The Voice

June landed on concrete.

The smell of stale pretzels and urine hit her. The screech of the 1 Train filled her ears.

She was back. 59th Street Station.

She was alone. Her hands were empty. Her cello was gone.

Commuters walked past her. A man in a suit stepped around her, checking his watch. She was invisible again. Just a crazy woman crying on the floor of the subway station.

"No," June whispered.

She stood up. The grief hollowed her out, but beneath the grief was something else. Anger.

She remembered Vesper’s face. She remembered how he looked at her. She remembered the feeling of being the *only* real thing.

He had sent her back to save her. He was dying right now, consumed by the noise, thinking he was doing her a favor.

"I am not a backup," June said to the empty air. "I am not Second Chair."

She closed her eyes. She imagined the Court of Whispers. She imagined the frequency of the crystals. She didn't have her cello. The wood was broken.

But Vesper had said it wasn't the box. *“It has soul.”*

June took a deep breath. She didn't care about the people watching. She didn't care about looking crazy.

She began to hum.

She didn't hum a tune. She hummed the C-string note. She opened her mouth and let the sound rise from her diaphragm, from the center of her chest where the Mate Bond still pulsed like a bruised nerve.

She sang the Dissonance down. She put all her pain, all her love, all her texture into the voice.

The air in the subway station began to shimmer.

Passersby stopped. The lights flickered.

June pushed harder. She screamed the note.

* CRACK.*

The reality of Earth gave way. Not because of a mistake this time, but because she demanded it. She tore the door open with her bare hands and her voice.

She stepped through the violet fracture.