“Can’t.” He shook his head. Tapped his foot in agitation. “Can’t be. Selene is—” He put out his hand to indicate the height she had been when she’d lost him. “Not possible.”
Madame Myrtille put a hand on his shoulder. “Pippo, remember when we mixed a little bit of white into the blue? It was still blue, just different.”
“Two blues.”
“Many blues.”
“Many Selenes?”
“Yes,” Madame Myrtille said gently. “And we like this one very much.”
“Can she sing?”
Selene’s heart was in her scarred throat.
“Why don’t you ask her?”
He fixed his intense gaze on her. “Can you sing, Blue Selene?”
The sound of her name in his musical voice made her want to curl up at his feet just to listen. He was here. He was here and he was alive.
Selene smiled. “Yes, I can.”
Giuseppe sat back. Waited with wide-eyed wonder. So different from the calculating way he used to watch her sing. Measuring each beat, listening to every note for perfection. Except he wasn’t the brilliant man who’d remade the world magical with his voice. He was broken and small and thin and not who she remembered.
No magic,Madame Myrtille mouthed.
Selene nodded and sang his lullaby.
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
“Sing it again,” he said, like he used to say.
She did. And again. And again. Until she was a hole dug into the sand, waiting for the tide to ebb. She was so full. Full of magic and happiness and pain. This was her father. Still blue. Alive, after all. His death returned to her, his voice solid in her mind. All of him that she gave up she had back. He reached for her hand, holding it tentatively.
“I like you, Blue Selene,” he said. “You sound like a bird.”
“A nightingale?” She wanted the familiarity of those words on his lips.
“No.” He scrunched up his face, thinking. “A mourning dove. Different.”
He took a piece of paper from his table. It was still a little wet with paint. It was a picture of a bird perched on the chandelier from the opera house. The same scrollwork and sparkle painted in all the sunset shades and nestled in a backdrop of blue.
“For you, Blue Selene.”
“Thank you.”
Selene held the painting in her hands, careful not to smudge the still-drying paint. She thought she saw notes painted into the candles and all the edges of the crystal. But when she looked again, they were gone.
“It’s time for him to rest,” Madame Myrtille said. “But please, come back anytime.”
“I will,” Selene said.
