“She’s the one who can’t seem to remember anything!”

Geez. Did he ever have to put up with this? The snapping back and forth and the passive-aggressive potshots? If they behaved this way around him, it was a wonder he wasn’t more unhinged than he already was.

“Look!” said Envy. “She’s opened the door. What are we to do now? We certainly can’t follow her there.”

“Well, he didn’t tell us to stop her from going into the basement,” reasoned Spite, whose tone now gave me the impression she’d be all too happy to see me come up against whatever consequences Envy feared.

“Yes, but he does not wish to see her.”

To this, Spite gave a snorting laugh. “Only as much as he does.”

Suddenly, with the door half open to the darkened stairway, I stopped dead, though not because of the conflicting words of the masks. Rather, it was due to the sound that issued from the bowels of the house.

Soft and mournful, the heartrending cry of a violin strained to split the silence.

The same note came a second time, followed by an awful teeth-ringing screech from the instrument.

Another fluid note beckoned me a step closer. The notes that followed, though, came like screams of pain, loud enough to cover the sound of my feet on the stairs until he came into view.

With his back to me, he didn’t see me coming.

He stood at the far end of the shadowy room, his angular form thrown into relief by a single candelabrum that stood atop a simple wooden table—which counted as the only simple object in the room. A horde of priceless artifacts lined the walls and crammed the corners. A small chest of polished silverware sat next to a crate of fine china, and propped against the far wall, the eyes of Erik’s long-dead family members watched me from their portraits.

So. Here was the fortune Erik was rumored to have taken.

The violin screamed again, warning me to stop, to go back, and that I shouldn’t be here. And it was true. I shouldn’t. I should be at home. In front of the TV with Charlie in my lap. Or with Lucas in his car.

He had brought me here, though. And so he could deal with having me here.

Slowly, as the steps in front of me became fewer, the sour notes began to lessen in frequency and the beautiful ones began to link together. As they did, my trepidation morphed into grim fascination. In the darkness, he moved like a flame—a wavering pillar of red in the gloom. And like one of his moths, I kept coming . . . enthralled by the sight. By the music.

It swirled around me. Through me. Making something inside me sing with it, like my soul had no hope but to resonate right along with the melody.

I paused only when I reached the final step.

As the song slowed, I marveled at the fluidity of the arm that controlled the bow, and of the figure’s slight frame as it swayed with subtle motion.