Chapter 40
There was a moment between heartbeats when Selene was unsure.
The magie du sang had trapped her inside of her own body.
Inside of her mind. She watched the chandelier shudder and fall.
It would crush all these people. The fire would catch and spread.
The whole opera house would be in flames in a matter of moments.
Not a star at all, but a black hole. Swallowing up and destroying everything in the bottomless dark.
And it was all her fault.
Then she remembered who she was. What she was.
I am Selene Dreshé and I am relentless. A too-bright star.
There was no darkness in that. Only the endless light of truth. It was enough. She curled her fingers into fists. She had her power back. She was power.
Selene brought the knife blade over her palm and sang for light. It burst from her, illuminating the terrified faces. She could not let them die.
She sang the wind and she sang the metal and she used them to slow its descent. But the chandelier was made of more than that now. It belonged to the dark.
Selene had darkness, too.
Selene let the darkness pour through her.
Not the way she’d channeled it before. She treated it like music.
She was an instrument, not a well of power.
She let herself be a vessel, opening her mind wider and wider.
Blood and music. She needed to give a little more.
Let it have a little more of her. She opened her mind and opened her veins and hoped that it would be enough.
Something cracked inside of her.
Not a breaking, just a fissure. As if through a line on a broken winter window, the magic seeped in like cold. She could taste it on her tongue, feel the dizzying expanse as more magic poured through her. But it was fine. It would be fine. She could hold on a moment longer.
Madame Giroux and Gigi and all the others were beside her, then. Singing and moving the chandelier back up. There were others, too, magicians she didn’t know. And Victor. He was beside her, singing, reaching for her hand.
Selene let him take it, even though it was slick with blood. She willed the shadows away. The darkness ebbed. The chandelier was back in its place. She sang the fire back into the candles. The lights burned so bright that all the shadows were banished.
“Selene,” Victor said. “It’s done.”
She closed her eyes, trying to catch her racing heart. It beat in rhythms she wanted to chase. Music and music and magic in the fluttering. People moved around them, water around a stone. Fleeing what should have been their doom. She had stopped her own destruction.
Not now, she thought.
She leaned into Victor. Her head swirled with music. It moved around her, like light through a prism that was the whole world, casting rainbows of music on everything. She hummed the melody. There was magic in each note. She’d given too much to the magie du sang. What had it taken from her?
Victor stiffened. “I didn’t want this for you.”
The king stood before them. His dark hair was threaded with gray.
His eyes were so like Victor’s, a touch darker, seeded with black instead of gold.
Selene had pushed aside his face so often to get behind the tapestry.
Something stirred in her, the ghost of a memory.
Eyes the clear blue of glacial waters, blood against silver.
But when Selene reached for it, there was nothing.
“That was spectacular,” the king said. He brought his gloved hands together in muffled claps. “Congratulations.”
“For what?” Selene said.
“Selene Dreshé, you are the King’s Mage.” The king looked at her with empty eyes. “Mine.”
She had wanted this for so long. Imagined those words. Now it was here and this was real and the sick feeling in her stomach was real, too.
“I brought down the chandelier. I can’t win.”
“That’s precisely why you have, my dear. That sort of power …” He closed his eyes, lips curling up like burning paper. “Let’s make this official, shall we?”
He took out a gold snake pendant with a black stone and held it up to her bare throat. Selene took a step back, body pressed into Victor’s. The king looked perturbed, like he hadn’t expected her to refuse him.
“You have a strong will,” the king said. “Like your father. No matter.”
He slipped the pendant around her throat, the clasp clicking shut with an overwhelming sense of finality. The setting was striking. A snake that wrapped its way around her neck, settling around the swirling dark gem.
Something was wrong, but the knowledge of what eluded her. A note she couldn’t sing. A piece of music she’d lost the melody to. This was wrong. She needed to get away before she lost the chance.
The remaining audience burst into applause. The mages trained for the spectacle burst her name in lights. The orchestra had all but fled; one sorrowful bassoon played her fanfare.
Her instinct to flee drifted. She relaxed against Victor.
“This is the part where you say, ‘Thank you, Your Majesty.’ ”
Her insides burned with rage. This man was responsible for everything that had gone wrong in her life.
He had kept her father from her. He had orchestrated all of this.
He’d let her believe her father was dead, dropped her wounded at an opera house, bid her be taught.
And when she’d stumbled, he’d ensured she would stay in the competition.
He had insisted she make it to the next round.
What did he want from her? She hated him.
She would not give in. But then the vigor of those feelings faded, and she gave him what he wanted.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Selene said.
“Come,” he said. “We’ll send for your things in the morning.”
“Now?” Selene said. She was so tired. She wanted to sink into her bed, her own bed for one more night.
“My dear, after I make a request you do not ask a question. You comply.”
Selene thought of her father in the cottage, in the palace, in his painted room. She understood him in a new way.
Who could say no to a king?
She couldn’t even if she tried. And she tried. Every part of her fought him, fought to keep herself together against this oppressive force. She would sing the air from his lungs. She would bring the chandelier back down. She would strike lightning into his ancient heart.
Except, she couldn’t.
She was frozen to this spot, waiting for his words, waiting for him to tell her what to do next. She tried to reach for the necklace and tear it off. But her hand did not belong to her.
Mine, the king said.
And there was a magic to that claim.
Victor held her fingers very tightly.
“Go,” the king said. “The carriage will be waiting.”
Victor tugged gently at her hand, leading her away.
“Not you,” the king said. “I’d like a word, Victor.”
And she could see in the stubborn set of Victor’s jaw that he’d like to stay. She had no choice but to release him. The king’s eyes lit at that. He smiled at her, showing his teeth.
Each one a pearl.
The Opera Magique shrank behind her. She rode in the carriage alone, as she’d arrived here. The great copper dome watched her, a single eye against the expanse of stars. They danced, forming new constellations like they had in the mirror.
It was over. L’Opéra du Magician was done and she had gotten everything she’d ever wanted.
Each dissonant thought seemed to melt away. She could not hold on to them any more than she could hold on to the sea.
The carriage rolled through the palace gates and onto the grounds.
Even in the darkness, everything was green here and perfectly kept, as if carved from stone instead of a living garden.
The roses seemed to whisper music to her.
Selene hummed along. They bloomed redder and redder.
This wasn’t a melody she knew by heart. This was something else.
The world had broken into a million pieces and Selene could see the magic in all of them.
When the carriage stopped in front of the palace gardens, Victor was there. He had one hand on Tonnerre—who had worked up quite a lather—and one hand on the wooden box from the opera house. He took Selene’s hand.
“I didn’t want to see it broken after all these years.”
“Where have you been?” she said.
Victor shrugged. “You know Father, he never leaves a mark where people can see.”
Selene opened her mouth. She wanted to beg him to take her away from here. Run away, as he’d said. But the words caught inside her scarred throat and slipped away.
The prince led her to the front of the palace. It was bright and white as bone. She’d wanted this for so long, dreamed a thousand dreams of this moment.
“Presenting Selene Dreshé, the King’s Mage.”
The great doors opened and they stepped inside. There were servants and dazzling lights and sudden applause. Everyone was here, celebrating her, chanting her name. She’d wanted this so badly she’d made it happen. Just like magic. Everything here was open and stark. Free of secrets and shadows.
She looked around for some sort of escape and saw only a mirror. Her black dress caught the lights and shimmered with color.
And for a moment she thought she saw a man who was not there. Who could not be there. With blue eyes and an angel’s voice and command of the terrible dark. But when she blinked, he was gone.
The mirror was just a mirror.
And she was just a girl who had everything she’d ever wanted.
Which was like having nothing at all.