Shizuka would play Martha, and she would be in this very house, years and years ago. As she played, as her parents were listening, and outside were her playmates, and when she was done practicing, they would upturn rocks in the backyard to search for interesting new bugs, for the sun would still be young and warm in the sky.

No scratches, no fading, no loss of fidelity.

One does not play memories of music; one plays music itself. And lifetimes, from beginning to end, are as sheets of music, ready to be played.

Shizuka had waited nearly forty-nine years to hear such music. After Yifeng, she had almost given up.

But finally, the seventh.

“With the violin, I can sing, speak, be beautiful,” Katrina had said. “I’m not worrying about what bathroom is safe, or if the store is empty enough to go shopping. Playing a violin isn’t always easy. But it’s easier than everything else.”

Isn’t it, though?

Lan had once told Shizuka that she would have made a good mother.

The Queen of Hell smiled as she looked through her window, down to the fishpond below. Her father had dug that fishpond, stocked it with koi, before she had been born. She thought of all the koi that had been trapped there over so many years. How many parents had lived in that pond? How many children had each of them had?

Yet the pond did not acquire more fish.

For the older ones, the graceful ones … the chosen ones, the brilliant ones, the ones gilded with darkness, with flame … were also the ones who ate their young.

29

Miss Satomi’s door was ajar.

“Hello? Miss Astrid said you wanted to see me?”

Miss Satomi waved Katrina inside.

In all her time here, Katrina had never seen her teacher’s room. She had never even been on this side of the hallway.

Miss Satomi frowned. “You’re not going out in those, are you?”

“Miss Astrid said they were okay,” Katrina said.

“Well … wear a coat when you do.”

Katrina’s eyes scanned the room. It was large. No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t large—it was empty.

She had expected a lush, sumptuous room, full of tasteful items and trophies from past conquests. On the walls, there would be oil paintings, woodblock prints, concert programs written in French. There would be elegantly framed pictures of family, notes from paramours, maybe someone in a kimono. Miss Satomi would be in front of a fairy-tale mirror, lounging on a bed that was plush and velvet, with precious things made of jade and ivory next to her on an antique nightstand.

But this room had nothing. Yes, there was a mirror, bed, and nightstand. There was a simple desk and a dresser, and on the bed, Miss Satomi’s new laptop. There was a music stand in one corner and a small lamp in the other.