They rode down in silence. Well, what could have been silence if Theophilus hadn't kept humming tunes that Isabella didn't recognize and then mumbling incoherently to himself. She sighed as the door chimed opened and then walked down the dark corridor. They emerged through the theater's main door and marched down rows of red velvet chairs, each holding a thick layer of dust captive in its fabric. The theater had been Renee Fox's pride and joy and the place where her daughter, the beautiful Beatrice Foxworthy, made her first and last public performance before dying at the age of twenty-one. Some kind of childhood illness took her life, or so everyone said. They also said Beatrice was a little wacko. Isabella didn't believe it though. In fact, she liked to think of Beatrice Foxworthy as being just like her-a little sensitive and sometimes temperamental, although Isabella didn't think she was that bad. They also had the same thick, wavy, black hair, but Beatrice's green eyes had been anything but dull like Isabella's were. Even in old black-and-white photos, they seemed to sparkle.

The stage had long, red curtains, knotted at the middle, and a grand piano-Beatrice's piano-sat center stage. Isabella looked up at the crown moldings and the high ceiling, more appropriate for an opera house, and reveled in how much she loved this hotel and the legacy she'd been left.

Theophilus sat down at Beatrice's piano, removed his goggles from their case and snapped them on.

Isabella, Seth, and Micah sat in chairs facing him, backs to the wide-mouth theater.

"Now, children! We will cover singing and a bit of piano today. Next time you can bring your instruments, and we can go from there. You are a bass guitar man, Seth, am I right?"

Seth grinned as he lifted an eyebrow and nodded. This was not really a gesture of modesty, Isabella noticed. Seth Logan was obviously the type of guy who needed to be knocked down off his high horse.

"And you are a drummer, yes, Mr. Micah?"

Micah grinned, and his grin truly was shy. "Yes. I love the drums. It's primal, ya know?"

"But it's not his main thing," said Seth. "Not like me with my bass."

"You do soccer, basketball and capoeira," Micah countered.

"Yeah, but you're like a computer dork at heart. That other stuff is just because I got a lotta energy." He turned his attention back to Theophilus. "My bass is like everything to me."

Micah looked a little irritated at his brother's one-upping game and pinched his mouth into a line. Wait...

"You do capoeira?" Isabella asked.

"Yeah, kinda."

"He's really good."

Isabella frowned. She didn't like having something in common with him for some reason, or maybe she didn't want the competition. He was probably ten times better than she was. He was bigger, but that really didn't have that much to do with it. Capoeira was about being clever, puzzling almost as you tried to outwit your opponent by keeping him in a constant dance. You had to be a bit of a trickster like that kid today. He'd just disappeared, and-- "I want to know who that Pythian boy is to you, Theophilus. And where did he go?" The words blurted out so quickly that even Isabella seemed surprise to hear them fall out of her mouth. She had been thinking about that odd little boy since she'd met him. Who was he? Where was he now? Why had Theophilus barely even acknowledged him? She wondered all this in spite of wanting it to be nothing at all. If it was something, any chance of a normal holiday break would be out of the window.

"Shall we start with a few scales? One is never too advanced for a proper warm-up."

"I can dig scales, but, man, it's dusty in here. How are we supposed to breathe?" Seth complained.

"You're avoiding my question. Why?" asked Isabella.

"No one ever comes in here, according to Mrs. Foxworthy," said Micah.

"Her name is Bayer. Catherine Bayer. She goes by her maiden name," Isabella explained. "Now, about that kid-"

Theophilus cleared his throat. "This theater will be shimmering as if twinkled by the light of the North Star once I'm done with it." He glanced around the room as if his vision had already unfolded. Then his countenance turned pensive. "Yes," he said with a nod. "If what lies beneath and within these walls spoke to you, your lives would be forever changed."

"What? That makes no sense. And what do you mean, 'once you're done'?" The theater had been in decay for the better part of ten years. Her grandmother could have and probably should have sold it off, but she knew how much it meant to the family and her late husband, Beatrice Foxworthy's older brother, Mitchell.

"Well, that means what it sounds like. Restoration, my dear. With me at the helm."

"Oh, no," Isabella grumbled. Her grandmother had mentioned asking Theophilus to revitalize the theater, but she thought that was a joke.

"What's your problem?" Seth slapped his hand on his knee. "You get a movie theater. A ragingly awesome movie theater! Free!"

"Yeah. I like the sound of it," Micah piped in.

"Yeah. Sooo cool to you, but all I do around here is work."

"Oh, no. Miss Hotel Heiress washed a dish? Were you afraid to break a nail?"

Isabella shoved short, half-painted, silver fingernails in Seth's face. "Does it look like I care if I break a nail? And this hotel is my life. I love it, but I'm just a kid. If I want to see a movie, I can just go down to the multiplex on the corner. And they have stadium seating."

"Okay. Calm down. I get it. I guess."

Isabella looked up to see Theophilus staring at them, hand in chin, nodding. Weirdo. Wasn't he supposed to get mad at them for babbling so much?

"Would the two of you like some privacy? You sound like an old married couple, and I may not know much about the married part of that phrase, but I'm rather an expert on the other!"

"What? A couple? Ew! I just met him yesterday, and I already think he's a jerk!"

Seth furrowed his brow but decided to ignore her as he let his eyes fall to his left where his little brother stood. Micah was oblivious to the world around him at that moment and began folding a sheet of loose paper into an airplane.

"Ah, young master," Theophilus began, "a bit of a mechanical mind, I see. Fantastic. We'll make use of that. Yes, sir." He clapped his hands, then rubbed them together as if kneading a tiny ball of cookie dough. "Now, I shall play something for you. Pay close attention to the melody."

"What happened to the scales?" asked Seth.

"And I still want to know about the boy," Isabella insisted.

"What do you mean, you'll make good use of me?" Micah asked.

Theophilus ignored all of them as his fingers floated over the keys, releasing a melody that was as familiar as the air Isabella breathed. It had been a favorite of her mother's. A tune she'd never learned but had always promised to.

Her eyelids fell as if someone had tugged them shut with little strings.

Boom. She was back in that moment. She remembered the smoke clinging to her lungs as she gasped for air. The pungent odor of the charred wood was still as strong as it had been that day. Hues of orange and yellow danced along the walls as they were slowly devoured by destruction.

"I've got you," the man with the black hair and very black eyes had said as he entered the house to be her savior. She remembered being wrapped up in his arms as he spoke to her that night. "I've got you. You're a light in this darkness. You're safe."

"Hey!"

Snap. Her eyes opened. Seth's nose hovered half an inch in front of hers. What was going on? Groggily, she noticed he had way too many freckles and obviously a lot of garlic in his after-school snack. Then she remembered her dream and the blackout and forced him away from her.

"Whoa."

"Sorry. I must have dozed off or something."

"You're all right, I take it?" asked Theophilus. Isabella nodded once. "Splendid. I know you missed it, dear, so I'll reluctantly repeat myself. Just please, don't make me do it again. I'm getting to the point in life where a man struggles to remember his own thoughts!"

The boys chuckled.

"By the way, did you know these two are in Logan Blues?"

"Yes, my grandmother reminded us of that yesterday, remember? She hired them," Isabella said, rubbing her eyes.

"She's always one to help keep the memory fresh. And I've just recalled Logan Blues they've decided to stay on permanently?"

"What? Since when? We don't have any rooms left that we can contract out for that long!"

"Good thing you don't have to worry your pretty little mind about it then. We're renting ours from Uncle Robert."

Isabella's jaw dropped. Could this day get any weirder? There was only one Robert that she knew from the hotel. The Foxworthys long-time family friend, Robert Heel. He never used the suite he kept there, but he also never rented it out. At least, not that she could recall, and Robert wasn't one to keep secrets. "Robert Heel is your uncle?" she asked, unable to figure out how a fact like that slipped by her so easily.

"Great-uncle," said Seth. "I guess."

"You mean you don't know?" Isabella said.

"He's my father's uncle, okay?"

"Sorry, I asked. It's just that I know Uncle Robert really well and--"

"So, you're jealous he's got a real family and not just some stuck up orphan heiress to pretend he cares about?"

Isabella looked down when he said that, tears pricking the back of her eyes.

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean that," said Seth.

Isabella wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "Don't worry about it," she said quietly.

"Children, it's important we look at the world from not just our perspective. Now, as I was saying," Theophilus went on. "Hugo Varelli was a great composer, but he had a very dark side. Like other great men, he thrived on his muses, and one of his muses was my mother. He tortured her until she could no longer bear his rage. You see, she was an Empath, so she not only felt her own fear but was consumed in every bit of her soul with Hugo's rage."

"What's an Empath?" asked Micah.

"Someone who feels other people's emotions," said Isabella "but that's a load of-"

"Is it?" Theophilus raised his eyebrows. It was as if he could see inside her and knew all of her secrets. Her nose tickled and she scratched it, watching as Theophilus stood up with a whip of his cape and then paced, hands clasped behind his back. "So, you ask, why did she stay with him at all?"

The kids shrugged.

"Well, he was passionate, you see. Very much so. So much so that my mother, Constance Dodge-kind, sweet, mediocre in talent-thrived on it. She said he gave her life. She could feel something that her cold English childhood had never provided. Yes! Passion, my children. That is what we must bring to our piano."

"Wait," said Seth. "That's it?"

"What happened to her?" Isabella asked.

"Another day. Another day. Let's get started."

Weird. He was weird, but maybe he knew things. He had been in and out of the hotel for years. Just as long as her Uncle Robert, but somewhat of a less permanant fixture. He would go and come like the hot winds that blew in from the south, carrying a lot of lively action with him.

And what happened to that Pythian kid? He was there. Then he was gone. With Theophilus ignoring every probe sent his way about the boy, she knew she had to do something on her own to find out more about him. For now, she planned to drop the whole thing and focus on something far more important, but tomorrow, she was going to find out who Pythian is and why he had come here. Getting into bed, she fell under the covers and began watching Night at Holiday Hall, starring Beatrice Foxworthy in her only feature role. Her father and mother watched it with her every year around Christmas time and she was not one to break tradition. After saying hello to everyone in the kitchen at Betty's down in the basement and talking to the staff for a little over an hour, Isabella headed up to her room, sans chowder. Betty had gone for the holiday, of course. But she still had her tradition to keep her warm. After slipping the DVD into the machine and she finally lay there content, she knew that this moment was more important than anything else going on in the hotel. Unfortunately for Isabella, the events of the day had worn her out and she fell asleep before Beatrice could sing her first song.