The road to becoming a Watcher in Training is notoriously difficult. This is a truth known and accepted by all. It is hard enough to achieve entrance to Elite Academy, and then only the best of the Elite Apprentices pass the Filtering exam. You may therefore be growing smug, living as you are at the peak of Elite success.
Do not flatter yourself.
Few pass into the Watcher training program. But fewer still make it all the way to the hallowed Hall of Love. So do not fall into the deception that you are somehow superior to your fellow Apprentices, or that you are something worthy of adulation. You have merely begun the path of becoming nothing at all.
(Elite Watcher Training Manual, 51st edition, page 3)
My eyes flutter open. He is standing before me once more. The darkened sleeping quarters form a stark contrast to his appearance. Where everything around us is drab grey and black, his coat is a color that shines brighter than my eyes can stand. His face is the same as I remember—loving and kind.
Am I dreaming? Last time I saw this man I was on a train, heading for Elite Academy. Back then I thought I was going crazy.
“Who . . . who are you?” I ask, even though somewhere deep down I already know.
“I am Lyric,” he replies. He smiles and holds out his hand toward me, and I feel an overwhelming urge to run toward him. But something holds me back. My clothes feel shabby and soiled. My head is swimming.
“I-I don’t . . .” I stammer. “I can’t make sense of anything. These memories—”
I clasp my ears, feeling the familiar streak of pain across my temple as memories battle for my attention. They splinter into razor-sharp fragments, piercing me with guilt.
Mumma says we should be quiet. But I want to go out.
“Kill the Hater!”
Dadda hasn’t come home. Mumma won’t stop crying.
“The Composer will keep us, my darling,” Mumma says, wiping at her face. “In the darkest valleys, Lyric sends the Muse to be with us.”
Boots echo down the hall. My screams split the night as the Squad drags me out of the closet hiding place. I am kicking and spitting like a cornered animal, scratching at anything I can. But their grip is too strong, and I cannot escape their arms.
I am lying in a sterile treatment room. There are people moving around, strapping things to my arms and feet. I want them to go away, but I cannot move my legs. Not even my mouth will do what I tell it to do. My heart screams but nobody can hear me.
In the distance, a haunting melody swells, off-key and mournful. As the memories continue to jostle through my mind, the melody follows them like a soundtrack. That time when I played with Dadda in the park? Behind the memory, the soundtrack echoes the birds in the trees, the sighing wind and the deeper satisfied laughter from my father. But my tearful tantrum brings brokenness into the symphony, and it veers out of tune. That memory of Mumma stirring food in the kitchen? A solemn and quiet song hums along, the peaceful melody interrupted by my jarring, discordant entrance. Each time, joyful songs are ruined by my presence. My life is a series of dropped notes. I break the melody every time I appear.
Tears begin to flow down my face.
“Cast your cares on me,” Lyric says, and I long to reach out for him. But, again, a knife-sharp memory cuts into my thoughts.
The infotab in my lap glows. On the screen, the Haters’ Pavilion Show app shines with options. Who am I going to vote for? Who is the worst of the contestants tonight?
It’s a no-brainer. Hater One is the worst. Get rid of her.
I smile in satisfaction as Carell Hummer makes the announcement. The crowd roars.
“I can’t,” I say, squeezing the dream from my head in a wave of guilt and shame.
To stop myself from thinking unpleasant thoughts, I begin to replay the memory of Wil in Akela’s office over and over. With no one around to stop me I drink in his every expression. His face is imprinted in my mind. The slender but firm set of his shoulders. The way his hair is shaped perfectly around the top of his head. His eyes—pools of green so deep I could sink into them forever. And the touch of his fingers over mine . . .
Each time I sit back to replay the memory, a small voice of warning sings music into my heart: Cadence, do not do this.
Each time, I push the small voice away. I know I should be paying more attention to my dream. I know I should be preparing to be a good and obedient Elite Apprentice again, but I can’t. Or won’t. Nobody has ever paid attention to me the way Wil did in that office. The way he looked at me sent a raging fire through my whole being, burning away any desire other than the deep need to see his face again.
My sleep is fitful and full of strange new dreams that I could never admit in public. The once-strong axiom Elites don’t fraternize grows weaker than a whisper, thanks to the destructive force of my imagination.
In the morning, I am drawn back to the secret office. Although the secret door through the bookshelf is locked, I hover in the hallway like a stalker. Wil’s memory seems more vivid here: the way he leaned toward me. The mystery of his words and the way his eyes danced as he . . .
Cadence, do not . . .
A distant clank sends a shiver of anticipation through me. Muffled through the walls of Akela’s room, I hear a metallic sound and determined footsteps.
“Wil’s here.” A silly grin spreads across my face. My frizzy dark hair is probably sitting up around my face like a halo. With sweaty, slightly trembling palms, I make a feeble attempt to smooth it down.
The muffled footsteps grow louder. I take a few steps back from the door, heart racing. As the door starts to creak open, I step away, wanting to get a little more space between me and the entrance.
“What are you doing here?” Hodge stares at me in bewilderment, another cloth-covered bundle his hands. His bulky figure fills the doorway.
“I was just . . . I mean . . .” I flounder, trying to think of a reasonable excuse. No way would I ever tell him the truth. Elites show no weakness, after all. Between Hodge and Wil, Hodge is the last person I want to speak to right now.
“Never mind,” Hodge says. “Come into the dining hall. I’ve got something for you.”
I follow him down the winding corridor toward the room of steel tables where he invites me to sit. I do so, still mute with disappointment.
Hodge sets his package on the table beside me. “Akela’s getting ready for you to get back into the Academy, so she can’t come for a few days,” he explains. “But you’re getting out soon.”
“That’s a relief.” Curiosity nips at me. “What does she need to do?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “Who knows? There are a lot of things she won’t tell me. But that’s safer. The less we know, the less we can betray if something goes wrong, eh?” His thick fingers struggle with the tight knot of cloth. I bite back an impatient desire to take over for him.
“I brought you something nicer for lunch,” he says, loosening the cloth around the bundle. He gives a half smile. “And a present. You must be bored by now. Here.”
Hodge pushes a small white rectangle toward me. The device is small enough to fit in my palm and wrapped in a thin white cord with two strangely shaped bulbs at the end.
“What is this?”
“Try to figure it out,” Hodge says.
I unwrap the cord and disentangle the bulbs. One end of the cord disappears into a slot on the device. The bulbs dangle and twirl around each other when I hold them up in the air. Seeing my confusion, Hodge reaches forward to grasp the bulbs between his fingers.
“Put them in your ears,” he instructs, showing me how they fit. I follow his example, and the little bulbs rest snugly against my head. Hodge taps a small button on the side of the rectangle, and a screen glows into life. He touches a small circle marked “music,” and through the bulbs, my ears flood with melody. My eyes widen.
“I remember this tune,” I exclaim. I am suddenly choked with emotion.
Hodge’s smile widens. “It’s the Song. Or a fragment, anyway. Usually Akela gives this to every new Siren at their induction, but she thought you should have it before then. Do you like it?”
I don’t reply, unable to speak.
“We have to learn the music by heart and give the device back,” Hodge tells me. “It’s more valuable than a hundred Love Cities. If they caught you with this, you’d be dead straight away. So normally you only get to listen to it while we’re with you, but Akela decided to make an exception in your case.”
Awed, I turn over the tiny device in my hand. Through the tinny earbuds, music continues to dance into my mind.
In the beginning was the Lyric,
And the Lyric was with the Composer,
And the Lyric was the Composer.
He was with the Composer in the beginning . . .
“Dadda sang this song,” I murmur. “And Mumma.”
As the music continues, the image of Mumma’s face transforms, and she is back to wearing the Haterman mask in the Pavilion, her smile gone and her cheeks lined with blood and dirt. The invasive memory drowns out the recorded music with a new tune: off-key, out of rhythm, so broken and discordant it taints everything.
“Get it away,” I cry. I rip the earbuds out of my ears and throw the device across the room. It glides away under the dining tables until I can’t see it anymore.
“What did you do that for?” Hodge says, startled as he leaps after the device.
A vise of panic squeezes my chest, and I clutch at my uniform, willing more air into my lungs. Before I can think, I am running out of the dining hall.
“Cadence! Wait!” Hodge calls.
But panicked and guilt-stricken, I sprint to my room and barricade the door behind me. The song from the recording continues to sing in my memory, its gentle invitation biting and puncturing my heart until I feel as if I am bleeding all over the floor.
I sink down against the wall, hands over my ears. I shut my eyes tightly, blocking out the harsh LED light from the ceiling. But nothing stops the music. Nothing can hold back the constant reminder of what I have done. The song can only taunt me with the love and comfort I won’t ever experience. Love I am too unworthy to experience ever again.
“Murderer . . . murderer,” my voice whispers at me over and over. The words twist themselves into the music, dragging the melody off-key with broken harmonies and lost notes. I only heard a brief snippet of the tune, but that’s enough. It replays over and over for hours. All I can do is cry.