Skirting the two wooden sawhorses supporting the interrupted work of Mr. Armand, I strode again to the mantel atop which I had, over an hour ago, deposited Stephanie’s angel. Its placement there, upon the exact spot where my father’s clock had once sat—still sat on my side—was all part of my plan.

I had not expected to be left waiting quite so long, however.

Stephanie. Where was she?

I turned to the piano. And sighed inwardly at the sight of it.

“My oldest friend,” I told the sheeted instrument. “What a mirror image the two of us have become.”

I went to hover over it and placed my hand upon the covered keyboard.

Normally, whenever I attempted to play, my mind could not connect anything into a melody. Last night, however, marked the first time since being put under the curse that I had been able to achieve something other than a one-note dirge. Granted, I had been playing through someone else and in a dream at that. Not to mention the result had been as startling as it had been disquieting. For instead of either sound or music, my fingers over Stephanie’s had produced a sort of . . . wail. Though the sound itself had been horrible, it still counted as the nearest thing to actual music I had ever been able to produce.

Well. Without a heart.

Once or twice, as an experiment, I had dared to implant a substitute for the heart that had been quite literally torn from me.

The experiments had always worked. And they had always failed.

I had already resolved that there would be no more substitute hearts. Not after my father’s already broken pocket watch had ruptured in my last attempt.

I lifted my hand from the piano to trail fingers over my empty sternum. My hand stopped to gather the fabric of my dress shirt into a tight fist, and for an instant, I imagined I could still feel the pain from the watch’s fracturing.

“She is late,” I told the piano.

On Tuesdays, Stephanie ran the errand of laundry after school. Last Tuesday, she had come home late in the afternoon—around teatime. It was nearly half past five now, though, which meant she had likely become involved in an additional activity.

Straightaway, my thoughts went to the boy. She would no doubt have seen him today. Perhaps she was with him now.

With irritation, I tore free the piano’s cloth cover. The heavy fabric fell away, puddling at my feet to reveal the travesty beneath.

Hideous, broken, wasted, the monstrosity bellowed its silent misery at me.

I turned my back on it, doing my best to stifle the fury that my carefully orchestrated plans might have been undermined by him of all people. So much, after all, had gone into the devising of this latest strategy, including the evacuation of the house. Soon, though, Mr. Armand would return from the errand I’d sent him on with Charlie. If Stephanie arrived after that, all of the day’s efforts would have been for naught. And if the increasingly erratic behavior of my masks was any indication, the time I was so used to having in excess was already well on its way to running out.