All That Falls Read Online Free

tap into her power in the past.
    I need Griffin’s missing songbook. I need to see the flow of ideas, to relive the way the magic worked. The missing pieces are on those pages. I know it.
    Instincts more powerful than any she’d ever felt outside of her muse magic were driving her to find the book. She dreamed about it constantly.
    Unfortunately, she and the band had been searching for Griffin’s songbook since they buried him. The journal had contained all the songs that Cerise and he had worked on during his last year. There were thirty-seven songs in total, including several that Cerise had known would be number-one hits.
    After Griffin died, Cerise couldn’t remember a single lyric or melody from all that work, which had left Griffin’s band, the Molly Times, without their lead guitarist and unable to record new material. They’d begged Cerise to work with them, to inspire them, to come to rehearsal and jam with them. But without her magic, Cerise couldn’t help. It broke her heart. Hayden and Jersey had lost their brother; they should’ve at least had his final musical legacy. Cerise couldn’t even help them retain that much.
    “I don’t know what’s going on with Jersey. She
knows
the songs,” Hayden said as they walked. “She hears a lyric once and remembers it. Always has. Do you think she’s screwing up on purpose?”
    “No.”
    “Not even subconsciously? As a way to get back at him for dying?”
    Maybe,
Cerise thought and flushed. Hayden wasn’t only asking about Jersey now. “I don’t know. I’m not a psychiatrist.”
    “I wish she’d let me take her to one. She needs to talk to someone about how she really feels. It might help.”
    “Maybe,” Cerise murmured, reflecting on her own failed experience. She’d seen a therapist in secret, hoping that through hypnosis the woman would be able to unlock Cerise’s memories and free her muse magic. For a few moments of their session, Cerise had seen a glimpse—a very unsettling glimpse—of the past, but then it had deteriorated and Cerise had been back in the dark and more troubled than before.
    Cerise pressed her fist against the side of her thigh. When Griffin had died at twenty-seven, he’d deprived Cerise of more than her favorite aspirant; he’d been the guy she was crazy in love with, the one with whom she’d been having a secret affair.
    That Griffin’s death might have been partly Cerise’s fault was a detail that no one knew—except Cerise, who could not get over it. She never let on how much she still hurt, but the pain was there, just below the surface.
    “I’ve been writing,” Hayden said.
    “That’s great. I can’t wait to see what you’ve been working on.”
    “Yeah, sure…” He paused.
    “What?”
    “Dorie’s cool. I thought maybe I’d show my songs to her.”
    Cerise’s gaze slid to him. He wanted to replace her with Dorie? Cerise’s blood ran cold. “Is that right?”
    “Well, she’s a muse, too. And I thought—”
    She raised a brow, but said nothing. He flushed and clenched his teeth. She might have admired the way he was trying to assert himself if he hadn’t been stabbing her in the back in the process.
    “Look, we can use all the help we can get right now. Things are falling apart. You and Griffin were amazing together, but talking to you doesn’t light my mind on fire like it did his. If anything, it brings me down and makes me feel—I don’t know, exhausted. Kind of like I’m hungover or something.”
    The words crushed her, but before she could respond, she spotted Jersey’s body. Jersey was the same blue color Griffin had been that morning at the bottom of the ravine. Cerise recognized it as the color of death.

Chapter 2
    To distance himself from the frenzied attempt to save the girl, Lysander had flown to the roof. He stood at the edge looking down, unable to tear himself away. The girl’s death was bringing Cerise pain, which made him want to comfort her, to touch and reassure