Lost Melody

Silent Songs

Camellia shook her head, and then noticed someone else who was non-chalantly leaning against the wall. Violet eyes surveyed the scene.

"I told you that you wouldn't be able to scream."

"'I don't need you to tell me that,'" translated Leonardo with a low whistle. "Cara mia's got some bite in her."

Camellia's legs shook as though they'd turned to jelly, and she decided to stay on the floor for a while. Leonardo escorted Isaac out, Mozart following after throwing her a disinterested glance. Camellia didn't know how long she'd sat there on the floor, but she looked up when she heard the sound of unhurried, gentle footsteps.

Le Comte crouched before her.

"Are you alright, ma cherie?"

She nodded, before raising a hand.

"Isaac will be fine." He smiled. "You've had one of the scariest experiences in your life this week, and you're worried about the one who attacked you."

She shrugged, and took the hand le Comte offered her. He pulled Camellia up, and lent her an arm as they headed down the hall. She noticed that they passed her room, but she was too tired to protest.

He took her to his room, and offered her a seat, before nodding to Sebastian who offered Camellia a cup of tea. Le Comte put his cup down, and his eyes told her that everything he was going to say would be the truth. So she listened. She listened as he told her a story of an eternal vampire who had offered the dying a choice, an offer they had taken up, and the price being a lost humanity. She stared down at her tea for half the conversation, unable to say half the things she wanted to say.

What would be worth eternity for? Why would someone wish to live longer than the years they were given?

Le Comte smiled at her, as if sensing the question locked in her throat. But he didn't answer. The gentle look in his eyes told her that there was still much she had not seen, so much she did not understand. And maybe he was right.

"I promise that no harm will come to you when you are in my mansion." At the look Camellia gave him, he continued. "Isaac attacking anyone in bloodlust is a rare occurrence."

Sebastian winced slightly, and Camellia wondered if he'd been the victim once. She tilted her head. "He hasn't been eating his meals properly. He should know better since there are humans around," chastised Sebastian.

'Is he stressed?'

Sebastian stared, but Comte nodded. "Isaac is always stressed."

Camellia knew that couldn't be any good. 'Thanks for the tea.'

Comte smiled and shook his head. "Sebastian will escort you back to your room."

Sebastian nodded, and Camellia followed him out.

She kept her eyes down as she followed him, thinking over everything that had happened over the last half an hour, and then almost ran into a pair of polished Oxford shoes. Camellia looked up to see a smiling Arthur, his face far too close to hers for her liking. She took a wary step back, and noticed Sebastian standing patiently, only the set of his shoulders speaking of his tension.

"There's something I was wondering," said Arthur.

Dread filled Camellia's stomach.

"How did you lose your voice?"

'Not your business.'

He tilted his head. "Perhaps I should have asked Kiara to be here first."

He wasn't wrong, so she nodded. He tapped her lightly on the shoulder as he walked away.

Sebastian, who had watched their exchange quietly, nodded to her and continued walking. Camellia followed a few paces behind.

Music danced through the air as Camellia stepped into her room and locked the door behind her. Mozart was back at his piano, his melody twirling through the air in beautiful colors—colors Camellia knew she could never make. She wondered what he had lived through to create something so perfect.

Camellia wanted to talk to someone—preferably someone who could understand her. She left her room, and searched for Kiara, finally finding her down in the dining room. Camellia asked her if she had a moment, to which Kiara responded in the affirmative, and together, they headed out into the garden. Kiara didn't speak a word, signing instead. The silence was soothing as they spoke wordlessly about the residents, Kiara offering bits and pieces of their lives to her.

She mentioned that Mozart had come back to life to produce music, that he had come back to produce the perfect song.

'An admirable decision.' So this is what it meant to love something enough to be reborn for it. 'Has anyone ever been reborn for a person?'

Kiara tilted her head. 'Not anyone in the mansion. Arthur said he chose to be reborn so he could chase more women, if that counts. But I doubt that's his real reason.' She paused for a second, seemingly having an internal debate with herself. 'Do you have a dream?'

'Had one, I wanted to sing a song that could move the hearts of millions of people.'

She smiled, as though the words had confirmed something she had suspected. She spoke this time, her voice dancing across the wind. "Sounds a little like Mozart."

"What about me?"

Kiara's smile didn't fade, and Camellia spun around to see Mozart sauntering up to them. A glance up showed her that the music room window was thrown open, not a note of music flowing from the room.

"Nothing, nothing," said Kiara, before she repeated what Camellia had said about her dream. Mozart raised an eyebrow.

"What does this have to do with me? I don't dream. I have a goal, and that is to create the perfect song."

'That sounds like a dream to me.'

Mozart watched Camellia's hands. "I don't know what you just said, but it was probably something I would've been loathe to hear," he said, turning on his heel and walking away.

"Was it just me, or did that have less venom in it than usual?" asked Kiara, as we stared at his retreating figure.

'Just you.' As far as Camellia was concerned, he'd had plenty of venom in it.

Since then, Mozart and Camellia ran into each other a lot—or rather, Camellia was more aware of him. But it was mostly because she had found a piano in the music room that he didn't seem to use. When he stepped inside, she'd take it as a cue to leave. There were days he practically lived in there, and those were days Camellia didn't have an outlet for the words she couldn't say.

"You can stop walking on eggshells around me," he said, when she made to step out as he walked in. She froze and turned to look at him, his icy violet eyes close to her black ones. "I'd hate you if you were playing just because," he said, turning to look at the piano Camellia had virtually claimed as her own. "But you seem to love it. You're welcome to stay."

'Won't it bother you?' she signed, before faltering.

"No, it wouldn't," he answered to her surprise. Mozart's lips twitched slightly. "Kiara, Leonardo and Comte have taken to teaching us a bit of sign language. No excuses for not showing up to class," said Mozart, rolling his eyes. Camellia's heart warmed. "I'm not some second-rate musician who would be bothered by a bit of noise."

She smiled, hiding it behind a hand.

"But if the thought bothers you so much, you can just take a seat and listen," he said, swirling in a flash of white, and settling his fingers over the keys. Camellia did as he said, and listened as his hands danced over the keys in an arrangement of his own, "Das Veilchens."

His songs made her want to sing, but music was her way of singing now.

As he finished with a flourish, she wanted to clap but decided against it, instead, she just stared star-struck. Mozart looked at her from the corner of his eyes, before he waved a hand and left.

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