Yes, our universe will end, but between now and then, how many civilizations have come? How many more will rise? To the glistening ducks on hooks. To those like starships gliding upon the lake.

And even after this universe ends, and the next—begins?

The duck was crunchy and soft, juicy and salty, and oh so very sweet.

Once home, Lan rushed downstairs to the lab. She had to find more of Shizuka’s music. Exhausting Shirley’s downloaded files, she reexamined the ship’s database. Exhausting that, she opened Shirley’s account and perused her search history regarding the Queen of Hell.

What she saw wasn’t pleasant, but, well, she knew all of that. Claim souls, send them to a horrible death … yes, yes, yes.

But something was missing.

Why?

The message boards assumed the Queen of Hell was just being the Queen of Hell. But everything about Shizuka, her music, her appearance—even her love for ducks—had a meaning.

The Shizuka she knew would not take souls without a reason.

It took Lan only a few minutes to locate every scrap of information about Shizuka that Shirley had found. And it took Lan only an hour longer to find information about Shizuka that Shirley had not.

Lan turned the computer off. For a long time, she sat there staring at the dead blank screen.

Once, Shizuka had said, “For music to happen, every note must sing, then end.”

And once, Shizuka had said, “Each fragment, passing eternity onward, holds on to that music forever.”

All well and good. All beautiful and wise.

But never once had Shizuka Satomi said she had only three months to live.

“Again.”

With Bartók, there were no shortcuts to practice. The piece was so difficult that Menuhin himself asked for simplification.

Of course, how one practiced depended on the player. Claire or Kiana would be focusing on technical perfection. Lilia or Yifeng would be reviewing emotion and phrasing. Morihei or Sabrina would be studying history, the biography of the composer, trying to glean clues to proper interpretation.

But with Katrina, Shizuka used what had always worked: let her listen, let her follow. Don’t mention the multiple stops by name. Don’t call them artificial harmonics. Don’t pause to discuss simultaneous left-hand pizzicato and right-hand melody.

Just play and trust her to follow.

Initially, Shizuka had assumed this process was to compensate for a lack of training. Yet Shizuka quickly realized that, although it differed from her previous students, Katrina was far from untrained.

Her tonality had been honed by a lifetime of being concerned with her voice. Her fingerings were liquid, born of years of not wanting her hands to make ugly motions. And her ability to play to a crowd, project emotion, follow physical cues?

Katrina had trained in that most of all.

“Let’s start movement three and work our way around.”

“Yes, Miss Satomi.”