I rose, the heat from the fireplace suddenly too much. “So he set this up, just so I could . . . what, find this piano student my father had dumped here?” I shook my head. “But how did he even accomplish such a thing from outside Hurstwell? And why would Marcel even care what became of my father’s ward? Why go to all this trouble, make this giant mess of my life . . .” I put my hands over my face, trying to make the pieces continue fitting. But they didn’t.

“He believed she was a treasure. A gift to the world of music.”

“So he sent me in like bait to fish her out. Except . . . now she’s gone, and I’m trapped.” I sat again on the stool and looked at Harford. “Do you have any idea what a mess he’s left me in? I’m a patient here. An inmate. Even if I succeed in escaping tonight, I’ll forever be trying to clear my name, to undo what has been done to me.” I laid my forehead upon my clenched hands, trying to keep from shaking. He’d been one of the few in my life who valued me—but not enough, apparently. Not as much as he did her.

He’d made a sacrifice of me.

“I simply don’t understand why—how—he could do this to me.” I was shaking now.

A moment of silence passed with only the crackling of fire. “Do you recall what I said when we met that night, at the parlor performance? A light in the darkness—that’s what I called you, but those words didn’t come from me. It was Beauchene who first spoke them when he approached me about having you assist in the clinical trials.” He let out a long sigh.

“After he’d seen Hurstwell for himself, seen what had become of Rose, he knew it was a wretched cave of darkness that needed to be thrown open, and you, Vivienne Mourdant, were the only one with a light big and bold enough to do it. He knew what you were capable of. So yes, he intended to release you into this place, let you see it for yourself and have your passionate way with it.”

I hugged my knees to my chest, fighting the ache encircling my heart. The building tears. “But I’m not truly doing anything for these women—especially not her. They’re all still lost, still stuck here. Or dead. There’s simply nothing to be done. Besides, I’m just a pianist.”

“That light shining out of you is not some sort of magical glow of your own, you know. It’s him. It’s God in you, and what candle God lights . . .” He cupped my chin as a father might. “What God has set ablaze, no man can extinguish.”