And the way he cradled the violin . . . There was that tenderness again.

The last step creaked as I left it, and with an abrupt and horrible shriek of strings, he whirled on me, slashing the bow downward like a sword, causing it to whistle.

His twin light eyes focused on me and I froze, half expecting to drop dead right then and there.

My face began to burn. And the longer the silence continued with that pointed stare aimed straight at me, the higher the heat in my cheeks grew.

That’s when I reminded myself it had been my intention to interrupt him.

“I’m . . .” I began, but trailed off, nixing the impulse to apologize.

Tensing, I braced myself for his reaction.

He spoke then, and his voice—almost a deeper, more distorted version of the violin’s—held no trace of outrage.

“My playing disturbed you,” he said, and it took me a moment to process his words.

Truth was, a lot of things here “disturbed” me.

But his playing, unearthly as it had been, might have been the one and only thing that had not.

“You’ll forgive me if . . . I lost myself,” he said. “I’ve not been able to play for so long. As you know, I should not be able to now.”

I wavered in place, so much less certain about what to say now than when I’d made the decision to come down here.

“The curse is supposed to keep you from playing,” I said, keeping my voice even while, beneath me, my feet itched to take me back up the stairs.

“Playing . . .” he said. “In the past, it has always required a heart.”

I waited through another horrible patch of silence for him to explain further. When he didn’t, I went ahead and pressed.

“So, that’s true, too. You lost your heart.”

“I have lost them all,” he said. “I am as hollow as this instrument.”

A beat passed in which I tried to make sense of that statement.

“Like so much else, it is a mystery,” he said. “But mark my words. In another hour, the ability will be lost to me again.”

Turning toward the table, he laid the violin in its case and then secured the bow in its slot.

Without the instrument, he no longer resembled a wavering flame—but a cold taper.

His chest gleamed in the firelight with the blood that never went away or dried.

“Tell me,” I said, making a feeble gesture toward the portraits, the faces identical to the ones in the photo I’d found in the attic. “What were they like?”

This wasn’t how I’d planned to begin tonight’s conversation, but it struck me as a good way to segue into what I’d come to ask of him. Anything that might walk him back to his true self, to Erik.

“My family?” he asked, swiveling toward the paintings. “They were . . . cold. And warm. Flawed . . . yet simultaneously perfect.”