Chapter 1 #2
Priya’s smile faltered, her motives clear. She’d been trying to goad Selene into action. She’d gone after Gigi first, then Selene’s father. She’d wanted Selene to react and get herself thrown out of the competition.
Selene took a deep breath, letting the heat of her fury cool to an icy rage. She brought her hands together in a slow clap.
“Brava, Priya. Though you’ll have to try harder to—”
The surface of the mirror rippled.
Selene might have convinced herself that it was a trick of the light. But there was something there. A face cast in shadow, all angles and furrowed brows. Cold, blue eyes that cut straight to her soul.
The melody came to Selene before she had the chance to process what she was doing. She sang the wind into a scythe that forced Priya back against the wall. The mirror shot in the opposite direction. Away, away, away. Selene waited for that beautiful breaking sound. It would be freedom. A mercy.
But the mirror did not break.
It didn’t even fall.
It hovered there in the center of the stage, catching the lights.
Madame Giroux stood in the threshold, eyes thinned to slits beneath her half-moon glasses. She leaned heavily against her wolf’s head cane. Her mouth moved with music, soundless.
Madame had a cat’s countenance and a gift for silence, even in song.
Magic did not need volume or vibrato; it needed practice and an open mind.
Anyone could do magic if they had the pitch and the focus and knew the melody.
But not everyone could be a magician. While there were magicians in taverns and carnivals and every rich man’s hall, it was a dangerous undertaking.
As with all art, talent was not spread evenly.
One might be good enough to sing shifting shades of light on a street corner and still be unable to weave an illusion deftly enough to hold the attention of a tavern.
There was little unity between mages. The failure of one meant the success of another, which bred contempt as they became more adept.
The higher the court, the more the mage had to work and sweat and bleed to get there.
And the King’s Mage was the highest one could go.
Once every seven years, a mage had the chance to be known as the greatest in the world.
It was more than prestige. There was power in it.
Doors opened to the whole world, if the mage wanted.
There was no more competing for the limited spaces in which a mage could earn a living.
It was everything, a guarantee of a good life, a great life.
But it was not without risk. Magic required perfect technique and absolute precision. Few were brave enough to perform without schooling. Fewer still underwent the preparations for L’Opéra du Magician. It took years of training, and more magicians seemed to lose themselves each season.
Selene couldn’t be good. She had to be the best. The audience expected grandeur, each competition bigger than the last.
And Selene would give them that, if she made it through the auditions.
All the fire left Selene, replaced by fear.
Like Priya, Selene had broken the rules.
Priya may have brought in a mirror, but Selene had harmed a fellow magician.
Art was not a weapon. It was a soul laid bare, an expression of beauty and pain and all the loveliest things.
It was never supposed to be used in violence.
Madame’s melody changed, barely audible over Selene’s furious heart.
The mirror shattered. Not shards or pieces, but a shimmering powder that drifted down and settled into the cracks of the stage like glittering ash.
“Can you still sing?” Madame looked directly at Priya, her eyes as severe as her voice.
Priya pressed her fingers to the back of her head. They came back slick with blood. Her hand trembled. She clenched it into a fist. “Yes, Madame.”
“My office,” Madame said. “When the auditions are finished.”
“And what about her?” Priya’s look of vindication slipped from her face like a mask. “She could have killed me.”
Selene braced herself. There was no way she’d be allowed to compete now. Her stomach dropped like a stone. Priya had gotten exactly what she wanted.
Madame’s gaze settled on Selene. “You were warming up your voice.”
Selene swallowed hard, not letting any emotion show. “Yes, Madame.”
“Magic has its risks.” Madame Giroux stood very still.
Priya looked like she’d bitten into a lemon. “That’s not—”
“Enough.” Madame struck her cane against the stage.
Selene kept her breath even, her features empty of guilt or surprise. She’d accept this mercy from Madame Giroux. Gigi struggled up from the floor and Selene rushed over to give her a hand. She tried not to think of what she’d seen in the mirror and how Priya would make her pay for this later.
The door opened behind her. The rest of the students filled in the spaces between Priya, Selene, and Gigi. Benson took his place beside Gigi, catching her fingers in his. He looked to Selene.
“You look like you saw a ghost.”
As usual, Benson was impeccably dressed.
His clothes were tailored and pressed, hitting all the right lines and angles.
Except for the ankles. He’d gained inches over the last few months, and there wasn’t any hem left to be let out from his trousers.
People in the opera house regarded him with fluttering lashes and bedroom eyes, as if the inches made him a new man.
But he was still Benson. All Selene saw was the boy who flooded the practice rooms when he first learned how to sing for water.
Who cried when he learned that meat came from things that had once been alive.
Who still tore the crusts off his sandwiches because he swore they tasted better that way.
She’d vowed never to let childhood friendship turn into something more. She’d never be that foolish again.
Gigi was not afraid of those feelings. She’d loved Benson since he was spindly and strange.
She’d finally gathered the courage to tell him a few months ago.
He loved her, too. Selene had volleyed their affections back and forth as a confidant for both, never knowing if it was the right thing to encourage them into each other’s arms or encourage them to let those feelings die.
The rules for the King’s Mage were clear: your first loyalty belonged to the king.
Marriage was banned. And though discreet romantic entanglements were ignored, the kind of love that both Gigi and Benson had would not be allowed.
If either of them were to win, they’d have to put their feelings aside for the next seven years.
Still, Benson pressed his lips to her forehead. The pain in Gigi’s face dissipated.
Selene made her face as smooth as glass, flattening out every ripple of emotion.
Benson raised an eyebrow, his mouth quirking into half a smile. “You know that trick doesn’t work on me.”
Selene thought of those pale blue eyes from the mirror, like sapphires set in silver. Perhaps she could write that off as a trick of the light.
“She used magic against Priya.” Gigi spoke barely above a whisper.
“Did she deserve it?” When they were younger, Priya had filled Benson’s only pair of shoes with honey. He’d worn only socks for weeks. Needless cruelty was her hallmark, now heightened by L’Opéra du Magician. “What am I saying? Of course she deserved it.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Selene whispered.
“My hip.” Tears choked Gigi’s voice. “I don’t know if I can perform today.”
“You should have killed her.” Benson wrapped his arm around Gigi, helping her keep the weight off her injured hip. “I’ll kill her.”
Gigi relaxed against Benson. “She’s not worth it. She’ll never be worth it.”
On the other side of the stage, Priya held court, garnering sympathy from her friends. The twins—Camille and Cecile—gasped at Priya’s tale. Revelio dragged his lips down the line of her neck. She held on to him, the weight of another man’s engagement ring clearly not enough to keep her hands off.
Madame Giroux held up her pocket watch by the chain. The second hand settled over the twelve and she struck her cane against the stage. Selene took her place in the half-moon around Madame.
Frantic footsteps of students desperately trying to make it before it was too late echoed in the hall.
Madame sang a few crisp notes that made up the motif for metal, slamming the door to the stage shut. Locks clicked into place.
And like that, those students’ chances were gone.
Selene heard sobs. Shouts of protestation.
Fists against the door and melodies wrangled through frantic throats.
But it was too late. In the next hour, they would be ushered out of the opera house, condemned to normal lives.
A dream, a wish, a lifetime of work, gone.
There was a possibility they’d find work as magicians, but it wouldn’t be easy.
There were so many hopeful mages willing to risk life and limb trying to carve out a reputation in the city and garner patronage.
Some noble houses wanted the next best thing and some houses preferred someone loyal, someone who would last. Foreign courts would gladly open their doors to a talented magician who’d trained in the Opera Magique.
But without the prestige of L’Opéra du Magician, it might not be enough.
They’d be lucky to find a place with a high enough wage to sustain a life, a family.
There were plenty of street magicians, singing tableaux on the street corners, hoping to catch a few coins.
And there were those who did magic—not magicians, per se—singing the fires lit in noble houses and sweeping up rooms with a collection of notes.
Practical magic, nothing more than utility.
Not music, not performance, nothing but a vessel for quick and basic tasks.
There was still some risk, but those mages rarely pushed themselves.
To Selene, it seemed like a fate worse than death.
Those who’d been born into wealth would be fine.
They’d fold back into their fancy dresses and horse-drawn carriages with little thought for the years they’d spent in the opera house.
Those without titles and wealth—like Selene, like Benson—would look back on the wasted years with endless regret as they tried to make up for the time they’d lost working a trade.
If they were lucky, they could find a steady gig, but those seemed few and far between.
Talent seemed a minuscule measure of success.
Selene didn’t concern herself with that kind of stress.
She was confident about her chances, and even when the barest sliver of self-doubt crept in, she remembered she had her name.
She was the daughter of the great Giuseppe Dreshé.
That was enough to get her through any door, and her voice would keep her there. She could go anywhere.
But there was only one door that mattered. Only one place she wanted to be.
“You know why you are here.” Madame took out a deck of cards.
She discarded three, flinging them out and singing them gone.
A burst of fire, and then nothing—Madame used practical magic without fear of scrutiny.
She was a teacher; she had to teach. “You are the brightest mages in the land. And your time here has made you the best. L’Opéra du Magician is not about memorization or mesmerization or even the music.
This is your chance to show what magic can do.
” Her dark eyes slashed through them all.
Selene felt the cut, hope welling inside her like blood to a wound.
“Each of you will perform your audition piece. Your years of training come down to a single aria.”
A ripple of uneasiness moved through the remaining thirteen competitors.
Madame Giroux didn’t have to explain what that meant.
They had all seen it firsthand: when the magic went wrong.
Selene didn’t think of her father, but of the many hopefuls she’d studied with over the years who hadn’t made it to this point.
One wrong note and their dreams—and sometimes limbs—were shattered.
“Once auditions are finished and the competitors are named, you will be announced and presented at the Unmasking Ball. Then the end begins—with L’Opéra du Magician as your final performance as my students. And one of you will be named the King’s Mage.”
Madame’s eyes rested briefly on Selene. The hairs on the back of Selene’s neck rose. This was it. This was her moment.
Madame struck her cane against the stage and took her place in the third row. Monsieur Fenrir, the manager of the opera house, had slipped in. He slumped back in his seat, looking frazzled, like someone had told him that the sun would continue to rise and it was too much for him to take.
“He’ll quit before the end of the week.” Gigi leaned against Benson as they descended the stairs to the auditorium.
“He can’t. We’re too close,” Selene said.
Gigi smiled with the wisdom of a girl who’d grown up inside the opera house. “Bet on it?”
“The usual?”
Selene reached her hand down to Gigi and discreetly shook before taking her seat a few rows back.
Monsieur Fenrir flinched when the palace representative settled beside him.
The man was young and handsome, moving with the ease of someone who knew his worth.
It was a familiar confidence. For a moment, Selene held on to a spark of hope.
But it died when she saw the man’s face.
Stupid, to feel this way after all these years.
It was not Victor. It would never be Victor.
“And now … ” The cards moved like water between Madame Giroux’s hands. “We begin.”