through it. They rubbed rouge on her cheeks and lips, then dressed her in black, with more tiny stars clustered at the hems of her sleeves.
As they worked, Emeline stared at the reflection in the smoky mirror, thinking of her voice tangled up with Hawthorne’s. Of the song binding him to her. Of his thoughts spilling into her mind, followed by that hot ache of longing.
Shehad done that. Somehow.
If she was being honest, there was something incredibly satisfying about it. Hawthorne had wielded power over her—first by lying and tricking her, then by refusing to send her message to Joel. Emeline had simply repaid him in kind, by tearing down his walls.
But there was something unnerving about it too. She remembered the shadow skin reaching into her mind against her will, taking things it had no right to take, using those things against her …
That thought frightened Emeline. Surely, she would never go that far.
