Excerpt from The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by Victoria E. Schwab, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Toby is a musician, and the signs of his art are everywhere.

In the instruments that lean against the walls. In the scribbled lines and notes scattered on tables—bars of half-remembered melodies mixed in with grocery lists and weekly to-do's. But here and there, another hand—the flowers he's started keeping on the kitchen sill, though he can't remember when the habit started. The book on Rilke he doesn't remember buying. The things that last, even when memories don't.

Toby is a slow riser, so Addie makes herself tea—he doesn't drink it, but it's already there, in his cupboard, a tin of loose Ceylon, and a box of silk pouches. A relic of a late-night trip to the grocery store, a boy and a girl wandering the aisles, hand in hand, because they couldn't sleep. Because she hadn't been willing to let the night end. Wasn't ready to let go.

She lifts the mug, inhales the scent as memories waft up to meet it.

A park in London. A patio in Prague. A team room in Edinburgh.

The past drawn like a silk sheet over the present.

It's a cold morning in New York, the windows fogged with frost, so she pulls a blanket from the back of the couch and wraps it around her shoulders. A guitar case takes up one end of the sofa, and Toby's cat takes up the other, so she perches on the piano bench instead.

The cat, also named Toby ("So I can talk to myself without it being weird…" he explained) looks at her as she blows on her tea.

She wonders if the cat remembers.

Her hands are warmer now, and she sets the mug on top of the piano and slides the cover up off the keys, stretches her fingers, and starts to play as softly as possible. In the bedroom, she can hear Toby-the-human stirring, and every inch of her, from skeleton to skin, tightens in dread.

This is the hardest part.

Addie could have left—should have left—slipped out when he was still asleep, when their morning was still an extension of their night, a moment trapped in amber. But it is too late now, so she closes her eyes and continues to play, keeps her head down as she hears his footsteps underneath the notes, keeps her fingers moving when she feels him in the doorway. He'll stand there, taking in the scene, trying to piece together the timeline of last night, how it could have gone astray, when he could have met a girl and then taken her home, if he could have had too much drink, why he doesn't remember any of it.

But she knows that Toby won't interrupt her as long as she's playing, so she savors the music for several more seconds before forcing herself to trail off, look up, pretend she doesn't notice the confusion on his face.

"Morning," she says, her voice cheerful, and her accent, once country French, now so faint that she hardly hears it.

"Uh, good morning," he says, running a hand through his loose black curls, and to his credit, Toby looks the way he always does—a little dazed, and surprised to see a pretty girl sitting in his living room wearing nothing but a pair of underwear and his favorite band T-shirt beneath the blanket.

"Jess," she says, supplying the name he can't find, because it isn't there. "It's okay," she says, "if you don't remember."

Toby blushes, and nudges Toby-the-cat out of the way as he sinks onto the couch cushions. "I'm sorry … this isn't like me. I'm not that kind of guy."

She smiles. "I'm not that kind of girl."

He smiles, too, then, and it's a line of light breaking the shadows of his face. He nods at the piano, and she wants him to say something like, "I didn't know you could play," but instead Toby says, "You're really good," and she is—it's amazing what you can learn when you have the time.

"Thanks," she says, running her fingertips across the keys.

Toby is restless now, escaping to the kitchen. "Coffee?" he asks, shuffling through the cupboards.

"I found tea."

Excerpted from The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by Victoria E Schwab. Copyright © 2020 by Victoria E Schwab. Excerpted by permission of Tor Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.