I lifted my shackled hands, clenched my jaw, and rained my anger down on those keys. Bang, bang, bang! Dissonance resonated through my being, like a scream that ripped out of me. Bang! Bang! It was shocking and delicious and powerful. Booooooom.

Then it was out, my fingers splayed over the keys, heart pounding. Where? Where are you, God? Where have you hidden yourself when everything is so wrong? I could feel Dr. Thornhill’s pitying look, but his gaze deflected off my back. It wasn’t about him. A performance was never about who was listening, but the one for whom the music was played . . . even if Marcel was not there to hear it anymore.

I flexed my hands, feeling the supple movement up my forearm . . . and then a surprising taste of freedom in every inch of my fingers. There was nothing to stop me from playing now—not even the chains.

I turned for just a moment and met Thornhill’s eyes that sparkled with victory and I did not waver.

There was only so much about Paul they could lock up.

I looked back to the familiar ivories. Silence billowed through the room, and to me it was empty, the quiet onstage before a concert, and there was only one song on the docket. I closed my eyes, finding my way along the keys, and swept into the opening measures of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2 in C-sharp Minor. I pictured Marcel Beauchene—volatile, surprising, with periods of low, heavy notes and a few trills up high to balance out the dramatics. I played and played, stretching and adapting for the chains, but still honoring every inch of his life in this song.

What I’d always overlooked, however, was the ending. Rather than a warning of slightly discordant scales that reached a final satisfying harmony, Lizst’s Rhapsody culminated in a frenzied climb that, in three simple chords, came to a solid and abrupt end. A final display of rapid color and a pop of finale chords—one . . . two . . . three . . . Then silence.

Shaking in the fading reverberation, I lifted my head and swept hair back from my face. How it echoed about this old place, with the double doors fully open and the pianoforte lid up.

A roomful of eyes watched me, each face displaying a different reaction. Dr. Turner’s glowed—brilliant and eager and full of certainty over some unknown thing. Harford’s face had softened, as if he’d experienced Beauchene’s life through the song alongside me—not understanding the details, but compassionately sharing.

Then there was Dr. Thornhill, the great king of Hurstwell. He stood frozen halfway across the room, his aged face a mix of astonishment and pure anger.

No, fear.

All his anger today was borne of panic, I suddenly realized. He was trapped, with a patient missing and who knew what other secrets he didn’t wish Harford uncovering.