Chapter 14 Chandelier #2
And fall. And fall. As I watched, it felt like time had slowed down, but at the same time, it was happening too fast for me to react.
The screams from the audience were deafening as the very prim and proper patrons from high society turned feral, scrambling, climbing and pushing over each other to get out of the crash zone.
They weren’t fast enough. I heard myself screaming as it fell.
Too slow, and too fast. The crash and squelch were the worst sounds I have ever heard in my life.
My ears hollowed out and everything became fuzzy—sounds blended, and I remained frozen centre stage, standing on that coin.
Time caught up with itself as I stood, and I could hear again. The screams had gone from terrified shrieks to mournful wails as it became clear what had happened. There were bodies under the twisted and shattered remains of the once great fixture.
I was still frozen. From my vantage point on the stage I could see everything.
Every grotesque detail. The twisted limbs that stuck out at odd angles beneath the ruined fixture.
The blood that was now pooling and running toward the stage.
So much blood. How did human bodies contain so much blood?
It felt like I was in a dream—no—a nightmare.
If I pinched myself, would I wake up? Surely this hadn’t happened. I would wake up soon.
I tried, but I couldn’t make my limbs move in my dreamlike state. There was a commotion around me. I looked to where Carlotta was, still on the ground where I had shoved her out of the way. She looked up at me with horror and disgust painted across her face.
“Witch! Get the witch! Arrest her!” Voices cut through the ringing and fog. Rough hands grabbed my shoulders, my upper arms, and began to move me. I came to, then, out of whatever frozen state I was in, my eyes and ears snapping back into focus.
They thought I had done it. They thought I had caused the chandelier to fall—to crash.
Someone did, at least. Whoever was holding my arms. I had to admit it didn’t look good for me.
Especially given the display of electrical surges that had occurred the last time I stood centre stage.
My arms were being held, roughly, behind my back now; the cold bite of metal pinched my wrists as they snapped handcuffs on.
I didn’t even struggle. I was being dragged, my feet stumbling as I tried to stay standing.
I looked to my left and had a flash of recognition.
This was one of the men who had broken into Carlotta’s dressing room.
And he was actually a gendarme. Scion, then? Truly?
Witch, they’d been screaming. They’d been screaming about me.
I was being held by Scion. People were dead under that twisted glass and metal.
Flames sprung up around the chandelier’s remains, and they evacuated the theatre as they held me.
They’d light a pyre for me right in the courtyard.
I was not going to get out of this. They were going to burn me alive—like they did so many unfortunate women in Lutesse.
But I hadn’t done it. I couldn’t have. I wasn’t capable of magic.
And even if I was, the surge of power at the gala had occurred only when I had sung—if that was indeed my magic leaping out of me, it had been because of the music.
I wasn’t singing when this happened. It couldn’t have been me?
Could it? The panicked feeling. No. No. The amount of power that had made that chandelier come crashing down was far beyond anything that I was capable of.
It had to be. I hadn’t done it. I hadn’t. I couldn’t.
But I don’t suppose my guilt or innocence mattered, truly. I was being pushed through a doorway, into Carlotta’s dressing room.
“You’ve really done it this time, witch,” the man holding my arms spat as he shoved me inside.
“We’ll come get you when it’s ready.” I must have looked confused, as the gendarme chuckled.
“The viscount is preparing a little bonfire for you,” he said with a sneer as he closed the door and locked it from the outside.
Trapped. I was trapped, my arms bound by those cuffs, my shoulders aching.
And they were going to burn me right here and now.
No trial. Scion would be my judge, jury and executioner.
I was done for. The panic that had held me captive throughout the show reared its ugly head again as I looked around the room, frantically trying to come up with a way to get out.
My eyes landed on it. The mirror. I could get out.
If I could get through that mirror and into the passageway behind it, I could get out.
I could go to Ciaran. No matter how bad he was, he wasn’t going to burn me at the stake on sight.
He would believe me. That I hadn’t done it.
That I couldn’t have done it. I had to get through the mirror first, though. Had to save myself.
I stumbled over to its gilded length, awkwardly, as my hands were bound behind my back.
I had to calm down. Because I knew I could get through the mirror, but I had no idea how to do it, and I was running out of time.
What had Ciaran done? He had placed his palms flat on the mirror.
I hissed out a curse as I tried in vain to twist my hands in the cuffs, the metal slicing into the soft skin on the insides of my wrists. Fuck.
The lock on the door turned and my panic flared anew.
The gendarme had just left; he couldn’t be back already.
I was dead. I was never going to make it through the mirror, and I would be just another black smudge drifting over the Sequana.
My chest squeezed. It was going to hurt too.
To burn alive. It wouldn’t be an easy death.
The door opened and the same gendarme who had brought me here returned. “Come on, little witch. We have a nice, toasty fire to get to.” He laughed.
As I was getting ready to fight, deciding that I wasn’t going to go easily, there was a thunk.
The gendarme’s eyes crossed, almost comically, and he crumpled in a heap on the floor, unconscious.
Behind him, holding a large golden candlestick that she’d clearly grabbed hastily in the hallway, was a wide-eyed Maren.
I sobbed in relief. “Maren. I didn’t do this. Please, you have to believe me. They’re going to burn me alive. Please.”
“Shhh. Shhh. Fifi. I know. But we don’t have much time. I don’t know how to get you out of here.”
“I have to get through the mirror, Maren. I have to run. They’re not going to ask questions, they’re just going to kill me.” If Maren was confused by my statement, she didn’t let on.
I looked down at the gendarme. He hadn’t moved, but he wasn’t dead—he would wake up soon. “Help me get the keys to these cuffs. I need my hands. He’s the one who cuffed me, he should have them.”
Maren scrambled over the unconscious officer and rifled around in his jacket pockets. Every second felt like an eternity. Finally, she retrieved a set of keys.
“Get these things off me,” I moaned.
Maren’s fingers fumbled as she tried to free me, and the keys fell to the floor. “Merde,” she cursed, picking them up and trying again.
“Come on, come on, come on,” I huffed.
Finally there was a click, and the cuffs fell away.
“Maren.” I looked at my friend, with the understanding that I may not see her again. “I…”
“Go!” Maren exclaimed, hurrying me toward the gilded mirror. I chanced one look back at her. A commotion sounded in the halls beyond. They were coming.
“Get out of here, Maren. Don’t be anywhere near here when they come,” I said as I turned away one last time.
I placed my newly freed hands against the cool glass.
I still had no real idea how to get through.
But this was another do or die situation.
I had to figure it out. I flung as much energy and awareness as I could toward the mirror, recalling exactly how it had felt to slide through it like a hot knife through butter, and somehow, I fell.
Through the glass, sliding in exactly as I had with Ciaran.
I didn’t wait to look behind me, I just ran.