Chapter 6
Selene pushed the window out of the way, careful of the colored glass that littered the ground. Someone had gone to great lengths to conceal the door. Even the hinges—now dark with rust—had trace amounts of paint. There was a lock but no handle.
There was never a question of what she should do.
Selene brought her light up to the mechanism, heart racing. There could be a key somewhere in this chaos. She inspected the shape of it and how it was cut into the door. It was no ordinary lock; it had to be sung open, spun with magic to give the melody enough weight.
This lock was meant for her.
She touched the lace around her throat. Her fingers brushed against the scars. Her father loved musical locks and put them every place he could. Selene sang the low melody into the keyhole. The mechanism groaned and released. The door cracked open.
Selene pressed her fingers into the space between the door and the frame, fear and curiosity sparking inside of her.
She imagined the world that hid beyond the door.
A king’s treasure, jewels and riches in heaps.
A whole new universe, where the spiders were as big as horses and there was a round eye in the sky instead of a moon.
A cathedral of bones, from singers who’d lost their way in the fragile dark.
Turn back, something inside her whispered.
It was too late for that. She couldn’t leave the last of the opera house’s secrets unturned. What did she have to lose? Selene worked the door open so she could get her shoulder in, leverage the frame, and use her whole weight against it.
Selene sang the light back into her palm.
Stairs disappeared into an expanse of water, lit turquoise by her voice.
Stone arches faded into dark. Each of the pillars was adorned with a chandelier sconce—miniatures of the grand chandelier in the auditorium.
They were rusted and warped, some of them swallowed up by the water.
The door was slick and swollen at her back.
This had been something.
Victor would have loved this. He would already be in the water, dauntless and fearless and ready for anything. Selene had been that brave, once. Now she wasn’t sure if she could be that girl.
She didn’t have the chance to find out.
The stone beneath her boot gave way. Her fingers slipped against the door, against the frame, against the stair. She was falling.
Down, down, down into the deepening dark.
Fear had claws and teeth and it tore through her. She could have screamed. There was a split second where she thought she would.
But she was a mage first. And the song was there, beneath her skin. Waiting for her to open her mouth and her mind and let out her voice.
Selene landed against the floor of the cavern. The water had split for her. She was dry and trembling against the stone. Bioluminescence lit the water bright and impossibly blue. Little silver fish darted behind the churning light. Something twisting and dark clung to the shadows of the water.
Selene took a quick breath. The water moved a fraction of an inch closer to her. She sang it out a little farther, to make sure she’d have room to breathe. Behind her, steps led to the door, back to the safety of the opera house.
Selene was tired of playing it safe. She was tired of being the girl who did everything right. She’d been that girl, and she’d lost. She clenched her hands into fists, her nails biting into her palms. She wasn’t going to go back now.
She pushed a path through the water—just a few feet. The light rose and followed her. The stone floor had been worn by underground currents into ripples and waves. There was only water and the slither and shimmer of the things that lived here now.
Who else knew about this forgotten space? Was this why they’d been urged away from the underground floors? Or had this secret died with the last person who had braved its depths?
A voice rang from out of the darkness. Silky baritone, warm and robust. It was the sound of coming home after a lifetime of being away.
She leaned into the beauty of it, dark and free and effortless.
Oh, she should have been afraid of the voice that called to her in the dark.
But she was lured by its loveliness, tantalized by the richness and complexity.
She knew it was foolish to follow that sound, and a part of her screamed at her to turn back.
But then he leaned into the dissonance, resolving at the very last second.
He caught her rhythm and fell into the offbeat.
It was so clever and improbable, and there was no way she could leave without seeking the source of that.
There was someone on the other side of the water.
He matched her melody and split into a counterpoint, adding depth and dimension to the motif for water.
He did brilliant, unthinkable things, contrary to her training and somehow perfect.
His voice was so beautiful, lovely enough that she could close her eyes and let herself drown.
Selene had to find him.
But Selene was at the bottom of an underground lake, water flung out by the power of her voice at all sides. The stairway back was half-formed, worn to rubble beneath the water. There was no guarantee there was another way out.
She should let the water fall around her, lift her up, so she could swim her way out. That was the logical thing to do; it was what Madame would have wanted from her.
Yesterday, Selene might have turned back.
But she wasn’t that girl anymore. Maybe she was never that girl.
Either way, she’d been made new. She took a step on the slick, uneven ground, pulled to the voice as if by a string.
She focused the magic, cutting through the water.
It glowed brilliantly around her, lighting her hands and catching in the gold thread of her dress.
It was like walking through the night sky, the bioluminescence casting constellations all around her.
She’d remember this and use it in performance, someday.
It was far more beautiful than she dared to dream.
There were remnants of a life lived down here.
Fallen wall sconces dark with algae, a set of chairs that barely held their shape through the rot, something that looked like chains, now flaked with rust. She pushed toward the back of the cavern.
A tiny fish fluttered on the stone for a few frantic moments before it was swept up by the water in Selene’s wake.
Selene sang louder, changing the key. The stranger met her, matched her.
He danced around the motif for water, playing off her notes.
This strange duet enraptured her, pulling her closer and closer to the source.
His voice was elegant and grounded. She was used to baritones anchoring her lyric soprano, but this was more.
She inverted the motif. He was quick to respond, catching the wisps of melody and shaping it into a story.
She could feel his loneliness and loss, his curiosity and hunger.
She wanted to know the ending. Wanted to be a part of it.
The water swirled away from her, revealing a second set of stairs, this one still fully intact. Selene ascended, illuminated by the constellation of bioluminescence. The water folded on each step behind her, splashing up and darkening her hem.
She tried not to let the timpani roll of her heart or the cymbal crash of the water distract from the sound of his voice, growing closer with each step, echoing in the dark. Until they were matched, sound for sound. As if he were singing right beside her.
But there was no one. Nothing.
She let her voice taper off. The water churned behind her.
Selene sang the light back into her bleeding palm.
A great, beveled mirror stood in the center of the flat stone. The frame was molten gold, shifting and moving in strange patterns around the edge of the glass. It was as if lightning had struck the frame and it had failed to settle into a solid state.
Fear and fascination warred inside her. She should run, turn back and forget about this place. But she was afraid if she left, it would be the end of the dream.
She stepped closer.
She saw herself inside the mirror, and the magnificent dress, damp and blood splattered.
It had been years since she’d truly seen herself.
Selene rarely left the opera house, which meant her opportunities to catch her reflection were limited.
She undid the buttons around her throat.
The scars had faded silver, the grooves not as deep as she always imagined.
She swallowed and watched them tremble. They were a choker of memory. A spiderweb of sorrow.
The blood from her cut palm dripped onto the hollow of her throat. A dark jewel against her fragile flesh.
The mirror rippled.
A shift in the shadow. A face in the dark.
The ghost.
It was like looking through a veil of smoke. Broad shoulders, wide chest, tall, and strong. Not a monster, but a man. He was all shape and shadow, except for his eyes. They were a clear, bright blue, like frozen mountain rivers and the turn of froth on the sea.
Pleading. Hungry. Beautiful.
If eyes were the window to the soul, then she knew all she needed to know about this ghost. She knew the depth of that loneliness and the weight of that loss.
She wanted to share in the sorrow that seemed to plague them both.
It was like meeting an old friend, someone her soul inherently knew.
She could call it fate or providence or magic.
Selene sang the melody for light. He matched her, note for note, then broke into a discordant harmony.
Mournful and wanting, more than any wolf in search of a moon. He came into clearer focus. The edges of him were still blurred by darkness. But his eyes. Oh, they were like water falling over pale sapphires. Blue fire opals beneath a sea. Precious and bright and pulling her in to drown.
If he were a song, she would have sung him until the world was filled with his music. If he were magic, she would have opened her mind and let him flood her until all the world was remade. If he were real, she could have loved him.
She shivered, the strangeness of that last thought drawing her back into herself. She’d pressed herself to the mirror. The tender wound on her hand throbbed against the cold glass.
Blood against the mirror.
Red and silver and gone.