No one responded. She focused, listening for the sounds of breath, for the patter of another heart. A chill of terror rose up her spine, the quiet all too much.
There was nothing.
She thought at once of the opera ghost. Had Priya brought the phantom in with her contraband? Had Madame released it with her song?
“No,” she said out loud, to no one.
Because no one was here.
Selene sang the melody for light, illuminating the shapes in the dark. They loomed a little too close in the moment before her light struck them. Her heart raced. She was being childish. There was nothing down here but the detritus of the stage. Each shape was something forgotten and locked away, another friend long lost to the dark.
There, tucked against the back wall, leaned a stained-glass window, either a set piece or some early architectural marvel of the opera house. Jagged teeth of broken glass still clung to the frame. She shifted boxes and crates out of the way.
The stained glass fractured the light in her palm. When it had been whole, this window must have been breathtaking. She should have been devastated to destroy such a beautiful thing; sundered by what she had done with the power of her voice. There was some small satisfaction in that. She’d made her mark on the opera house. If she was cast out, she could remember the lovely, broken thing she’d left behind.
She put her hand through one of the jagged panes, letting it rest on the stone wall. A shard caught the fleshy part between her thumb and forefinger, bleeding in a way only hands bleed. She watched the drops fall, heavy and dark against the floor.
The stone was damp beneath her fingers. Except it wasn’t stone at all. It was wood, painted to look like stone. The paint crumbled beneath her fingers.
This was a door.
Chapter 6
Selene pushed the window out of the way, careful of the colored glass that littered the ground. Someone had gone to great lengths to conceal the door. Even the hinges—now dark with rust—had trace amounts of paint. There was a lock but no handle.
There was never a question of what she should do.
Selene brought her light up to the mechanism, heart racing. There could be a key somewhere in this chaos. She inspected the shape of it and how it was cut into the door. It was no ordinary lock; it had to be sung open, spun with magic to give the melody enough weight.
This lock was meant for her.
She touched the lace around her throat. Her fingers brushed against the scars. Her father loved musical locks and put them every place he could. Selene sang the low melody into the keyhole. The mechanism groaned and released. The door cracked open.
Selene pressed her fingers into the space between the door and the frame, fear and curiosity sparking inside of her. She imagined the world that hid beyond the door. A king’s treasure, jewels and riches in heaps. A whole new universe, where the spiders were as big as horses and there was a round eye in the sky instead of a moon. A cathedral of bones, from singers who’d lost their way in the fragile dark.
Turn back,something inside her whispered.
It was too late for that. She couldn’t leave the last of the opera house’s secrets unturned. What did she have to lose? Selene worked the door open so she could get her shoulder in, leverage the frame, and use her whole weight against it.
Selene sang the light back into her palm.
Stairs disappeared into an expanse of water, lit turquoise by her voice. Stone arches faded into dark. Each of the pillars was adorned with a chandelier sconce—miniatures of the grand chandelier in the auditorium. They were rusted and warped, some of them swallowed up by the water. The door was slick and swollen at her back.
This hadbeensomething.
Victor would have loved this. He would already be in the water, dauntless and fearless and ready for anything. Selene had been that brave, once. Now she wasn’t sure if she could be that girl.
She didn’t have the chance to find out.
The stone beneath her boot gave way. Her fingers slipped against the door, against the frame, against the stair. She was falling.
Down, down, down into the deepening dark.
Fear had claws and teeth and it tore through her. She could have screamed. There was a split second where she thought she would.
But she was a mage first. And the song was there, beneath her skin. Waiting for her to open her mouth and her mind and let out her voice.
Selene landed against the floor of the cavern. The water had split for her. She was dry and trembling against the stone. Bioluminescence lit the water bright and impossibly blue. Little silver fish darted behind the churning light. Something twisting and dark clung to the shadows of the water.
