She was incredible. Not an ounce of Priya’s power and no need for it. Her voice was like birdsong, like waking up from a terrible dream. It was a reinvigoration of the magic. Something entirely new.
And when it was finished, she walked the unicorn off the stage before she released its song. She took her bow.
The audience roared.
Selene caught her hand as Gigi escaped into the wings. “What was that?”
“Something for Benson. I know he can feel it, even if he can’t be here.” Gigi kissed her on her cheek. “Go. Do your best. Be yourself. Save tomorrow for tomorrow.”
Selene’s dark gown caught the lights as she centered herself on the stage. She’d given the maestro her music before the first performance. She could see him replicating it on all the music stands, the notes tinged red. Blood instead of ink.
Selene was a kaleidoscope of color, dark and wild and improbable. She was the thing in the water, the shift of light in the sky. There was a rush of sound, whispers that Selene didn’t care to catch the ends of. She tilted her head so that her scars were visible.
She could see Revelio, sitting behind Priya’s fiancé with red-rimmed eyes. Camille was there, the seat meant to hold her murderous sister left empty. And there, in Box Five, was Victor. He was at the edge of his seat, hands tight against the banister. She would go out with the brightest of lights, like he said. His eyes were wide with anticipation. He’d done up his jacket properly this time, all the buttons neatly in rows.
She let the stage lights blur the audience into shadow. If only Dante were there, too. She wished he could hear the song they’d written together with a true orchestra. She wished he could see her on the stage. The maestro caught her eye.
Selene breathed.
She sang that first note like it was the first time, like it was the only time. Just the note. And then the magic.
Selene put her hand inside her pocket and caught the edge of her thumb against Dante’s knife. The blade was so sharp. She was used to the pressure it took to make a pinprick. The cut was too deep, but that wouldn’t change the magic. Nothing mattered except for this moment. She remembered the way he’d looked at her that first day, wounded and lost. How she’d wanted to help him and had failed.
Wings unfolded behind her. Little pieces of sky, shimmering and black and catching the light from the stage. She spread them out, wide, wide, wide. She stood there for a moment, an angel of music.
Then she sang the wind.
He’d made her a key and she’d make him a world.
She lifted in flight. She hung there on the stage, singing for wind, countered by an illusion, and bleeding magic. Beneath her, a forest rose up out of tiny, heart-shaped seeds. The whole of a thing, inside something so small. And from between the trees, a man.
It could have been her father. It would have been, if she still mourned him. But the Great Giuseppe Dreshé was alive. There was nothing to mourn, no legacy to restore. It wasn’t his ghost that haunted her. Dante stepped out of the dark. She wished it were really him stepping into the stage lights, that he could share this moment with her. And she could give him this: a moment on the stage. He could be remembered.
She looked to the King’s Box. The king leaned forward, a bottomless greed that chilled her. His lips pulled rictus.
His teeth were not teeth at all, but pearls shining in the lightof the chandelier. The curl of the lip, those dark, empty eyes. She’d stared into them while harboring secrets of her own.She’d seen his face immortalized in paint and thread and coin.
Renard.
The thought came to her and quickly dissipated. It was a fleeting impossibility. He was Renard’s grandson; of course they had similarities. Victor was the same, a facsimile of the same man.
But the teeth. The teeth. The teeth?
The memory of the pearled teeth folded into the orchestra, like a misplayed note.
He’d managed to keep her father from her for seven years. What else was he capable of ? What kind of monster was he?
She landed beside her ghost, letting her great, wide wings fade into shadow. She sang him all her sorrows. A requiem for all he’d lost, for the things she’d wanted, for the dreams she’d once dreamed.
She decided, then. This wouldn’t just be music. If this was her finale, Selene wanted to go out like a star. She wanted the king to know what she knew.
With the power of her blood, Dante’s voice met hers. She bled the sound of him, weaving it through the illusion. Rich and warm and a perfect complement to hers. This was their duet. He’d given her the gift of his magic, the majesty of his music. The trees moved through their seasons, and Selene let him have the years that were stolen from him, like the years stolen from her and her father. She wanted to stop squandering her time on the stage and go to him, make up the wasted years. It didn’t matter if she could heal him. It only mattered that she had him back.
I want this to end.
But the trouble was the wanting, and the pain that came with it, and the blood flowing freely from her hand. The shadows pulled from her, measure by measure. She could feel it happening, the magic unwinding like she’d released the chains from a monster.
Her head was light, dizzy with the sensation of blood loss. The darkness unspooled from her. And Selene tried to stop. She looked at Dante. But he wasn’t Dante anymore. His face was torn and twisted, a smiling monster too close to the thing she’d seen in the dark. The thing that had once been Dante. The monster, at long last.
