Chapter 23
Selene had been the last one to the carriage, guests still reaching for her, trying for another dance, another drink, another entreaty.
Selene barely registered the sights, the sounds, the rush of bodies.
She hadn’t found Victor again after she’d been named.
Everything was a blur until she was settled inside.
The colorless silence let her thoughts regain purchase.
Grief and exhaustion had pulled Gigi into sleep, her head resting on Selene’s shoulder.
Adrenaline coursed through Selene; she could barely sit still.
It was only the three of them: Selene, Gigi, and Madame Giroux.
Madame did not look at her. The night rolled by, the weight of their earlier conversation hanging between them, made heavier by the secrets. Selene cleared her throat.
“I saw you.” Selene looked at Madame. “I saw your face, right before the names were called.”
“There is more to life than titles and jewels, Selene.”
“Why can’t you just be happy for us?”
“Know when you’re being used.” Madame’s eyes flicked to Gigi. “Do you think this is all there is? Songs and sorcery? There’s a whole world out there.”
“I don’t want the world.”
Madame Giroux sighed. She kept her eyes on the road. “When Monsieur Avile and his patron declared the auditions complete, they asked about each of my students. When they asked about you, Selene, I told them no.”
Selene’s skin went cold. This betrayal should have been more of a surprise, but the certainty of it settled on Selene.
Madame had known about Revelio and had said nothing.
Madame had witnessed sabotage after sabotage and done nothing.
She’d treated Gigi like an afterthought for the last seven years, dismissing her daughter’s talent and dreams. She was not the hero Selene had thought, not the brutal and honest teacher and mother figure Selene had kept so high on a pedestal.
She was just a petty woman in a position of power.
“The king insisted you be allowed to compete, like he insisted you be brought here to train.”
“Not Victor?”
“You think Victor has that kind of power?”
“Yes,” Selene said, without thinking. She couldn’t afford to be unguarded around Madame anymore. “Why not me?”
Madame regarded her carefully. “Giuseppe wanted more for you.”
“More than this?” Selene swallowed, her stomach coiling like the endless shadows in the mirror.
“He’d want you to be safe.”
Selene chose her words carefully. “And that is difficult when the person who is supposed to be looking out for me, for all of us, has done nothing to stop the sabotage.”
“You’ll understand someday.” Madame’s eyes stayed trained on her. “You’re like a daughter to me.”
The carriage rolled to a stop. The driver jumped from his seat. The movement shook Gigi awake. She yawned and smiled woefully. “I had the most wonderful dream that Benson made it, too.”
Madame was out of the carriage first, already up the stairs and gone through the great, gilded door.
Selene followed slowly behind her. The grandeur of the opera house seemed dark and muted compared to the brightness of the palace.
She lingered near the dark statues, falling out of step with Gigi.
She knew what she should do: go upstairs and change and get some much-needed rest.
Selene reached into her pocket and brushed her fingers against her father’s pocket watch and the seashell.
She must hurry, now. Selene had crossed the first threshold.
She was in the competition. That impossible hurdle seemed like a small, easy step.
Selene now had to prove herself to the world.
And she had no song to sing. She needed to go below ground to write her music in the secret dark.
“I’ll be right up,” Selene said to Gigi.
Gigi waved her off, too tired to argue.
Selene turned down the hallway, stopping first in one of the empty rooms to get a stack of sheet music and a spare fountain pen. With Priya still in the competition, Selene couldn’t write anything out in the open. She needed the promise and the secrecy of the dark. She needed absolute caution.
She needed the mirror.
Selene rounded the corner, close enough to the door leading beneath the opera house that she could smell the dust and damp and sweetness of the earth.
Madame Giroux’s cane tapped on the floor behind her.
Selene spun.
Madame darkened the end of the hallway, eyes boring into Selene.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” It was shaped like a question but was an accusation.
Selene held up the sheet music. “I was going to use the adrenaline to write something new.”
“Not tonight.”
Selene was too tired to argue. Too tired to think before she spoke. “Where are the letters Victor wrote me?”
Madame sucked in a breath, the truth written on her face. Another betrayal.
Anger that simmered inside Selene—the music, the coldness, the stars—boiled over.
“On second thought.” Selene smiled. “I think I will turn in. Goodnight, Madame Giroux.”
Madame opened her mouth like she had an answer, but Selene did not wait for her to speak. The seashell weighed down her pocket. It would have to wait just a little longer.
Gigi’s breath had already settled into the evenness of sleep.
Her dress was added to the pile on the floor.
Selene took the sheet music and the seashell and her father’s pocket watch and put them on the top of her dresser, next to the box with the glass rose.
Selene carefully removed her dress and hung it up in the closet.
It still smelled like brine and champagne and the woodsmoke scent of Victor.
She would lie down—just for a minute—and then go into the mirror.
But the minute her body sank into the mattress, she gave up on that dream. Her limbs were heavy, weighing her down. She barely registered the door opening. Madame Giroux sang light so softly into her palm and stood there for a beat before she shut the door behind her.
Selene dreamed of places she could not get to, of things she could not have.
Restless, troubled sleep. The cry of the mourning dove woke her right before the dawn.
Gigi was still asleep. And Selene wanted to fall back into dreams. She wanted to go back to that place, but she knew better.
She needed to start writing the aria for the competition.
Gigi and her competitors would use an adaptation of their audition piece.
They would each perform a single song, one aria to determine the rest of their lives.
Selene had certainly planned for that—she would sing her father’s name back into the mouths of the city with her homage.
But it had been taken from her. And she couldn’t bring herself to perform the disastrous tempest aria—even with the magie du sang.
The music was rife with humiliation and failure.
She needed something new. She could not afford to rest.
Selene took a quick bath, washing away the salt and sand from the night before, scrubbing the last of the glitter from her skin.
She listened to music in the stir of the water, in the birdsong outside the window, in the patter of her bare feet against the hall floor.
She needed a song without experimentation, something sure.
The king’s insistence had put her into the competition, and she had to prove to him that she was worthy of that faith.
More than worthy. She would be the best.
She dressed quickly and quietly, slipping her sheaf of sheet music in the front of her dress, hoping to keep it safe from the splatter of water.
She had some ideas, but she could already feel the knife of a migraine pulsing in her jaw.
The music had to be perfect. She wanted it lacrimosa, a blend of fury and weeping.
If she could sing the night, capture each burning star and the razor’s edge of the moon, the longing so pure and pervasive that she’d bring the audience to its knees, she was sure she could win.
She’d go to the practice rooms first. Her time with the ghost was limited. She wanted to gather herself and get the best of her ideas down before she sought his intercession.
Everything needed to be perfect.
The halls were quiet—mostly. She heard the soft sounds of weeping behind some of the doors.
She caught a glimpse of Priya outside Revelio’s door, whispering something against the wood.
Those who had not moved into the next round of the competition would be expected to pack their things and be out by noon today.
Their lives here were over. Most of them would move on in society, with their years of magical training no more than a party trick.
Selene settled into her practice room, fingers resting above the keys.
She traced out dozens of possibilities. Music reverberated, rife with promise and empty all the same.
None of them were right. She could feel the wrongness of it.
No matter what order she put the notes, she couldn’t seem to coax out a song.
Take your broken heart, turn it into art.
But there were too many pieces, the shards too sharp.
They cut away at her, leaving the music disjointed and fractured.
She didn’t know what story to tell or how it should be shaped.
Everything was grief: her father, Benson, Victor, the ghost, her own perilous ambition.
No matter how many ways she approached it in song, she couldn’t seem to capture it.
She was close to something. But it wasn’t quite right.
There were three days until L’Opéra du Magician. Three days for her to compose and perfect this song, along with the magic. Three days for her to master the magie du sang.
She couldn’t do this alone.
Selene passed through the silent halls of the opera house, past the portraits and the statues and the library. Benson’s seat was empty.
She didn’t want to think about him now. She didn’t want to think about anything but what came next.