Chapter 15
Selene sat cross-legged on her bed, singing through her warm-ups.
Her voice cracked and stretched, waking up as she moved it through arpeggios on different vowels.
Finally, she lay down on the floor to release the growing tension in her shoulders and sang through her favorite aria.
This one had no magic to it. Without the intent and precise alignment of motifs, it was just a song.
Pretty and ambitious, taking her all the way up to the top of her register and back down again.
She didn’t have to think. The music came to her with the relief and ecstasy of bleeding.
She repeated it, until she felt like she was floating outside of her body, free from all the sorrow she’d trapped inside.
Her father had taught her this one. Singing it was like coming home.
She’d been to the library this morning, combing through the familiar tomes to source some hint of magical mirror prisons for beautiful ageless boys.
There were no leads, no explanations, nothing about magic that was older than twenty years.
Most of the books were only a few years old, marking her father’s musical triumph as the beginning of a new era.
Everything before that was irrelevant. Selene had never questioned that before.
But now she wondered how so much history could be forgotten.
I could never forget you, Selene.
The velvet of his voice, saying her name with such earnestness and intensity, was sweeter than any music.
It felt like a promise he could not keep.
Oh, but how she wanted him to. She wanted this to be real.
She wanted to see him in the light. The magic of the mirror made little sense to her and she was asking all the wrong questions.
A heart that did not bleed. What did that mean? The ghost’s magic was all about blood; it was hard to consider things without it. A heart was the core of something. The essence. The center. But how could she make that tangible? How could she make that matter?
She took out the pocket watch. It was later than she realized.
Stripping off her simple day dress, she turned to her closet, overfilled with gowns.
At the bottom were twin boxes from the couturier, each containing a dress and mask for the Unmasking Ball.
They were all required to attend, with the places in the competition revealed dramatically and publicly.
Selene reached into the box, fingering the pale yellow silk.
Why had she chosen this fabric? It was all wrong. She held her stolen pin to the pad of her thumb, but there were already too many scars there. She took it to the back of her wrist. Blood welled immediately.
Selene took stock of her tragedy, of the spaces inside her that ached.
There was little magic in her worst memories, the face of her father farther away.
There were things she could afford to forget.
The first thing that came into her mind was Victor splayed across the doctor’s table, stripes of blood crisscrossing his back and legs from where his father had whipped him.
But even now, even when she needed it, she didn’t want to think about him.
The magic burned in her veins. Selene leaned into it. She wouldn’t second-guess. She wouldn’t get in her own way.
Her blood lifted from her finger, turned into shadow. She willed it into the fabric of the dress: a dark, amaranthine purple with black lace at the cuffs and collar.
She dropped the lid back over the dress she’d made new, filled with a new confidence.
She would wear something to pull her from the line of singers, to remind Madame and Fenrir and whoever else was there that she was the one they wanted.
That she was the one who mattered. And when the moment came, she would reperform her aria, all three elements guaranteed.
She pinned back the top of her hair, letting the rest fall down her shoulders in ringlets.
For today, she chose a gown of vibrant cerulean.
Black lace circled her throat, secured with a thin silk ribbon.
She dusted a bit of rouge over her lips and cheeks.
Instead of her boots, she chose a pair of thin satin slippers.
Pretty, useless things. They would move softly against the stage, allowing her to steal her moment.
Everything needed to be perfect.
Someone wept in the hallway. Selene bled the door open. It was Priya. Even sobbing, she was beautiful. She collapsed against the landing, clutching a letter in her hand. Revelio must have heard, too.
“Amore, what’s going on?” He ran to her, wrapping her in his arms.
“He says even if I win, I’ll have to forfeit. That this marriage is not negotiable.” She tore the massive engagement ring from her finger and threw it.
Revelio caught it, looking at the ring like it was a knife aimed at his heart. “Your fiancé will have to take that up with the king.”
“This isn’t fair. I don’t want to be his wife. I don’t want to be a mage. I just want to be with you.”
He kissed her head, sliding the ring back on her finger. “I know. We will do what we must, amore. We will do whatever it takes.”
“Let’s run away. We can go now. Forget this place, forget everything but each other.”
Selene wanted him to say yes. She wanted Priya and Revelio to ride off into the sunset, never to be seen again. She wanted to live a life without them.
Revelio paused.
Priya pushed him away, tearing down the hall.
“We can go!” He ran after her. “We can go now.”
But Priya had already found her answer in his hesitation. Selene would have felt sorry for her, but she couldn’t muster it.
She wound down the stairs like an unraveling thread, trying to catch sight of the heart she needed. All she saw were the empty eyes of the statues and the flicker of candles and the rows and rows and rows of chairs.
Behind her, the door slammed shut.
Benson looked better than he had yesterday, which meant he’d managed to catch a few hours of sleep. His hair was combed back. The dark circles beneath his eyes were gone. Magic or makeup or sleep, Selene wasn’t sure. His smile was easy and confident.
“I figured it out.” He handed her the crisp white pages of his music. There was a slight tremble to his hands.
“Have you?” Selene held the music like it was a precious thing.
“With this line,” Benson began. He tapped the first sheet. “And this below it, I can do it. I can do all three at the same time.”
“Which will allow you to add the illusion.” Selene kept her fingers very still. Turning water into mist was no great feat. Adding an illusion through the water and the mist at the same time was nearly impossible.
But he would do more than that. He’d swallow up the moisture from the air and make water and mist simultaneously, enough to fill the whole house.
And while the audience swam in his magical mist, he’d cast a tableau in the sphere of water.
He’d tell a story while his beautiful voice would entrap them completely.
Three elements.
“I wouldn’t have been able to do this without you. Your piece was brilliant, Selene. It changed the way I thought about music.”
Benson had written the perfect piece. Clever and technically challenging with enough fanfare to capture a crowd. Selene wished she had written it.
And yet.
She could sense the danger of it. Could feel the razor-thin distance between brilliance and madness.
Mages had lost themselves for smaller songs, stretching their minds beyond their capacity to hold the magic.
She’d experienced it, in the moment when the magic grew too big for her and she had to choose between ruin or ruin.
“This is …”
If he did this, he would win. The blood she’d shed would be for nothing. If he did this and didn’t go mad in the process.
“Amazing.”
He breathed in relief. What had he expected her to say?
“It has to be one of us.” Benson’s smile was genuine. The sleepless bruises beneath his eyes tucked and folded away. “Whatever happens, I’m glad we were here together.”
“Me too.”
And it was true, for now.
“You look lovely, by the way.” He dropped into a bow.
Selene bowed back. “As do you. What’s the occasion?”
“Today is my day.”
“You don’t know that.” Gigi emerged from the wings, already rolling her eyes.
She walked with a confidence she had earned.
No tutu today. Her dress was a deep fuchsia that cut above the calves and looked like an inverted flower.
Selene recognized the design from Gigi’s sketchbook.
The skirt moved around her strong legs like petals drifting in the breeze.
The neckline was modest. The back dropped low beneath her shoulder blades, showing off her dancer’s strength.
“My hair is far too amicable today. It’s a sign.” Benson tousled it to offer proof.
Selene smirked. “Last time your hair looked like this, the practice rooms flooded.”
Benson held up a finger. “Not all the practice rooms. Just mine, yours, and Gigi’s. If I recall, that kerfuffle is what made us friends.”
“We’ve always been friends,” Gigi said.
Benson’s laugh was short and sharp. He took Gigi’s hand and kissed the palm. “Please. You’re my competition. It’s actually a shame that I love you so much.”
Gigi’s eyes went wide. “You love me?”
“I love you.”
“You’re just saying that because it’s a good hair day.”
Benson took her in his arms. “I mean it, but I didn’t mean to say it. I was going to wait to say it until after auditions.”
Gigi folded herself into him, her face against his chest. Selene should have looked away.
This was a moment far too intimate. But she wanted to mark this as something beautiful that had come out of this experience.
Real love. What Priya and Revelio had was an escape, a self-sabotage.
It was nothing like this: light and joy and simple, unabashed truth.
“I love you, too.” Gigi tilted her head up.
Selene turned away, letting them have this moment.