Chapter 8: Secrets and Lies

The first raindrops landed in clusters, like beads of mercury shot from a gun, pinging against the salt-scabbed panes with a violence that outpaced the forecast by a day. Selene watched the storm roll in from her window, chin propped on the heel of her hand, the glass fogging with the rhythm of her breath. She counted seconds between lightning and thunder, each interval narrowing, pressure in the air spiking like fever before a seizure. The ocean was invisible beyond the glass, transformed by the downpour into a sound, a presence, a living thing writhing just out of sight.

She pulled the curtain shut. It was a pointless ritual, her apartment had only the one wall that looked out, and even that view was occluded by spray and by the warped plastic she’d tacked up as insulation. Still, the act gave her a moment’s illusion of separation. She retreated to the galley kitchen, bare feet making no sound on the cheap linoleum, and stood before the battered counter. She had set the kettle on before the rain began, and now the water inside shivered without heat, the metal body vibrating faintly against the coil of the stove.

The storm was a live thing in her blood. She could feel it through her bones, a kind of migratory ache that pulsed from her jaw to the hollow at the base of her throat. When the next flash hit, blue-white, splitting the sky into ribs, she flinched, clutching at her neck, two fingers pressed against the seam where skin met scar. Her nails dug in, the dull pain almost enough to anchor her.

Almost.

With the thunder came the real agony, a split-second aftershock that ran the length of her spine and settled in the not-quite-healed gills behind her jaw. Selene bent over the counter, eyes squeezed shut, and waited for the pulse to crest. It always did, eventually, but the seconds until then were endless, the pain so sharp it verged on memory. She felt, vividly, the hands of the Queen, the terrible force with which those gills had been sealed, the singing thread of magic spun through them to keep her exiled, silenced, almost-but-never-quite human.

She opened her eyes. The water in the kettle was still, but every glass on the counter vibrated with the energy of the storm. She could hear them, a high, sweet ringing just above the frequency of human speech. Her lips parted, and without thinking she began to hum.

It was the old melody, the one she’d sung when she was still part of the world below, when sisters flanked her on either side and the Hunt was just an extension of appetite. The sound was nothing in this air, thinner and fainter than it had ever been, but even that ghost of a note was enough to ripple the surface of the water in the glasses, to send a tremor through the walls. The hum crept up in pitch, pressing against the limits of her new anatomy, stretching the scars until they burned.

She should have stopped. It would have been easy, once. But the pain had taught her nothing except how to bear more of it, so she pressed on, the melody winding tighter, the counterpoint of wind and thunder finding places to slip between her notes. A glass slid two centimeters across the counter, coming to rest against the metal sink with a sound like a muted bell. Selene laughed, or tried to, the effort cost her, sent a spasm through her larynx that ended in a cough wet with salt.

The next lightning flash was brighter, so close it left an afterimage even behind the lids of her eyes. This time she dropped to the floor, back braced against the cabinet, hands fisted at her throat. She could feel the ridges under the skin, no longer red or raw but not truly healed, either. The Queen’s punishment was not designed for mercy. The gills would never breathe again, but the nerves still fired in memory, raw and insistent.

Selene forced herself to inhale, to count the seconds until the storm moved off. She tasted blood, faint and metallic, on the back of her tongue. She traced the lines of the scar with her thumb, focusing on the texture, on the mundane sensation of flesh under skin. She would not let herself think about the other life, the one she’d left behind in the dark. She would not let herself think of Elias, the way his music made the scars ache in a different way, the way it woke things in her that had no business surfacing in this world.

She pressed her palm flat over her throat, stilled the trembling, and exhaled. The humming stopped, but the storm outside redoubled, the wind howling at the eaves as if in protest. The water in the kettle boiled now, a true boil, rattling the lid against its seat until she lurched upright and switched off the burner. She poured herself a cup, the ritual calming her, though the tea bag bled color into the water with unnatural speed, the swirl of it hypnotic. She sipped, let the heat burn away the metallic taste, the salt that lingered even now.

The lights flickered once, then again, then steadied. Selene surveyed the kitchen, every glass, every cup, every shallow bowl she’d used to trap stray silverfish or leaky faucet drips, vibrated in place, the surface of the water in each one alive with microtremors. She could feel the building itself flexing around her, the ancient beams protesting the weather, or perhaps the thing inside the apartment that should not be.

She closed her eyes, hummed a single note, and this time the lights did not flicker, but the glass closest to her cracked, a clean, high fracture running from rim to base. Selene set down the mug, leaned both hands on the edge of the sink, and watched as the split widened, a slow and deliberate undoing. She could not help but smile at the inevitability of it. When the glass finally broke, it was quiet, a single sharp sound lost in the deeper noise of the storm.

She spent the next hour cleaning up, hands steady now, breath measured. She moved through the apartment in a loop, from window to counter to battered futon and back, checking the perimeter, making sure nothing else had broken. She straightened the curtain, wiped the condensation from the glass, and stacked the remaining cups with care. She did not look at her reflection in the window, not even once.

By the time the storm had passed, she had convinced herself it was nothing, just another night, just another memory to ignore. She swallowed the last of the tea, pressed her hand once more to her throat, and stood silent in the center of her borrowed life.

There were three hours until the next rehearsal, three hours until she would see Elias again, until she would have to pretend, for his sake, that nothing inside her had shifted, that the scars were only scars and the music was only music. She let herself believe the lie for as long as she could. Then she went to the closet, pulled on the coat, and prepared herself to face the world, storm or no storm, whatever was left of her would have to be enough.

~~~~

The rehearsal space was less a room than a wound left unhealed: low ceiling stained brown with old leaks, walls furry with acoustic foam that did nothing to blunt the cold or the smell of wet plaster and ancient sweat. Two battered floor lamps staged a limp defense against the dusk, casting everything in a nicotine haze that turned human skin to wax and made the stage look farther away than it was.

Elias was already there, guitar in hand, his body coiled around the instrument like he feared someone might rip it away mid-song. He moved through scales with the rigor of a dying monk, hands never quite relaxed, shoulders rising and falling with the click of the metronome he’d set on the stool beside him. There was no crowd tonight, just the aftertaste of one in the warped reflections of the stage monitors and the sticky sheen on every surface. Occasionally, someone would poke their head into the hallway, see him, and think better of it.

Selene arrived late, or early, depending on which timeline you believed governed her nights. She lingered at the door, letting her eyes adjust to the low light, pulse still off-kilter from the afternoon’s storm. Her coat was damp around the hem, hair slicked to her jaw, a faint line of blood dried beneath one ear where she’d scratched too deep. She slid into a seat at the back, careful not to catch the attention of the man at the soundboard, who, by all appearances, had entered a dissociative state and was unlikely to break it for mere mortals.

She let the music draw her forward, note by note. The setlist was familiar, she’d heard him play these pieces a dozen times, both in the rooms above the harbor and through the open windows of his apartment, the sound carrying over the water like a rumor. But tonight, the notes had changed. They were sharper, meaner, more like the wind that battered her windows than the calm that followed. She felt the music as a pressure behind her eyes, a physical force that threatened to peel back the soft tissue and expose the skull beneath.

Selene sat perfectly still, but her body betrayed her: leg twitching in time, fingers tracing the spiral of a long-dead seashell tucked into her pocket. When Elias hit a passage that struck her memory, a run in C minor that echoed something from the deep, she found herself humming, low and involuntary, barely louder than breath.

At once, the air in the room shifted.

Elias heard it, or felt it, and the next chord he played came out doubled, a ghost of sound trailing the real one, as if the amp had grown a second, secret speaker. He frowned, adjusted his grip, and played the chord again. The echo persisted, higher this time, a harmonic that should not have been possible on his battered instrument.

Selene stopped humming. The effect vanished, but her heart thudded so hard it made the table vibrate. She risked a glance up and met his gaze, just for a second, a laser-bright flash of gray-green from the stage that left her stunned and raw. She saw, in that instant, the shiver that ran through him, the way his hands tightened on the neck of the guitar, the tremor that pulsed from tendon to tendon. He looked away, blinked, then played on.

She tried to keep silent, but the next passage forced its way out: a counter-melody, softer and sadder than the original, but so perfectly matched that the two lines wove together in the air, neither able to dominate the other. The amp whined, a thin filament of feedback riding on the edge of hearing, and the glass of water atop the speaker rippled, sending concentric circles to the rim.

Elias lost his place, stopped, then laughed, a dry, brittle sound that even the walls seemed to recoil from. “Okay, what the fuck,” he muttered, adjusting the tuning peg, though the guitar was still perfectly in tune. He shook out his right hand, flexed his fingers, and looked into the darkness where Selene sat.

“Who’s there?” he called, not accusing but with the bafflement of a man convinced the house was haunted. Selene stayed silent, then, after a beat, let out a cough that might have passed for a laugh. “Just me,” she said, voice so soft it nearly evaporated. He smiled, relief and embarrassment warring in his eyes. “Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “The room does weird things at night. The sound bounces funny.”

She stood, crossed the empty floor, and perched on a stool near the edge of the light. Up close, the strain in his face was worse than she remembered, cheeks hollowed out, dark veins showing at the temples, fingers blue-knuckled with effort. He looked at her, and the set of his mouth softened, just a little.

“Have you ever noticed,” he said, “how some nights the music fights back?” Selene nodded, not trusting herself to speak. He started again, slower this time, eyes half on her, half on the frets. The melody was different now, exploratory, hesitant, as if he were playing for an audience of one and trying not to scare her off. Selene let herself relax, inhaled the musty air, and hummed, careful to keep it barely audible.

The amp responded, but this time the harmonic was sweeter, the overtone a perfect fifth above the root. The glass on the speaker trembled, and a bead of condensation slipped down its side, leaving a trail like a tear. Elias noticed. He played the phrase again, louder, and watched the glass. It vibrated in time with his pulse, then when Selene hummed again, it rippled faster, as if her breathing and the water were in direct communion.

“Are you doing that?” he asked, voice pitched low. She shook her head. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.” She pressed her fingers to the side of her neck, wincing when another low thunder roll echoed through the walls. He leaned forward, the guitar cradled in his lap like a child. “It’s been happening more since… ” He trailed off, unsure if it was safe to finish the sentence. Selene supplied the missing word. “Since I arrived.”

He nodded, relief in the admission. “I can’t explain it. I used to lose myself in the music, but now it feels like there’s something else in here with me. A resonance, maybe. Or a current.” She thought of the Queen, of Mara, of the voices that lived in the undertow. “Currents change people,” she said, not entirely sure whose voice was speaking.

Elias played a new progression, an improvisation, and Selene let the harmony slip in behind it, building a tension so fine it left her hands trembling. She watched his face as he played: the flicker of pain at his brow, the flush that spread up from the collar of his shirt when he reached for notes that should have been out of his range. He pushed himself, again and again, chasing the resonance.

After ten minutes, his breath was ragged, and sweat beaded at his temples. The glass on the amp had started to sweat, too, a small pool forming at its base. The sound guy at the back of the room finally looked up, startled by the wave of noise, and then went back to his phone, unconvinced that anything in this place could surprise him anymore.

Elias stopped mid-song, held a hand to his chest, and gasped a laugh. “Feels like I just ran a marathon,” he said, not entirely joking. Selene stepped closer, standing just at the edge of the stage. “You’re bleeding,” she said, nodding at the cut on his left index finger, where a string had bitten too deep. He looked at it, bemused, then shrugged. “It happens. Occupational hazard.” He wiped the blood on the hem of his jeans, then set the guitar aside.

She watched him, every sense tuned to the pain in her own body, the ache at her neck now a constant thrum. “Maybe you should stop for the night.” He hesitated, then shook his head. “I want to try one more thing. If you don’t mind.” Selene nodded, though the urge to run was strong, muscle memory from another life. She held her ground as he picked up the guitar again, fingers shaking but determined.

This time, he played the old song, the one that had first drawn her into the bar, the one that felt like home and hunger and death all at once. Selene hummed, not softly, but full-voiced, letting the music pour out of her. The amp howled, a perfect mirror of her sound, and the glass on the speaker shattered, spraying water and shards onto the floor.

Elias stopped, stunned, then burst out laughing. “You have to tell me how you did that.” Selene smiled, the pain in her neck sharp but bearable now. “I guess the room just likes me.” He looked at her, really looked, and for a second Selene saw something dangerous in his eyes, curiosity, maybe, or the beginning of belief. He wiped the sweat from his face, set the guitar down, and came to sit beside her on the edge of the stage.

“You make everything… different,” he said, the words an admission and a challenge both. Selene could only nod, her voice gone to dust. She felt the tremor in her hands, the hunger in her bones, the echo of the music in every cell.

They sat in silence, watching the blood from his finger pool on the worn wood of the stage, mixing with the spilled water and the shards of glass. The storm outside was gone now, but the world inside the rehearsal room was changed, and neither of them knew what to do with the knowledge.

After a time, Elias stood, offered her his hand. She took it, felt the heat and the fragility in his grip. He led her toward the door, through the hush of the empty venue, and into the corridor beyond. Behind them, the last note of the song lingered, vibrating in the air long after they were gone.

~~~~~

The hallway outside the rehearsal space was pure concrete and anxiety, the kind of corridor designed to magnify sound and dread in equal measure. Selene emerged blinking from the battered door, Elias close behind, still flexing his left hand where the cut bled through a makeshift bandage of napkin and electrical tape. The air in the corridor was cooler, sharp with disinfectant and the ghost of burned toast from some long-extinguished staff lounge. Selene kept her head down, but the hush of her shoes on the linoleum still sounded like an accusation.

Theo Mercer was waiting for them, leaning against the cinderblock wall like a cop on the verge of an arrest. He looked worse than the last time she’d seen him, eyes red, jaw locked, tie loose enough to strangle. His attention was on his phone, thumb flicking through a waterfall of notifications, but the moment Selene appeared, the device vanished into a pocket and he straightened, all business.

He positioned himself squarely in front of her path. “You got a minute?” he said, making it clear there was no question in the request. Selene stopped, arms folded tight across her chest. Elias stepped up, ready to intervene, but Theo shot him a look sharp enough to cauterize. “I’ll just be a second, man,” Theo said, his tone for Elias softer, then he snapped back to Selene. “Walk with me?”

She nodded, wary, and followed as Theo set a brisk pace down the hallway, away from the stage, away from anything familiar. He led her to a fire exit, pushed open the door, and let the night air slap them both. The storm had not abated; if anything, it had grown meaner, the rain so dense it blurred the streetlights into muddy halos.

Theo didn’t bother with pleasantries. “What are you doing to him?” Selene blinked, the question landing harder than the rain. “I don’t… ”

“Bullshit,” Theo cut in, keeping his voice just below a shout. “He’s not eating. He’s not sleeping. He’s dropping weight, and last week he collapsed after the show. EMS wanted to take him to the hospital, but he refused. Said it was a blood sugar thing.” He looked her dead in the eyes. “But it’s not, is it?” Selene shook her head, unable to find the right lie.

Theo’s jaw worked, a muscle jumping at the hinge. “I’ve seen this before, Selene. Not exactly this, but artists who get obsessed with something, someone, and burn themselves out. But this?” He gestured back at the rehearsal space, at the world they’d left behind. “He was barely functional until you showed up. Now he’s better on stage, but worse everywhere else. He says you inspire him, that you’re his muse. But you’re killing him, you get that?”

The words scraped something raw inside her. She stared at the wet ground, letting the rain collect at her lashes. “I never wanted… ” “That doesn’t matter,” Theo snapped. “What matters is he’s got maybe a year, two if he’s lucky, before this heart thing finishes the job. And he’s using up what’s left on you.”

Selene wanted to run, to disappear into the nearest drainage pipe and let the water carry her far from here, but Theo wasn’t done. “I need to know what you’re doing to him. What is it? Drugs? Some kind of… ” He stopped, breath coming in shallow bursts, the unspoken possibilities crowding the space between them. Selene raised her eyes, forced herself to look him in the face. “It’s nothing you’d understand,” she said, the words barely more than a whisper.

Theo stared at her, trying to parse the answer. “Try me,” he said, voice cracking just enough to reveal the man behind the mask. She opened her mouth, searching for a version of the truth that wouldn’t damn them both, but the only thing that came out was, “I love him.” Theo’s shoulders sagged, the anger deflating in an instant. “That’s not enough,” he said, softer now. “Not if it means he dies sooner.”

Selene swallowed hard. “Would you rather he was miserable, but alive?” “Yes,” Theo said, without hesitation. “Because then at least he’d be here.” The honesty stunned her, a new kind of pain flaring in her chest. She nodded, not trusting herself to say more. A movement behind them, Elias, shivering in the rain, his face drawn but his eyes burning. He’d followed, as she knew he would. He touched Theo’s shoulder, a brief but anchoring contact, then turned to Selene.

“Let’s go,” Elias said, voice thin but determined. Theo watched as Selene moved to join Elias, but he didn’t try to stop her. “Be careful,” he said, the words for both of them.

They left together, the rain washing away the last heat of confrontation. The streets were mostly empty, water running in shallow rivers along the curb. Elias walked slow, every few steps pausing to catch his breath, but refusing to let her take his arm, as if to prove he still had some agency left.

They said nothing for the first few blocks. The rain found every seam in their coats, cold fingers crawling under collars and cuffs. Selene could feel her scars prickling, the nerves alive with the promise of coming pain. She tried to ignore it, focusing instead on the way Elias moved, every step a negotiation, every breath a question mark.

They reached her apartment building, a box of concrete and fog perched at the edge of the old docks. Selene fumbled the key from her pocket, hands shaking more than they should, and let them into the vestibule. The hum of the overhead light was almost comforting after the violence of the storm.

Elias leaned against the wall, catching his breath. He looked at her, a long, appraising stare, and for once she saw the calculation happening behind his eyes. “What did Theo say to you?” he asked, wiping rain from his brow.

She considered lying, but the memory of Theo’s honesty compelled her. “He thinks I’m killing you.” Elias laughed, a single, exhausted sound. “Maybe you are. But if you are, I don’t want you to stop.”

She wanted to protest, but he stepped closer, close enough that she could see the stubble on his jaw, the water beading at his lashes. “There’s something happening when we’re together,” he said. “Something I can’t explain. You feel it, too, don’t you?” She nodded, the motion sending a shock of pain through her throat.

Elias touched her cheek, featherlight. “It’s like you’re in my head, Selene. When you hum, I can hear it in my chest. When you hurt, I can feel it in my bones. I don’t know if that’s love, or if I’m just finally losing my mind, but… ” He broke off, hands trembling. “I need to know what’s real.”

She looked away, at the streaks of water on the glass, the shapes of the city blurring beyond. She could taste blood, coppery and bright, on the back of her tongue. “You don’t want the truth,” she said, each word a razor in her mouth. Elias let the silence hang before replying, “I do. Even if it hurts.”

She pressed both hands to her neck, feeling the ridges of the scar beneath her skin, the gills flexing in a phantom spasm. “It’s not safe,” she whispered. “For either of us.” He smiled, so sad it nearly broke her. “I don’t care.”

Selene wanted to scream, to run, to dissolve into the sea and never come back, but instead she reached for him, pulling him into a kiss so gentle it was almost a blessing. He tasted like rain and fear and hope.

They stood like that, locked together, until the pain in her throat forced her to break away. She gasped, clutching at her neck, the scars burning as if the Queen herself had set them alight. Elias caught her, arms steady. “Selene? What is it?”

She shook her head, unable to speak. The pain peaked, then receded, leaving her hollowed out but still standing. He held her until she stopped shaking, then led her to the futon, settling her gently onto the edge. “Tell me,” he said, voice hoarse. “I can take it.”

She wanted to believe him, but the memory of the Woman’s words on the beach, every realm demands its due, crowded out everything else. “I’m not who you think I am,” she said, at last. “But I wish I could be.”

Elias brushed the wet hair from her forehead, kissed her again, this time on the temple. “I think you’re exactly who I need.”

Selene closed her eyes, letting the sound of the rain on the window and the warmth of his hand at her back fill the void. For a moment, the pain faded, and she let herself hope that the world might let her keep this, just a little longer.

Outside, the storm battered the city, but inside, for the first time, Selene felt almost safe, and in the distance, the sea waited, patient as ever, for the next turn of the tide.