Chapter 2 #4
He forced himself to look back up at the group.
They seemed real enough. Then again, so had the fourth socialite in the museum.
And the armored angel at Amiens. And countless other visions he could never quite dislodge from the corners of his eyes.
Ezra watched these men carefully, keeping Hugo and his friends at the center of his gaze as they sauntered toward the dining room’s fractured glass wall.
They did not stop to admire their own scattered reflections, but walked straight into the mirror.
Silver swallowed each young man—one by one.
All that remained were whispers of smoke from their cigarettes.
No one else seemed to notice. Girls twisted to the music, scattering light with their sequins. Men kept trying to catch them. There was a salty tang in the air, a growing swell in Ezra’s throat.
He was hallucinating.
Badly.
This would be a terrible place to have an… episode.
Stay away.
You’re not safe.
Suddenly he was glad his gun had stayed in Biz’s purse. Books wouldn’t hurt anyone, if he blacked out again.
Yet the world felt extra sharp as Ezra started walking.
He could make out all the jagged edges of the mirror pieces Matisse had arranged.
Himself, put back together as a reflection.
No wonder Vincent was so insistent on taking Ezra to see a tailor…
The shabbiness of his scholar’s uniform was extra pronounced in the glamour of the Gargoyle Club.
Frayed tweed. Countless patches. Missing buttons he’d never had the time or energy to replace.
The same argument was to be made for his hair—the black strands were longer and more tousled than they should’ve been.
They framed an angular face and startlingly light eyes.
Green enough to make everyone aware of the uncomfortable truth of his parentage.
Ezra stared past these, studying the actual glass. Time had gnawed at much of the mercury. There were blind spots. Places where the room behind him slipped away and the mirror itself seemed liquid.
He lifted a finger. His reflection did the same, daring him to touch.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
A young woman had appeared at his side, arms crossed over her glittery dress as she examined him from head to toe.
She had to crane her neck, being as petite as she was.
She barely reached Ezra’s sternum. More than one man had probably called her doll and regretted it—there was an almost arctic gleam in her eyes, making their blue even bluer.
Ezra almost shivered at the piercing quality of her gaze.
“I—” He caught himself. I was trying to see if the mirror would let me in would go over as well as I was trying to prove myself mad. “I was looking to see if I had spinach in my teeth.”
She swatted down his hand at this. “They haven’t extended the invitation yet.”
“Invitation?”
“To the party inside the party. You walk in there now and you’ll be like a hen in a fox den.”
Ezra blinked, trying to register what she’d just said.
“Your magic.” The woman pronounced these words with exaggerated syllables. “They will strip it. It’s what the Order does. England’s not like France or America or… wherever it is you’re from. Power is more controlled here. Better you hide yours so it doesn’t get stolen.”
Magic. This word left her Cupid’s bow lips with the force of an arrow.
Ezra stood, stricken. She can’t be real, he told himself.
She was too beautiful. Her midnight hair was shingled like so many of the other girls’, but when the light struck just right Ezra caught hints of blue and purple.
The same undertones that lurked in the black feather boa she wore around her neck.
A silver chain dipped beneath this, diving between her breasts.
Its charm was hidden, but Ezra didn’t mind an excuse to search.
“Here.” Even more of the chain disappeared into her cleavage as she reached out to grab his hand. “We should get away from the portal. Dance with me.”
Ezra had no time to protest as he was pulled into the electric crowd, satchel jostling.
He didn’t know how to dance, but that hardly seemed to matter.
This wasn’t some stuffy Edwardian ballroom.
Hemlines swung back to show knees. Men weren’t expected to twirl their partners, only watch.
There were so many feathers and sequins in the mix that it was easy to get dizzy.
Easier, with the strange woman’s hand pulling his.
Others in the crowd seemed to see her, Ezra noted.
Including Rose, who waved wildly from the ledge of the fountain.
“Celia!” she called. “Over here!”
The dark-haired dancer cocked her head—more blue and purple streaks shimmering against the gargoyle lights—and waved back in Rose’s direction.
“You’re real.” Too late, Ezra realized he’d voiced this thought aloud. It was the kind of thing he usually kept buried deep inside—but too much there had been rattled around this evening. He was all heartbreak and homesickness.
And yet… he was not mad.
The woman dancing across from him was flesh and blood. And glitter. “Apparently,” she told him with a wry smile. “The name is Celia. Celia Sinclair.”
There was a familiarity to the name that tickled him, much like the black feathers on Celia’s boa as she spun around. They flared just enough to make Ezra’s throat go tight. Wings. Yes, he saw them everywhere these days, but twice in one night?
“You were the fourth woman at the museum,” he said.
Was it his imagination, or did her hand stiffen in his?
“Technically I was there first,” Celia replied.
Ezra watched her boa carefully—the feathers stayed flat.
Too flat. They didn’t move an inch despite the fact that Celia kept dancing.
Her dress and her hair flashed under the lights.
The effect was not unlike a halo, but Ezra didn’t think he could label her so easily.
Angel? No. Valkyrie? No. Swan maiden? Definitely not.
So what was the truth of her?
And how did it connect to him?
Ezra leaned closer so that his next words might stay between them. “What makes you say I have magic?”
Celia leaned in too. Her feathers brushed his cheek, setting every one of his body hairs alight. “You can see it. Hugo hasn’t Enlightened any of the usual suspects yet, which means you acquired your awareness elsewhere. Let me guess… France?”
Again, the buried things inside of Ezra stirred. His brother’s blood, shining with memories. Shadows slithering alongside the trench rats. Angels flying through artillery, bright as the tail of a harbinger comet. The visions he saw during the war. The things he did…
Not madness, but magic.
Did that make it better, or worse?
Ezra wasn’t quite sure. “I fought there,” he admitted. “But I—I don’t think that’s where my condition began.”
“Well, when did you first start seeing fantastical things?”
“Always.” Ezra thought back to those scrabbling jeweled scarabs and the soft, turquoise glow around his mother’s brow. She’d never called him mad, the way Thomas Ellington so often had. “My mut saw them too, I think.”
Celia arched a fine black eyebrow. “Your… mut?”
“Ah.” He hadn’t used the term in years—another slip of homesickness. “It’s what I called my mother. Back in Egypt.”
“You’re Egyptian?”