Dara Kindle came back from the land of the dead with a cracked flute and a debt she meant to pay. She had walked down there once, playing every step, to reach the loved one death had taken. Now she climbed back into the living world with her prize still lost. Her clay flute had split on the last stair. Its voice came out broken, and a broken voice cannot buy a soul. She reached her shack at dusk. The roof sagged. The door hung on a rough charm her hands had tied years ago. Her shadow stretched toward the setting sun instead of away from it. The dead had marked her that way, and it had not faded. Inside, the fox met her. Its coat was dark as spilled ink, and it watched her with pale eyes. She sat on the floor and lifted the flute to her mouth. She blew one note. The crack turned it into a dry rattle. The fox flattened its ears and slunk under the bed. "I know," Dara said. "I heard it too." She needed a song strong enough to trade for a soul, and no cracked flute could carry one. She had to mend it, or she had walked to the dead for nothing. Then the room went cold. A pale light spread across the boards. A man stood by the window, blue and see-through, his hair drifting as if underwater. She had heard the old players speak of him. A bard who died mid-song and never left. Melodius Threnody. "You play out of tune," he said. His voice hummed like a plucked string. "But you play with a reason. I felt it from three valleys off." Dara held up the broken flute. "It cracked on my way out. I can't fix a sound with a hole in it." The ghost drifted closer. He looked at the flute, not at her. "Clay remembers the hand that made it. Fill the crack with something the dead touched. Then play the crack shut." "That makes no sense," she said. "Neither does a girl who walks out of the grave." He smiled. "Your shadow points the wrong way. That is your seal. Press it into the clay." Dara pressed her thumb hard against the crack, into the shadow that fell wrong across her hand. The clay grew warm. She lifted the flute and blew. The rattle broke, then steadied. A clear note rose and filled the shack. The fox crept out and pointed its nose at the sound. The crack was gone. The flute sang true again. Melodius Threnody nodded, but his light dimmed. "The flute will hold. The song you need will not come cheap. You mended the tool. You have not yet learned the tune." He faded until only the cold stayed. Dara held the whole flute against her chest. She could play again. Now she had to find the one song worth a soul.