“Some. I had a friend do a lot of the work. How was I going to hide it from you otherwise?”
The metal was warm from my playing, and I couldn’t stop staring at the way it looked in my hands. It was perfect. “I want to play it all the time.”
“Good.” Sam grinned widely. “Because you will.” His tone turned conspiring. “I wrote some duets for us.”
My heart stumbled over itself. “Really?”
“I want to keep this moment forever, the way you’re smiling right now.”
“You may.” I placed the flute in my lap and brushed my hands over my mouth, pretending to grab my smile as though it were bits of wool or clouds. “Here.” I pressed my imaginary smile into his hands. “This is for you.”
He held his fists against his heart and laughed. “It’s just what I always wanted.”
“I have more whenever you want them.”
“All I have to do is give you new instruments?”
I shrugged. “We might be able to find other things worthy of smiles.”
He cupped my cheek and kissed me. “Ana, I…” The way his voice had softened, deepening with emotion, made me shiver. He pulled back. “I’ll get you a jacket.”
Whatever he’d been ready to say before faded into the cool night. “No, you know what would help me warm up? If you got the other flute and music.”
“You’re ready to start now?” He lifted an eyebrow.
“You can’t give me a pretty new flute and expect me just to put it away.” I clutched the instrument to my chest.
“Then I’ll be right back.” He kissed me again, then got up and vanished into the cottage, turning on the front light as the door shut behind him. Good idea, if we were to read music.
Alone but for the trees and roses and a few birds settling in, I lifted my flute and found a simple melody. Somewhere in the woods, a bird repeated a few notes. I smiled and played again, and the bird sang back.
Strange, but I couldn’t identify the bird. It didn’t sound like a shrike or mockingbird. A thrush? No, the voice was too otherworldly.
Peering into the darkness, I played a few measures of my minuet—the one I’d written not long before Templedark—and the bird…something…sang it back. It wasn’t a bird.
“What are you doing?” Sam came outside again, his arms filled with a stand, a book of music, and his flute.
“There’s something out there.” I couldn’t see. The front light stretched and vanished only halfway down the path, and the trees huddled beyond its reach. Rosebushes shivered in a cool breeze, and in the woods, someone moaned long and mournful.
My stomach dropped. I knew that sound.
“Sylph.” The light made harsh shadows across Sam’s face. “Is that a sylph? Here?”
“It didn’t sound like a sylph before. I thought it was a bird. It was mimicking my playing.”
Shock flickered in Sam’s expression as he squinted into the dark. “Surely they wouldn’t be this far into Range. Or—mimic you.”
I licked my lips and played four notes, and the repeat came from closer. Just beyond the light, a shadow writhed. Then another, to the left, and a third still in the forest. There were so many, maybe as many as there’d been the night they chased me off a cliff, into Rangedge Lake.
Sylph burned, reeked of ash and fire, and they were without substance. The lore was complicated and contradictory. Some said they were shadows brought to a terrible half-life, thanks to fumes and heat from the caldera beneath Range. Skeptics maintained sylph were simply another of the planet’s dominant species, like dragons or centaurs or trolls; people should be cautious, but not assign them any special history or powers.
Whatever they were, I’d had more than enough experience with them for one lifetime.
“Sam.” I hardly recognized my voice, so opposite the storm of fear building inside me. “Get all the traps you can find.”
Several more sylph picked up the notes, singing as though it were a short round of music. The sound grew, pressing closer, and abruptly stopped.
A sense of waiting grew heavy in the air. A heartbeat later, a sylph whistled a scale.
Sam touched my elbow. “You need to get inside. The walls are protected.”
“Protected. Not sylph-proof.” I lifted my flute. “I think—” My breath hissed across the mouthpiece and made all the sylph tense, push closer. I retreated until my skirt caught in a rosebush; thorns pricked through the cloth. “I think my playing keeps them distracted. Get the eggs. Set the traps. If the sylph attack, I’ll go inside.”
And hope I was fast enough to reach the door before they burned me alive.
“I’ll hurry.” Sam vanished into the cottage.
Heat billowed from all sides as the sylph swarmed closer. Heart pounding, I began to play.
2
SHADOWS