She thought she heard music. Lovely, soothing. Heart music. Mel didn’t know where the phrase had come from, but she smiled at the thought of it and turned.

There was no one to turn to.

Instantly awake, she sat up in the dark. Though the night was ink-black, she knew she was alone in the room. Sebastian’s room. Being with him had been no dream. Nor was being alone now a dream.

She groped for the light beside the bed and shielded her eyes until they had adjusted.

She didn’t call out his name. It would have made her feel foolish to speak it in an empty bed in a shadowy room. Instead she scrambled up, found his shirt crumpled on the floor. Tugging her arms through the sleeves, she followed the music.

It came from no real direction. Though soft as a whisper, it seemed to surround her. Odd, no matter how she strained to hear, she couldn’t be sure if she was hearing voices raised in song, or strings, flutes, horns. It was simply sound, a lovely vibration on the air that was both eerie and beautiful.

She flowed with it, following instinct. The sound grew no louder, no softer, but it did seem to become more fluid, washing over her skin, sliding into her mind as she followed a corridor that snaked left, then climbed a short flight of stairs.

She saw the glow of candlelight, an ethereal flicker that built to a golden flood as she approached a room at the end of the hallway. There was a scent of warm wax, of sandalwood, of pungent smoke.

She wasn’t aware she was holding her breath when she stopped in the doorway and looked.

The room wasn’t large. She thought the word chamber would be more appropriate, but she wasn’t sure why such a quaint term came to mind. The walls were a pale, warm-toned wood, burnished now with the mystical lights of dozens of slim white candles.

There were windows, three in the shape of crescent moons. She remembered seeing them from the outside and realized that the room was at the topmost part of the house, facing the cliffs and the sea.

Above, a twinkling of stars could be seen through the skylights he’d opened to the night and the air. There were chairs and tables and stands, all of them looking as if they belonged in some medieval castle, rather than a modern home in Big Sur. On them she saw orbs of crystal, colorful bowls, scribed silver mirrors, slender wands of clear glass, and goblets encrusted with glittering stones.

She didn’t believe in magic. Mel knew there was always a false drawer in the magician’s chest and an ace of hearts up his sleeve. But standing there, in the doorway of that room, she felt the air pulse and throb as if it were alive with a thousand hearts.