Magic Under Stone by Jaclyn Dolamore Read Free Book Online Page A

but nevertheless I feel sorry for him if these are his ancestors. And I’m not looking for paintings.”
    I would have been happy to stroll the moldy old portrait gallery with Erris, making jokes about the antique faces, laughing in the intimacy of shadows. “What are you looking for, then?”
    “A piano, of course.”
    “Did you ask Celestina if there is one?”
    “No, I like the hunt. I wonder what’s up these stairs?”
    I hoisted the lantern. “Let’s see.”
    Erris followed, briefly grabbing my elbow with a steady hand when I stumbled on a crooked step. “I feel like a bandit, snooping around without anyone who lives here,” he said.
    “I’m glad we can snoop. Clearly, there’s nothing to hide around here.” In Hollin’s house, I had found Annalie’s hidden quarters on the third floor.
    But most of the doors on the third floor here were locked. I rattled them all stubbornly, trying to force them open, until Erris pulled me away. “These are probably Ordorio’s quarters. I’ll bet he locks them to keep Violet from poking around with magic. I wouldn’t worry about it. Although, if his wife is secretly alive up here ... well, I could only wish.” He motioned me back toward the staircase.
    Not long after, we found the piano. It was not far from the dining room; we had just ventured in the wrong direction. Music has an uncanny ability to chase away misery, at least for a time.
    “It’s in tune too,” Erris said. “Whoever Ordorio is, I could kiss him.”
    “That wouldn’t be fair. You haven’t even kissed me yet.”
    He smiled slightly, which wasn’t really the response I yearned for, and left me feeling silly for attempting flirtation.
    He played a few notes. “How about it, Nim? ‘In Springtime Blooms the Rose’?”
    I laughed. “Anything but that!” That had been one of the only songs he could play when he was stiff clockwork trapped at a piano, and it was hardly cheerful under any circumstance, about a man who goes to war, leaves his love behind, and never returns.
    “I should learn to play the songs that you know from your home,” Erris said.
    “It seems we have all winter. I can teach some of them to you.”
    He played a soft little tune, his long fingers light across the keys. I sat on the edge of the piano bench, like I used to when he was trapped. I loved to watch his hands move freely.
    We had fallen in love without being able to say much to each other. I think it was still hard for him to say the things in his heart. Jokes came easier. But he could speak through the piano, even now. His song remained slow, and it grew more melancholy. It could be that I ascribed things to the music that he didn’t mean, but I didn’t think so. I heard his regret that things had gone this way for him and for us. I heard him miss his family. I heard his desperation and his fear.
    If he would share all of this with me, it couldn’t be hopeless for us. Not quite.
    He began to sing quietly in another language, the foreign syllables rolling soft from his tongue. The notes sounded like winter, beautiful but cold. And then he sang,
When winter comes, birds fly home
When winter comes, birds fly home
The soil sleeps
The spirit rests
When winter comes,
The birds go to their nests
And we fly home
To those who we love best .
    He stopped. “I’m winding down,” he said. “Time for bed.”
    We stood. “Good night.”
    He left without waiting for me, without lantern light. I did not go to bed right away, but sat at the piano for long moments, my mind full of equal parts waking dreams and nightmares.

Chapter 6
    I woke to a foggy morning, with the tops of evergreens just piercing the gray blanket out my window. It felt more cozy than gloomy. I exchanged my nightgown for a dress from my trunk and went to wake Erris, key in hand.
    But when I walked into his room, Violet was there breathing raggedly over Erris’s body. She snatched her hands to herself like I had just caught her at something.
    “What are