CHAPTER ONE
The Golden Invitation
To Cadence Avery, the world was never quiet. In fact, it was incredibly opinionated.
While other people walked through the rain-slicked streets of Highwood hearing only the clatter of carriage wheels and the wet slap of boots on cobblestone, Cade heard a never-ending, highly dramatic chorus. Every object in her vicinity had a personality, and almost none of them had a filter.
The rusted iron streetlamps hummed a low, melancholy drone about how much they hated the rain. The brick storefronts grumbled in dry, dusty baritones about the “youth of today” walking on their doorsteps. But the worst were the pocket watches. In the front window of Sallow’s Curiosities, a dozen silver timepieces were currently locked in a petty, rapid-fire argument.
“You’re three seconds fast!” one ticked.
“At least my gears don’t squeak, Gerald!” another chimed back.
Cade sat at the workbench in the back of the shop, her thumbs smudged with black grease and linseed oil. She was nineteen, but her eyes—one a stormy, deep grey, the other a sharp, amber-gold—carried the exhausted weight of someone who hadn’t had a peaceful night’s sleep since she was nine.
“Quiet down, the lot of you,” she muttered, gently tapping the brass housing of an old naval compass.
The compass did not quiet down. It kept whistling a dizzy, high-pitched sea shanty, vibrating against her fingertips with the distinct, seasick memory of a sailor who had dropped it overboard in 1842.
“Cadence!” Mr. Sallow’s voice, raspy and smelling faintly of mothballs and sour lemon cough drops, cut through the workshop. “There’s a gentleman out front asking about the brass sextant in the display case. Get up and assist him before he realizes I’ve overpriced it by fifty percent!”
Cade sighed, wiping her hands on her oversized, oil-stained trench coat. The coat was practically a security blanket; the heavy, double-lined canvas was thick enough to muffle the worst of the city’s constant background chatter. She pulled her wild, dark curls back into a messy knot and stepped out from behind the velvet curtain.
Standing by the window was a man who looked like he had taken a wrong turn on his way to an royal gala.
He wore a long coat the color of crushed plums, tailored with silver embroidery that caught the dim shop light. He was tall, lean, and held a silver-topped cane with the theatrical grace of a stage magician. But what caught Cade’s attention was his left pocket. From beneath his coat came a sound that made her ears twitch—a rhythmic, metallic tock-tick-tock that wasn’t steady. It sounded like a nervous heartbeat, followed by a tiny, elegant chime that sounded suspiciously like a giggle.
“Can I help you, sir?” Cade asked, leaning against the glass counter. “Or are you just hiding from the drizzle?”
The man turned. He possessed a sharp, hawk-like nose and bright, inquisitive blue eyes. The moment he saw her mismatched eyes, a wide, knowing smile spread across his face.
“Ah. Miss Avery, I presume,” he said. His voice was a rich, baritone cello, vibrating with a resonance so powerful that three antique teacups on a nearby shelf began to ring in harmony. “I was beginning to think I had the wrong address.”
Cade’s grip tightened on the edge of the counter. “If you’re a debt collector, I should warn you that Mr. Sallow’s vault is mostly filled with expired IOUs and very angry moths.”
“I am not a debt collector, Miss Avery. I am here to witness an audition,” he said smoothly. He tapped his silver cane on the floorboards. The wood groaned—not with age, but in a perfect, resonant G-minor.
“Great,” Cade muttered, rolling her eyes. “My floorboards are musicians now.”
Before the man could respond, a sudden, violent crash rattled the shop’s glass door.
Screams echoed from the street.
Through the foggy window, Cade saw a massive dray cart carrying heavy iron girders. The draft horses, panicked by a sudden backfire from a nearby steam-omnicar, had bolted. The driver had lost his grip on the reins, and the heavy cart was now hurtling down the narrow, sloping cobblestone street directly toward a crowded market stall where a young boy stood, frozen in terror.
“Help!” someone shrieked.
Cade didn’t think. She sprinted past the plum-coated man, throwing the shop door open. The cold, wet wind hit her face like a slap.
The runaway cart was thirty yards away. The iron girders groaned, vibrating with a chaotic, screeching wavelength of pure kinetic panic. To Cade, the noise was a deafening, metallic roar—a physical force that threatened to split her skull.
She couldn’t reach the boy in time. The horses were a blur of wild eyes and flying mud.
Closing her eyes to block out the visual chaos, Cade focused entirely on the noise. Beneath the screaming bystander and the thundering hooves, she isolated the fundamental pitch of the cart’s spinning iron axletrees. It was a grinding, high-pitched scream—a friction-filled C-sharp.
She took a deep breath, expanded her lungs, and opened her mouth.
She didn’t hum a pretty tune. She threw a sharp, piercing, glass-shattering operatic note directly into the path of the storm, matching the exact vibration of the axletrees.
CRACK.
The sound wave hit the cart like an invisible brick wall. The resonant frequency instantly locked the iron axles. The wheels seized, throwing up a spectacular shower of bright blue sparks against the wet cobblestones. The cart flipped onto its side with a dramatic screech, sliding harmlessly into an empty brick alleyway, yards away from the startled boy.
The horses broke free from their harness, galloping down the street, looking thoroughly embarrassed but unharmed.
For a long moment, the street was entirely silent, save for the hiss of steam and the quiet patter of rain. Cade stood on the threshold of the shop, gasping for air, her throat burning.
“Well,” a voice piped up from a nearby trash bin. “That was dramatic.” (Cade ignored the bin).
“Remarkable,” a human voice whispered behind her.
Cade spun around. The man in the plum coat was standing right behind her, completely unfazed by the near-disaster. In fact, he was clapping slowly, his eyes alight with absolute fascination.
“A perfect pitch,” the man said. “Direct molecular resonance. Untrained, and yet... delightfully loud.”
“What did you do?” Cade whispered, her heart hammering against her ribs. She looked around, terrified that the gathering crowd had seen her. But the onlookers were busy checking on the boy and the overturned cart. No one was looking at the weird girl who had just screamed at a wagon.
“I did nothing, Miss Avery,” the man replied. “You did. Or rather, your loud voice did. The Oakhaven Conservatory has been looking for you.”
“Oakhaven?” Cade stumbled back into the shop, rubbing her temples. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just have very strong lungs. It was an accident.”
“There are no accidents of acoustics,” the man said, stepping into the shop and closing the door, instantly shutting out the noise of the street. He reached into his plum coat and withdrew an object.
It was a heavy, rectangular envelope made of thick, polished brass. Its surface was etched with intricate, swirling patterns of clockwork gears and musical staves. From within the metal, Cade could hear a rapid, energetic ticking, like a tiny clockwork hamster running on a wheel.
“My name is Maestro Sterling,” he said, holding the ticking brass envelope out to her. “I am a seeker for the Oakhaven Conservatory of Resonance. We are an academy for those who understand that the universe is not made of silent matter, but of living music. And you, Cadence, have been granted a rare invitation.”
Cade stared at the brass invitation. “I can’t go to a school. I have a life here. Mostly consisting of polishing brass and arguing with pocket watches.” She paused, her voice softening. “And my father...”
Ten years ago, her father had walked out of his workshop with nothing but his cherry-wood violin, leaving behind only a broken, seven-note refrain that had haunted Cade’s dreams ever since.
“Your father, Julian Avery, was one of our most brilliant alumni,” Maestro Sterling said softly, his playful demeanor shifting into something solemn and heavy. “Do you not wish to know where he learned to play the songs that took him away?”
Cade’s breath hitched. She looked at the brass invitation. The gears on its face were shifting, aligning themselves like a combination lock waiting for her touch.
Slowly, hesitantly, Cade reached out. Her fingers brushed the cold, polished brass.
The moment her skin made contact, the frantic ticking stopped.
A sharp, mechanical click echoed through the quiet shop. The brass envelope didn’t open. Instead, the tiny gears on its surface began to spin at a furious, blurred pace.
And then, it began to play.
A series of crystal-clear, chiming notes vibrated through the metal, echoing in the dusty air.
Cade froze, her blood turning to absolute ice.
It wasn’t a random melody. It was a haunting, seven-note sequence in a minor key. A discordant, beautiful, and utterly terrifying phrase.
It was the exact melody her father had played in the dark the night he vanished. The melody she had spent ten years trying to forget. And as the final note chimed, a small, dark drop of what looked like fresh, red liquid began to seep from the seams of the brass invitation, staining her fingertips.
