Chapter Twelve: When the Song Stutters
The Choir felt it before anyone spoke.
The resonance wavered—just a fraction of a breath off-key—but in a harmony built on precision, that was enough to set teeth on edge.
One singer faltered.
Not visibly. Not enough for the crowd below to notice. But inside the weave of shared emotion, a thread frayed.
That wasn't us.
The thought passed through the Veilbound Choir without sound.
They stood dispersed across the upper gallery of the Hall of Grace, pale masks reflecting candlelight, robes falling in identical folds. From above, the city murmured—thousands of small lives brushing against one another, ripe with feeling.
Usually, the Choir guided those feelings gently. Smoothed the jagged edges. Turned panic into patience, anger into unity.
This disturbance had done none of that.
It had spilled.
"Locate the source," the Conductor signaled.
The Choir reached.
Not outward, but through—threading awareness into the emotional undercurrent of the city. Laughter echoed back, thin and misplaced. Warmth without anchor. A joy that hadn't been earned.
Wasteful.
Dangerous.
"There," one singer marked. Residual transference. Untrained.
Another presence stirred—older, heavier.
Stone-borne, a voice observed. No. Adjacent to it.
The Conductor tilted her head.
"Someone is moving emotion," she said softly. "Without shaping it."
A ripple of unease passed through the Choir.
"That is not possible," a singer replied. Echo-work requires attunement.
"And yet," the Conductor said, "the weave bears fingerprints."
She stepped forward, mask catching the light. Beneath it, her smile was thin.
"Find them."
The Choir split their attention, scanning deeper, finer. Most emotional traces dissolved quickly—fear fading into habit, joy into memory.
This one lingered.
A fault line.
A presence that felt too loudly, like an instrument that didn't know how to be quiet.
The Conductor inhaled slowly.
"Not ours," she decided. "Not Sereth's."
That earned a pause.
"She watches edges," a singer noted. This is not edge-work.
"No," the Conductor agreed. "This is rupture."
Her fingers tightened at her side.
"If this continues," she said, "the city will learn it can feel without us."
The idea hung, dangerous.
"Prepare a welcome," she ordered. "Not confrontation."
Recruitment? a singer asked.
The Conductor's smile sharpened.
"Correction," she said. "Containment."
Below them, the city breathed—unaware that its emotions had just been marked for audit.
And far from the Hall of Grace, the hum beneath the ground shifted again, curious now.
Someone else had joined the song.
And the Choir did not like improvisation.