Chapter One: Debt and the Nightingale

Returning Tide*. The sound came from the end of the corridor. The music room was dark, moonlight washing over the keys. No one sat at the piano, but the strings were trembling. As Shen Yan approached, Xingyao's paper slipped from his coat. Her thirteen lines pointed toward the bass register. The antique clock began to strike. One. Two. At the twelfth stroke, a narrow black key slowly rose from the seam between the lowest A and B-flat. It cast no shadow. A bead of fresh water trembled on its surface. Han's footsteps sounded outside. Shen Yan should have stepped back. Instead, he heard his mother's melody continue beneath the impossible key. The next note, missing for seven years, was as clear as though Shen Qinghe had taken his hand.