After spending a few hours at Dreame, Nora caught a late bus back home. Although hardly past 7 pm, stars dotted the sky. Nora's boots crunched on the small patches of ice on the concrete sidewalk as she made her way back towards her house. A wayward rush of wind curled along her chin and burrowed itself down into her shirt. She shivered, the night air nipping at her cheekbones. Ducking her head, she walked faster.

Just a few more blocks.

Nora had a lot of work in front of her. She had collected all the pieces; the research completed. Now she needed to go through it all, organize it, arrange it—similar to how she would a song.

The artists would be easy enough to take down. She simply would stop writing for them. Mallory couldn't take any pieces Nora didn't give out. And without more work, even if all else failed, the artists and Felicity would slow their trek on the charts.

It wasn't a foolproof plan. Nor was it an instantaneous victory. Right now, her plans only included ruining Mallory's reputation. And at this point, Nora wasn't sure that would be enough.

Because...then what? Where did that put Nora?

Walking past the orange glow of a streetlight, Nora turned the corner and strolled to her driveway. There, parked along the tall bushes on the street, a black SUV idled.

The hair on the back of her neck stood straight. She slowed as the door opened.

Her brain told her to run straight to her door, to make a break for it, and not look back. A dark car on the street at night? Idling? She'd seen enough thriller movies to know the signs all pointed to trouble.

She pivoted and took a step back. If she ran around the block, she could always hop the neighbor's fence and run in—

"Nora?"

All the tension left her body in one fell exhale. Nora put a hand to her chest, "oh my Creator, Eli. You scared the—"

Eli swallowed her into a hug. "Thank Creator you're okay."

Her heart thundered as Eli's cologne swallowed her whole. Eli Leonger was hugging her. Her! Despite the chill that'd worked its way into her coat and down to her bones, Eli was so warm. The kind of cozy comfort that settled her soul. She wanted to sink into that warmth. To hold it close—hold him close—and never let go.

Her fingers curled into the back of his jacket.

Then her brain clicked back on. She stepped back. "What are you doing here?" The wind played with Eli's dark hair. "And where's your hat? Your ears will get cold—"

"You lost your scholarship," Eli said. His gaze, intent in its worry, darted from her left eye to her right.

Her spine straightened. Who'd—?

"Something's going on," he rested his hands on her shoulders. "I need to know what it is."

"Eli—"

"I need to know," he said, "so I can help."

"Nora?" Mallory's voice flowed down the driveway. Nora peeked around one of the front bushes to see Mallory stepping out of her sleek sedan, briefcase in hand. "Who's there with you?"

The last thing she needed was for Mallory to see Eli there out on their front lawn. Nora imagined she'd simply invite Eli in, disguising her grab for fame and power as polite hospitality.

Nora turned back to Eli so fast, her hair caught in her mouth. She brushed it away with the back of her hand. "Eli, I need you to go home and log into Musetunes."

He shook his head, his hand catching her elbow. "I'm not leaving until you tell me what's going on."

Nora closed her eyes, her chest expanding. Only Eli, caring soul that he was, would somehow make her feel better in this situation. She cleared her throat. "I'm okay," she told him. "but I need you to leave right now."

He opened his mouth. Whether that was to respond or to stand his ground, she would never know. She pressed her gloved hand over his mouth and pushed him back into the black idling car.

The second the door closed, he frowned at her. "What's going on? You lost your scholarship?"

The temperature difference between the frosty air outside and the warm car had her glasses fogging up. She pulled them off and stared at the fuzzy outline of Eli. "It's a mess, Eli. A mess. But Mallory's right outside and she will come looking in less than a minute."

"Are you in trouble?" He asked her, succinct.

Nora laughed humorlessly and fixed her glasses back on. "Not in the way you think," she told him. "But I'm not in physical trouble."

His dark eyebrows drew together, pulling Nora's attention to his face. Even with the mussed-up hair, and pink nose from the cold, he still looked attractive. "Come home with me," he said. "We can go right now."

She reached forward and squeezed his hand. "I think the Creator was looking favorably on me by sending me you." She whispered.

"I'm not leaving you here," he told her.

"There are some things I need to do here," she said. "Once they're done, I would go anywhere with you, Eli."

His hand was fire against her chilled cheek, "what can I do to help?"

Her fingers lined up along his, "right now? Go home. I'll tell you everything. But not here. Not in person."

"The way you're acting right now is scaring me," he admitted.

She smiled, a small, yet genuine smile. "I'm not scared. And I'm not in trouble. Go home. Get on Musetunes." That said, she patted his hand and got out of the car. "Check your message board."

Before she closed the door, she met his eye and said, "Listen."

❆❆❆

Eli watched Nora walk towards the house, the bright driveway lights casting a beautiful copper tint on her hair until she disappeared out of his view. Something in his chest cried out—warned him not to let her go into that house by herself.

He didn't understand the feeling. None of it made sense. Other than warning him about Felicity, Nora had given no indication she was being abused. Physically. But she hadn't denied anything about emotional abuse.

Just what was happening in that house? There was still too much he didn't know. And he hated being in the dark.

As Markos drove home, Eli checked his Musetunes account through his phone. He kept his notifications off on purpose—they had a tendency to flood his phone—but in this moment, he had the strong urge to turn them on. Instead, he flipped through every incoming message, waiting for something to pop out.

"Listen," Nora had said. What was he supposed to be listening for?

Back at the palace, Eli hopped out of the car as Markos put it into park, and kept his eyes on the screen, scrolling through the incoming notifications as he walked in.

"Did you find her?" Lizzie was on him the moment he walked through the door. Eli frowned and glanced around. Had she set up camp by the entrance for when he came home? And how did she know he'd come in through the staff entrance and not the side entrance or the back?

"You know phones exist, right?" He said as he made his way to his room. Lizzie was tight at his side. "I would've called you if you asked."

Lizzie wrung her fingers, "I was trying not to hover."

Eli's feet froze, and he laughed. "Liz, you don't know how to not hover."

Her jaw came forward and she blew a breath upward. It caught her red-tinted bangs, floating them upward. "Whatever. Tell me about Nora. Is she okay?"

He patted her once on the shoulder and went into his room. Lizzie was still at his heels. "She's okay," he said. "Physically."

"Physically? What—" Lizzie cut herself off as Eli dropped into his tall black leather chair and logged into Musetunes on his desktop. The Musetunes logo flashed briefly on the browser as his page loaded.

"She said I need to listen," he murmured, bringing up his message board.

Lizzie found a chair and sat next to him, "if she's in an emotionally unstable environment, I want Jackson to—"

"I know," Eli held up a hand, his eyes never leaving the screen. "we'll figure it out. Right now, we listen."

Lizzie was quiet a moment as the two of them browsed through the steady stream of messages. "What are we listening for?" she whispered.

After fifteen minutes of searching, Eli sat back in his chair and brushed at his lower lip with his thumb.

Lizzie yawned next to him. "Want me to grab some coffee from the kitchen? The staff always has a pot going."

His sister would sit here the entire night with him if he asked. Without question. The thought made his heart warm. "No," he said, "I'm okay. It's getting late, why don't you—"

His Musetunes notifications chimed. A new message board post. He and Lizzie sat forward in their chairs.

It looked like a spam post. It was a new account – no profile picture – and there was nothing except for seven different links.

"Is that safe to click—" Lizzie started.

He clicked on the first one.

Lizzie sighed.

The link brought him to a song of Devon's. Devon, of all people. One of his closest friends. If he could even call Devon a friend. Eli plugged in his headphone splitter and then two sets of headphones. He gave one set to Lizzie, waiting until she had them in her ears, then played the song.

It was Devon's newer song, War & Tears. He'd put it on Musetunes maybe a month or so ago. The lyrics weren't anything out of the ordinary for Devon. His music was always very intense, more rock-esque, and never really Eli's type of music. He'd heard it maybe four times.

He listened to it twice, waiting for something to jump out at him. Listen, Nora had said.

He closed his eyes and played it again. Something itched at him, but at this point, he was afraid he was looking too deep into the lyrics. Searching for something and finding only the wrong things.

"Maybe we need to listen to all the songs together?" Lizzie suggested. "What's the next song?"

Eli followed the second link, this time Celine's bubbly pop song Sweet Candy. He played it and closed his eyes, focusing on the words and the song and every—

Eli shot forward and rewound the song. Sweet Candy was a classic teenage story. Celine sang about meeting in the school library and laughing in the local ice cream shop. He played the song from the beginning, his heart pounding as he listened again to the first verse when Celine talked about the library.

Then he heard it.

The blood in his veins turned to hot vaper. There was a sound in the background, one that came around again during the chorus. It was a beat, one that he recognized.

Because he'd created it. With a book in the library.

Then the ice cream shop verse. In the background was a slurping straw. From Ian, on that day they'd ditched school. When they'd taken Nora to the ice cream shop for the first time.

"Oh my Creator," Eli breathed. He pulled up the next song, and the next and the next. When it wasn't sounds, it was the odd word or two he'd heard Nora say once or twice. Or the brief flash of words he'd spotted once in her notebook.

The second he thought about Nora, and re-listened to the songs, he saw her everywhere. All over them.

A hand landed on his back and rubbed in smooth circles. "You okay?" Lizzie asked.

Eli turned to Lizzie, "It's her, Liz. Nora wrote these songs."

Lizzie's eyebrows shot upward. "There are seven different artists here."

He nodded, wondering how the hell he could've been so stupid. So unobservant not to catch it. Even when she'd been in this very room, telling him—not with words, but with her actions—about how much she loved music. How she enjoyed the craft. It was the light in her eyes when he'd showed her his song. The way she sat up straight when she'd listened to his music. The time she never had to give him. The intense focus she had as she scribbled in her notebooks during class, taking notes when there was nothing to take notes on.

It was the way her grades were failing.

"Nora's a ghostwriter," he breathed.