“What’s the message?” Laurel asked. “Rose’s location?”
“No way. Monty knew this was here,” Eliot said. “If it could have helped him find Rose, he would have used it a long time ago.”
“It’s not a map,” Laurel said. “But it could be.”
We all looked at her blankly.
“Every note on the scale resonates at a different frequency. But they’re rough approximations—a plain middle C won’t match an Echo. The frequency needs to be much more specific.”
She took a blank piece of paper and drew a staff, then sketched in the melody she’d sung. “See? Individually, they’re too general. But if you combine them into a single chord . . . an octad, I guess you’d call it . . . they’ll generate a more distinct frequency.” She drew a chord, eight notes stacked together like a blobby, upright caterpillar. “It might be enough to pinpoint a specific Echo.”
“Not from a piece of sheet music,” Eliot argued. “The range of possible frequencies would be too broad. It’s dependent on who’s singing, or what instrument you play it on. Middle C resonates differently if you play it on a guitar or a flute or a cello.”
I touched his hand. “Or a violin.”
“Exactly,” Eliot replied, and looked at me again. “Oh. Oh.”
“Rose’s frequencies,” I said. “Rose’s violin.”
Every violin has its own voice; like fingerprints, no two are exactly alike, which is why people will pay millions for a genuine Stradivarius. Monty had given me my grandmother’s violin as soon as I was big enough to play it. I didn’t know if I should be touched that he’d trusted my eleven-year-old self with something so irreplaceable, or furious he’d been manipulating me for so long. I was leaning toward the latter.
I led the way to the music room and took the violin out of the case, the burnished wood familiar as an old friend. I used Rose’s pendant to tune it, trying to keep frustration from stiffening my fingers.
“I can record your playing and combine the frequencies digitally,” Eliot said, laptop at the ready. “It shouldn’t take too long to process.”
I tucked the instrument under my chin, lifted the bow, and Addie spoke.
“Even if you’re right—and I refuse to believe that the Free Walkers would be so stupid as to use a nursery rhyme as a secret code—but if this works, what are you going to do? Chase down the frequency? Find this weapon, if that’s what it is? What then? Lattimer will know you’re up to something. So will the Free Walkers. Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ll be in?”
She knotted her fingers together, face pinched with worry. “Del, stop and think. Haven’t you learned anything?”
The lessons that stick are the hardest to learn. Simon had taught me how to see the truth of a person, because he’d seen me. He’d taught me how to sacrifice—to look beyond myself and focus on the good. But he’d also taught me how to fight. You play until you hear the buzzer.
I looked up at Addie—really looked—and saw the fear behind her anger. She’d never been scared before, not like this. I wondered what she’d seen during her special assignment to frighten her so deeply.
“Don’t you want answers?” I asked.
Laurel took Addie’s hand, the gesture so simple and automatic my throat ached.
“Of course I do,” Addie said.
I rubbed my thumb along the ebony frog of the bow. “The Consort’s not going to hand them over like a bag of jelly beans. We have to find them ourselves.”
“And what happens when you get caught?”
“All I’m doing is playing the violin.”
Before she could protest further, I nodded to Eliot and drew the bow over the strings, the notes rich and clear. I tried to envision my grandmother standing in their room, playing for Monty, sending out a message that might never be found. Had she meant it for me?
I played the song three times, stopping at Eliot’s signal. “Got it,” he said, and tapped furiously at the keys. “Give me a minute.”
A minute was all it took for Addie to start in again.
“Let’s say you find this weapon. You’d have to give it to Lattimer. Who you hate. Is that really your plan? The Free Walkers won’t let it go without a fight.”
The sound of Eliot’s typing stopped abruptly, then started again. The comment needled me. Finding Simon wasn’t my endgame. Being with him was, and unless the Free Walkers succeeded, that wouldn’t happen. If keeping Lattimer from finding