“I’m afraid I’m not much for superstitions.” All trace of wrath was gone and casual nonchalance remained. “In fact, they are quite heretical. I wouldn’t be bragging about those beliefs in civilized company.” The viscount sneered as he rolled his shoulders. “So good luck to you both. I hope your limbs remain intact and there is absolutely no shit on the stage.” He noddedonce and stalked off toward the stage door. The fact that this man was allowed backstage should have been heresy. He had no business among the artists and performers. He had money. That didn’t qualify him to be allowed into this sacred space.
Overhead, the curtain call chimed once more—we had to find our places. Being held up by the viscount meant that we couldn’t do our pre-show ritual. I couldn’t remember a time where we hadn’t done it, other than when Carlotta had been injured and in the infirmary. I locked eyes with Maren, hers flared in panic.
“The ritual!” She gasped.
“No time.” I sighed and began dragging her toward the stage door. We were expected to be in our places in less than ten seconds.
Maren spat three times as we ran,“toi, toi, toi!,”muttering her superstitious words to counter the incredibly bad luck that had befallen us. I usually didn’t hold to these superstitions and only went along for the fun of it. But I had to admit that it felt like a bad omen. Something had shifted in the air, in my mood and in the atmosphere when the viscount had been backstage. I didn’t like it. Not at all.
The lush pastoral scenery of this particular opera clashed with the dread that I felt as I approached the stage. I didn’t know why I let the viscount affect me this way. I had been so settled—but no more. My mind was a raging storm, with lightning flashes of his leering face, Seff’s casual dismissal of my wants and needs, Ciaran’s scarred face twisted with rage, Carlotta’s face battered and bruised, Maren’s swan neck and long graceful arms, my own insufficiencies, all roiling together in a swirling whirlpool. I was a boat being tossed by these images. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t get enough air down. But then the music started, and I had to shove it down. Down, down, down. I plastered the swaggering smile of the pageboy onto my face and stepped out onto the stageto play with Carlotta. I prayed that no one could see the roiling tempest beneath.
Everything started off well. Carlotta’s makeup was so good that you couldn’t even tell there was a black eye beneath. Her towering wig must have been uncomfortable, but she was such a professional that you would never have guessed. She hit each note with the accuracy of an expert marksman, leaving me in awe. And I played along with her, even though the tension within me resisted the melting effects of the stage.
We finished the first act, where the countess’s brutish husband comes home in the middle of our amorous embrace, and I had to quickly pretend that I was the maid. After the act ended, we stood side-stage to watch the ballet in act two.
Maren was exquisite. She hypnotized me; I couldn’t take my eyes off the way she moved, her neck, her legs, the way her toes pointed so impossibly, like they extended somehow, further from her legs than any normal human, with each arabesque. Her pas de chats were as graceful as the feline they were named for. Her pirouettes were effortless and she pulled three, four, five turns with ease. She leapt through the air as if she were a piece of dandelion fluff floating on a spring breeze. The small voice inside me, that sliver of envy, muttered that I could never dance like that, that I could never look like that if I tried. I gulped again, trying to get air down, but it wouldn’t come—it was like something had sucked all the air out of the room. Try as I might, I couldn’t take any in, sweating from the effort.
The third act came after the ballet. It began with an aria. Carlotta took the stage and a hush fell over the crowd. The prima donna was here to show us all why she held that title. To reclaim her throne. She began. I still couldn’t get air down. I couldn’t… couldn’t… couldn’t… my costume was too tight, the area in the wings was too small. The heavy velvet curtains were suffocating me. I was frozen, against my will, my limbs heavy as lead. Myears rang, and though my feet were glued to the spot, it felt like my body was flying through space. Dizziness overtook me, but I still couldn’t move. I didn’t know what was happening to me. It was like all the panicked feelings from the conversation with Seff and everything I had been feeling for the past few months had caught up with me. All those feelings flooded my system, and I was overloaded. I had never felt this level of sheer panic before. My chest ached. I was going to collapse.
I didn’t have time to worry about my own mental state for long, though. Above Carlotta’s ethereal form there was a flash of lights. The stage plunged into darkness. Lights flickered. Once. Twice. Three times. The audience began to murmur. The lights surged again, and the row of round bulbs at the front of the stage began to burst. To explode. One by one.
People screamed, both in the audience and backstage. The lights overhead flickered, casting us in and out of darkness at an alarming speed. I didn’t know what to do. My body moved of its own volition. I had to get to Carlotta. I had to get her out of the middle of the stage—she was still injured and whatever was happening, she was in danger.
I darted out to where Carlotta stood, frozen centre stage, right above that golden coin, eyes wide with horror, staring up at the apex of the theatre. It was then that I heard an enormous groaning sound amid the popping and flashing of bulbs.
The chandelier.
I shoved Carlotta out of the way as it began to move. She crumpled to the ground in a heap of skirts and petticoats. Time slowed for a moment as the entire chandelier swayed, each individual bulb attached to the behemoth fixture exploding, set off like a horrible domino effect, sparks and bits of broken glass flying into the audience below. People were shouting, but all I could hear was the creak of the chandelier—the pop of the bulbs. It swayed once, twice, one more time, and then, it began to fall.
And fall. And fall. As I watched, it felt like time had slowed down, but at the same time, it was happening too fast for me to react. The screams from the audience were deafening as the very prim and proper patrons from high society turned feral, scrambling, climbing and pushing over each other to get out of the crash zone. They weren’t fast enough. I heard myself screaming as it fell. Too slow, and too fast. The crash and squelch were the worst sounds I have ever heard in my life. My ears hollowed out and everything became fuzzy—sounds blended, and I remained frozen centre stage, standing on that coin.
Time caught up with itself as I stood, and I could hear again. The screams had gone from terrified shrieks to mournful wails as it became clear what had happened. There were bodies under the twisted and shattered remains of the once great fixture.
I was still frozen. From my vantage point on the stage I could see everything. Every grotesque detail. The twisted limbs that stuck out at odd angles beneath the ruined fixture. The blood that was now pooling and running toward the stage. So much blood. How did human bodies contain so much blood? It felt like I was in a dream—no—a nightmare. If I pinched myself, would I wake up? Surely this hadn’t happened. I would wake up soon.
I tried, but I couldn’t make my limbs move in my dreamlike state. There was a commotion around me. I looked to where Carlotta was, still on the ground where I had shoved her out of the way. She looked up at me with horror and disgust painted across her face.
“Witch! Get the witch! Arrest her!” Voices cut through the ringing and fog. Rough hands grabbed my shoulders, my upper arms, and began to move me. I came to, then, out of whatever frozen state I was in, my eyes and ears snapping back into focus.
They thoughtIhad done it. They thought I had caused the chandelier to fall—to crash. Someone did, at least. Whoeverwas holding my arms. I had to admit it didn’t look good for me. Especially given the display of electrical surges that had occurred the last time I stood centre stage. My arms were being held, roughly, behind my back now; the cold bite of metal pinched my wrists as they snapped handcuffs on. I didn’t even struggle. I was being dragged, my feet stumbling as I tried to stay standing. I looked to my left and had a flash of recognition. This was one of the men who had broken into Carlotta’s dressing room. And he was actually a gendarme. Scion, then? Truly?
Witch,they’d been screaming. They’d been screaming aboutme. I was being held by Scion. People were dead under that twisted glass and metal. Flames sprung up around the chandelier’s remains, and they evacuated the theatre as they held me. They’d light a pyre for me right in the courtyard. I was not going to get out of this. They were going to burn me alive—like they did so many unfortunate women in Lutesse.
But I hadn’t done it. I couldn’t have. I wasn’t capable of magic. And even if I was, the surge of power at the gala had occurred only when I had sung—if that was indeed my magic leaping out of me, it had been because of the music. I wasn’t singing when this happened. It couldn’t have been me? Could it? The panicked feeling. No. No. The amount of power that had made that chandelier come crashing down was far beyond anything that I was capable of. It had to be. I hadn’t done it. I hadn’t. I couldn’t.
But I don’t suppose my guilt or innocence mattered, truly. I was being pushed through a doorway, into Carlotta’s dressing room.
“You’ve really done it this time, witch,” the man holding my arms spat as he shoved me inside. “We’ll come get you when it’s ready.” I must have looked confused, as the gendarme chuckled. “The viscount is preparing a little bonfire for you,” he said with a sneer as he closed the door and locked it from the outside.
Trapped. I was trapped, my arms bound by those cuffs, my shoulders aching. And they were going to burn me right here and now. No trial. Scion would be my judge, jury and executioner. I was done for. The panic that had held me captive throughout the show reared its ugly head again as I looked around the room, frantically trying to come up with a way to get out.
My eyes landed on it. The mirror. I could get out. If I could get through that mirror and into the passageway behind it, I could get out. I could go to Ciaran. No matter how bad he was, he wasn’t going to burn me at the stake on sight. He would believe me. That I hadn’t done it. That I couldn’t have done it. I had to get through the mirror first, though. Had to save myself.
I stumbled over to its gilded length, awkwardly, as my hands were bound behind my back. I had to calm down. Because I knew Icouldget through the mirror, but I had no idea how to do it, and I was running out of time. What had Ciaran done? He had placed his palms flat on the mirror. I hissed out a curse as I tried in vain to twist my hands in the cuffs, the metal slicing into the soft skin on the insides of my wrists.Fuck.
The lock on the door turned and my panic flared anew. The gendarme had just left; he couldn’t be back already. I was dead. I was never going to make it through the mirror, and I would be just another black smudge drifting over the Sequana. My chest squeezed. It was going to hurt too. To burn alive. It wouldn’t be an easy death.
The door opened and the same gendarme who had brought me here returned. “Come on, little witch. We have a nice, toasty fire to get to.” He laughed.
