Chapter 32 #2
She met his eyes. He had named a ship after her. He had sent letters for years. He had carried a glass rose across continents and through whatever skirmishes he had gotten into in this fast, little ship. She was far from forgotten. He had kept her on his mind since the moment they parted.
She licked her lips, the taste of him still there.
She put the daguerreotype on the saucer beside her teacup.
Victor watched her as if he were waiting for admonition.
Selene didn’t have words for him. She clenched her hands into fists, hoping to catch the tremble before Victor saw.
She stood up and leaned against a set piece, her foot pulsing with familiar pain.
The magic of it called to her. She needed the space, the distance to untangle the mess inside of her.
“Do you remember the song your father used to sing?” Victor stood a few feet away from her, spinning a dusty globe. His exposed chest glistened in the candlelight.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve sung anything but magic.” She’d need this fraction of sorrow to shape her magic later. She leaned into the pain.
The wolf has lost the moon
The stars are bright as eyes
They watch the wolf weep to the north
Leedle-lie, leedle-lie, leedle-lie
The hawk clings to the trees
The wind is sharp as knives
It brings my ship back home to you
Leedle-lie, leedle-lie, leedle-lie
I wait for you til dawn
I wait for you by night
I’ll never leave your side, my love
Leedle-lie, leedle-lie, leedle-lie
The wolf has the moon
And the hawk has the sky
You’ll always have my heart, my love
Leedle-lie, leedle-lie, leedle-lie
Victor joined his voice with hers for that last leedle-lie. His voice was easy, not furrowed with concentration or the strain of opening to the magic. He had sung this song since she’d last seen him. Perhaps while he sailed his ship across the seas.
“I used to call it the waiting song.”
“I always called it the wanting song,” Selene said.
“What is waiting, but wanting something for more than a moment?” Victor rotated, facing her. The distance between them shrank. “The wolf wants the moon, the bird wants the skies, and I want—”
He stopped, realizing where the next words would take him.
“What do you want, Victor?”
“A little bit of everything.”
“That’s not an answer,” Selene said. “Give me something tangible.”
“I’ve only ever wanted one thing.” Victor’s voice was low. “Freedom. The freedom to choose, the freedom to be, the freedom not to be. To love who I want to love. To do what I want to do. To be who I want to be.”
“You’re a prince,” Selene said.
“And that’s precisely the problem,” Victor said. “If I sail across the world, I’d still have to come back. The perch is gilded, but my wings are clipped.”
“I know that feeling,” Selene said.
“We could go.” Victor’s voice was a whisper, like candle smoke. “Leave now and cross half the world before anyone knows we are gone.”
“Who will be the pirate?”
“We’ll both be. We’ll be whatever we wish.”
“This is all I am.” There was magic in the grief of her words, and something intangible, too. When had she stopped being something more?
Victor shook his head. “You could be anything, Selene.”
“All I know is magic. All I have is magic. I have my father’s splendid and bloody legacy. I don’t know what else there is.”
“Butcher.”
“Please. With these delicate hands?”
“Baker.”
“All that powder is bad for the voice.”
“Candlestick maker.”
“And make beautiful things just so they can burn?”
“That’s more my style.” Victor grinned. “Selene Dreshé, the King’s Mage. What will you do after?”
Selene took a breath. “There is no after.”
“Pretend with me,” Victor said. “You’ve won, you’ve served your seven years in the palace. What happens next?”
“I’ll go live by the sea,” she said, after a moment. “In a house just big enough for me.”
“Alone,” Victor said, surprised. “Not even a lover or cat?”
She made a face. “No cats.”
“A dog, then.”
“No dog, either.”
“A parrot,” Victor said. “Something exotic and lovely that will sing to you.”
She laughed. It was so easy to laugh with Victor. “I don’t think so.”
“Sounds lonely,” Victor said.
“I could do with a measure of loneliness after all this is done.”
“And what if I come to call?”
“I’ll pretend I’m not home,” Selene said.
“Rude,” Victor said. “Though I believe I’ve proven myself a master of doors.”
“A breaker of them.”
“And fixer. I learned that trick from your father, actually.”
Selene’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “My father took the hinges off of doors?”
“Just one door,” Victor said. “There’s a suite in the palace that used to belong to the King’s Mage, back when there was just one, and not a new one every seven years.
It’s been locked for a century. I was doing some sneaking, and I saw your father trying to sing his way in.
When that didn’t work, he simply removed the hinges and went in without a hitch. ”
“Did you follow?”
“Of course not. That’s how you get caught.” Victor winked. “I went in after he was gone like any sensible rogue.”
Selene leaned forward instinctually, waiting for the next part of the story. “And what was in there?”
“Dust, mostly. Whatever you father was looking for, I don’t think he found it. And then a few days later …”
“He was gone.” Selene inhaled sharply. “I wish I could make sense of why he pushed himself that far.”
“The king gets what the king wants, regardless of who it hurts.” Victor’s eyes darkened. “I often wonder what would have happened if he’d released your father early, as he’d asked.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry, I thought you knew. I overheard it from one of my hiding places.”
“The king refused?”
“He threatened you.”
The king. He’d been at the center of everything. He’d called her father out of retirement, set them in the palace, pushed him too far. It wasn’t for her or even for himself, but for the king. Her father had not sung for himself. He’d always sung for an audience.
And on that last day, he’d sung for an audience of one.
Who killed your father, Selene?
She could hear the echo of the ghost’s voice and oh, how she longed for a mirror, for a dying dream to unlock the door so she could be let in. He’d asked and asked, and she hadn’t understood.
Who had killed her father?
She’d only been a child. She hadn’t known what she was doing; she’d only reacted. And her father was gone before the lightning strike. His mind had been drawn tight and snapped before Selene ever sang his death. This wasn’t her fault. It had never been her fault.
She’d blamed herself for so long, it seemed wrong to let anyone else share the burden.
But he wasn’t wrong. Everything had happened in service of the king.
Father wasn’t even supposed to be there for a second seven years.
He was supposed to be home with her. But he’d gone because the king had asked.
He’d stayed because the king had insisted.
And wasn’t all of it at the king’s whim?
The competition, the magic, all of it. Selene felt like a puppet catching sight of her strings.
“It wasn’t my fault,” she said. Then, louder: “It wasn’t my fault.”
“Of course it wasn’t,” Victor said. And he had been there.
He knew the truth of what happened. The secrets that had been swept up and stored away.
He wrapped his arms around her. She listened to the staccato beat of his heart, finding comfort in the rhythm.
“You were only a child. Please tell me you haven’t been carrying that burden this whole time. ”
Selene’s laugh was wild, hysteria around the edges. She broke from his embrace, unable to think. “My father’s end has weighed on me since that day.”
Victor opened his mouth and shut it. The corner of his lips twitched.
He pressed his hand on the side of her cheek.
She leaned into his touch: the warmth and the roughness of the calluses, the comfort of knowing the right answer, at long last. He brought his hand down from her face and touched the fabric around her throat.
“No more of it, then. Open the shutters of your heart and let in the light.”
“What time is it?” Selene reached for her pocket watch, then remembered it was gone. She’d lost more than an hour. “I have to go, Victor.”
“Can I come back tomorrow?” Victor said.
“Tomorrow is L’Opéra du Magician.”
“You’ll need to eat.” Victor smiled.
Selene wanted to see him again. She knew tomorrow would be an endless whirl. But she wanted to know there was one person in this world who cared about her.
“We’ll have to be quick,” she said.
“I’ll take a minute; I’ll take a moment.” Victor caught her hand and brought it to his lips.
And with a few steps, Selene could have closed the distance between them.
Crossed the years and gone back to a time when her love for Victor was a slice of sunshine.
When he was the bright spot on every day.
But the night had come, and Selene couldn’t remember what it was to be happy the way Victor wanted her to be happy.
“You can’t be caught here.”
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
The ghost might sing you into the dark and you’ll never want to leave, she thought.
“Let’s not tempt fate.”
He hastily packed up the picnic. Selene blew out the candles with a brush of wind. The wax splattered like blood against the stone floor. She took his hand and showed him the way back to the light, up the stairs and to the door.
“I trust you can find your way,” she said.
“I am capable of many things.”
She pulled her hand away, dropped into a curtsy.
Selene escaped through the still-locked door, the hinges swinging.
Her skirts moved around her like water, and she could feel Victor’s eyes on her back.
Once she was almost out of sight, she dared a glance over her shoulder.
Victor crouched down and sang the metal pin back into the hinge.
His voice was clear and easy and untrained.
She could think of a dozen ways to make it better: lift the soft palate, control the breath, let the vibrato resonate through the mask of the face.
She could teach him to be a better musician, and a better mage.
But she didn’t need that from him. She liked the sound of his voice and the way it felt to fall into step with him.
She liked that he was here, in spite of herself.
Victor Chastain had swept back into her life and she would be damned if she didn’t enjoy it.
“Victor?”
He looked up, a wave of copper hair falling into his face. “Selene?”
“Thank you.”
“Oh no.” Victor leaned away from the door. “Don’t start with that.”
“Gratitude?”
“Politeness.” Victor shuddered. “Can’t we be friends, you and I? Without the conventions of society getting in our way?”
Selene wasn’t sure if they could ever be friends, not the way they had been. There was something between them. There were so many things she might say.
“I’ll be indecorous, all decorum lost.”
“That’s all I ask of you.”