Page 45 of Mistaken

A breath in, not too deep yet, since she only needed enough to support her as she ran up the scale and back down again. All the same, she wanted to wince when the first note left her lips — not because it was pitchy or sour or even badly supported, but because it sounded too clear, too loud.

And of course she wouldn’t be able to get a read on what Abdul was thinking, thanks to the way that damn hood fell so far over his face, hiding everything.

Even Christine had been able to see the Phantom’s reactions better than this, since his mask had only covered half his shattered visage.

She couldn’t help being grimly amused by that comparison, although she had to admit her situation wasn’t quite the same as Christine Daaé’s. It might be true that Abdul had kept her here against her will, just as Christine had been held in the Phantom’s lair for days, but no one could ever accuse the djinn of being a mad musical genius, not when he’d only begun to play the day before. He would never write an opera for her — would never sing with her.

But what he was doing was being a decent accompanist, and that was what she needed to focus on now.

They moved farther and farther up the scales until she was singing an octave above where she’d started. Once upon a time, those high notes would have been easy, would have floated free from her vocal cords without even a thought, but now she could feel how rusty she was, how even during the times when she’d allowed herself to sing in those empty houses in Española, she hadn’t done much that had really tested her range.

Well, that was why she was practicing now.

Another exercise, one where she didn’t sing the entire octave, but only slid up five notes and then back down, again moving higher and higher, and this time she could almost feel the way her voice grew stronger and clearer, the highest notes seeming to come right out of the top of her head rather than emanating from her throat.

“Okay, that’s enough warm-ups,” she said, and paused. Abdul had been playing a piece fromPhantomearlier, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to go there quite yet. That musical was fraught in all kinds of ways she didn’t want to think about.

No, better to return to some of the tried-and-true standards, the songs her vocal coach had started her with before they moved on to musicals and even some opera.

“Do you know ‘Caro Mio Ben’?” she asked, feeling a little ridiculous. True, it was part of the standard classical repertoire, but there was nothing about practicing with a djinn accompanist that felt at all standard.

“No,” Abdul replied. “That is, I listened to a great deal of music last night, but it was mostly from musicals because that is what you said you sang.”

True enough. But if he could conjure just about anything she needed, from a pair of jeans to a saddle for her riding horse, then she didn’t think summoning a simple book of sheet music should be too difficult.

Assuming he could even read music. From what she’d been able to tell so far, it seemed more as though he’d been playing by ear.

“There’s a book of sheet music called24 Italian Songs and Arias,” she said. “It’s kind of standard for anyone studying voice. It has a manila cover with green printing. Any chance you could get that for us to work with?”

He nodded. “Italian Songs and Arias.That should not be a problem.”

And a moment later, that very same book appeared on the piano’s music stand. Sarah couldn’t help startling a little, even though by now she thought she should have been a little more used to the way Abdul could make objects appear out of thin air.

However, she tried to seem matter-of-fact as she reached over and flipped the pages to get to the piece in question. “Can you read the music?”

He didn’t reply right away, but instead leaned forward, as though to absorb what was printed on the paper. Another pause while he turned the page, apparently so he could scan the entire piece, and then he went back to the beginning.

“It does not seem too difficult. The notations correspond to the music I have been studying for the past few hours, so I think I should be able to follow along.”

That in itself was remarkable enough, but Sarah knew she needed something more than an accompanist who merely “followed along.” No, she needed someone who could take cues from her while also realizing that he needed to hold up his side of things.

“Why don’t you play it through once, just to be sure?” she suggested. “It’s not like we don’t have the time to go through it over and over again if necessary.”

“True.”

He placed his hands on the keyboard, but again he hesitated, as if allowing himself to scan the notations one more time before he got started.

But at last he played the opening chord, and moved through the rest of the piece — which, admittedly, was a slow one, and not anything too complicated — without making a single misstep. When he was done, he glanced up at her, as if looking for her approval.

“That was great,” she said. “You’re a natural.”

He chuckled at that comment. “I am not sure I would say that. But music appears to be highly mathematical, and that means it has a structure I can grasp quite easily.”

That it was. Sarah had never approached music that way, because she was far more interested in the emotional impact of a piece than the complex calculations involved in writing it, but even she knew about music’s direct correlation to mathematics.

“Well, let’s give it a try,” she said. Even as she spoke, she realized that she’d have to be the one to dissect her performance, to tell Abdul when they should stop so she could go over a phrase again, whether to shift emphasis or decide on where she thought was the best place to pause and take a breath. That should have been her voice coach’s job, but because he’d been lost with so many countless others during the Heat, there wasn’t anyone left to do this for her.

All the same, she thought they’d go through the song once without stopping, just so she could refamiliarize herself with the piece. After that, she could start tearing it apart.

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