Chapter 59 The Choice of the Compass
“Love isn't just about holding on when the tide is high; it’s about knowing which way to swim when the horizon disappears and the stars go dark.”
Cass stood on the edge of the pier, her heart feeling like a piece of glass that had been dropped onto the stone. Her father, Jonas, stood as a frozen grey statue beside her, his hand still reaching for a fight that had been stolen from him. In one hand, she clutched the final golden seed Evan had slipped into her pocket; in the other, she watched the distant flickering lights from the village.
LONG. SHORT. LONG.
The signal from the town was clear: the black boat heading to Whispering Point was a decoy. Evan was being taken to the Sterling Manor on the hill.
"Evan," she whispered, her voice lost in the damp wind.
She looked at the seed. It felt warm, almost like a tiny heart beating against her palm. Evan’s note had told her to go to the basement to play the song he couldn't finish. But if she stayed in the Lighthouse to play a song, she was letting him face Lord Sterling and her mother alone. She was letting him walk into the "harvest" without a hand to hold.
"I can't let them have him again," she muttered, her eyes darting between the tower and the hill. "Not after ten years. Not after I was the one who handed them the key."
The guilt was a heavy, suffocating thing. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her seventeen-year-old self, hopeful and desperate, carrying that ivory envelope. She had thought she was a daughter saving a mother. She hadn't realized she was a girl sacrificing a soul.
"Cass?" A small, trembling voice came from behind a stack of lobster crates.
Ben stepped out, his face streaked with dirt and his eyes wide with fear. He looked at Jonas’s frozen form and let out a small, choked gasp. "Is Uncle Jonas... is he gone?"
"He's just waiting, Ben," Cass said, rushing to the boy and pulling him into a hug. "He’s caught in the silence. We have to bring the noise back."
"The lights in the town," Ben pointed. "That’s the schoolmistress, Miss Halloway. She’s using the old signal lamp from the attic. She told me to tell you that the carriages are moving toward the Manor. They have Evan in a cage, Cass. A brass cage."
A brass cage. The integration had already begun.
"Ben, listen to me," Cass said, her voice dropping to a low, urgent tone. "I need you to be the bravest boy in Willow Lane. I have to go to the Manor. I have to get Evan out of there before the sun sets."
"But what about the song?" Ben asked, looking up at the high, dark windows of the Sentinel. "Evan said the song is what breaks the ghosts."
Cass looked at the Lighthouse. It stood tall and silent, its golden light dimmed by the grey energy of the Echoes. If she didn't play the song, the other five lighthouses would remain machines of grief. The "Ghost Keepers" would continue to eat the lives of the coast.
But if she didn't go to the Manor, the man who gave her everything, even his own memory, would become the sixth ghost.
"I can't be in two places, Ben," Cass said, her eyes filling with tears. She looked at the golden seed. "Wait. Evan said the 'Ache' is a broadcast."
She looked at the boy. "Ben, do you remember the melody Lila used to hum? The one you helped Evan record?"
Ben nodded, humming a few bars of the haunting, sweet tune.
"I need you to go into the basement," Cass said, placing the golden seed into the boy’s small hand. "The resonance plate is already set. You just have to place this seed in the center and hum that song into the brass tube. Can you do that? Can you sing for Evan?"
Ben looked at the seed, then at the dark, imposing door of the Lighthouse. He looked terrified. "What if the grey men come for me?"
"They can't stand the sound of the song, Ben. It’s like salt in their eyes," Cass promised, though she wasn't entirely sure herself. "You’ll be the gardener while I’m gone. You’ll be the one who wakes up the sisters."
Ben took a deep breath, his small chest heaving. "Okay. I'll do it. I'll sing really loud."
He turned and ran toward the Lighthouse, his small boots thumping on the wood. Cass watched him go, with a prayer on her lips. Then, she turned toward the hill.
The climb to Sterling Manor was steep and overgrown. The wealthy families had built their homes high above the "salt-stink" of the docks, but tonight, the salt was everywhere. It hung in the air like a fog, thick and biting.
As she reached the iron gates of the Manor, she saw the black carriages. There were no horses. The carriages were moving on their own, the wheels clicking with that same mechanical rhythm she had heard in the clockwork birds.
She slipped through the bars of the gate, her blue silk dress snagging on the thorns of the untended roses. The Manor was lit up with a thousand candles, but the light was cold and they didn't flicker.
She reached the terrace and peered through a high, leaded-glass window.
The ballroom was filled with people. The women were in velvet, the men in stiff wool, but no one was talking. They were all standing in a circle, their heads bowed. In the center of the circle was a tall, brass structure that looked like a birdcage, but it was filled with wires and glass tubes.
Inside the cage sat Evan.
He looked upright, but his eyes were fixed on the ceiling. There were thin, silver wires attached to his temples, pulsing with a dull, grey light.
Standing over him was Lord Sterling, and beside him, looking like a queen of shadows, was M. Cole.
"The resonance is stabilizing," Sterling said, his voice echoing in the silent room. "He is fighting it, Cole. His heart is stubborn."
"It’s the anchor," M. Cole said, her voice devoid of any motherly warmth. "The girl is still in his head. Even after I told him she betrayed him, the frequency of his love is holding the integration back."
"Then we increase the pressure," Sterling said. He reached for a large dial on the side of the cage. "If he won't give up the memory of her, we'll simply burn it out of him."
Cass felt a scream rising in her throat, but she clamped her hand over her mouth. She had to be smart. She had to be the compass.
She looked around the terrace. Near the servant’s entrance, she saw a stack of wood for the fireplaces. And sitting on top of the wood was something she recognized, it was a small, silver-tipped staff. The same kind the Echo had used on the pier.
One of the guards must have left it there while unloading the carriages.
She crept toward it, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She grabbed the staff. It was cold, so cold it made her skin go numb, but she felt a strange vibration in the handle.
Suddenly, the air around the Manor began to hum.
It wasn't a grey hum but a high, sweet note of the sound of a young boy singing.
Ben, Cass thought, a sob of relief catching in her throat. He did it. He started the broadcast.
Inside the ballroom, the grey wires on Evan’s head began to spark. The "Ghost Keepers" standing in the circle flinched, their translucent skin flickering.
"What is that?" Sterling shouted, looking around in a panic. "Who is interfering with the frequency?"
The song grew louder, echoing off the stone walls of the Manor. It was a song of summer days and blue hair ribbons. It was a song of a boy who loved a girl enough to forget himself.
Evan’s eyes moved. He blinked, the grey film over his pupils shattering like ice. He looked toward the window, and for a split second, his eyes met Cass’s.
"Cass!" he croaked, his voice sounding raw.
"Stop the broadcast!" Sterling yelled at M. Cole. "Go to the Lighthouse and kill the child!"
M. Cole turned toward the door, her face was a mask of cold intent.
Cass knew she couldn't stop Sterling and save Ben at the same time. She looked at the silver staff in her hand. She looked at Evan in the cage. And then she looked at the dark path leading back to the Lighthouse.
The choice is a nightmare. If Cass stays to break Evan out of the cage, M. Cole will reach the Lighthouse and stop Ben and the song forever. If she runs to save Ben, Sterling will finish the integration, and Evan will become a ghost. Who do you save when the world is ending in two different directions, and what is the secret M. Cole is hiding in the locket around her neck?