But Selene liked the feel of it on her skin. She liked the beautiful ruin. She’d earned this wreck. “It’s fine.”
They crossed through the public spaces of the opera house. Here everything was polished marble and shining gold: lush and lavish beauty fit for a king and his mage. It was arches and balconies and the grand staircase splitting like a serpent’s tongue. Selene had grown desensitized to its beauty. It struck her now. It was another thing she could lose.
This could be the last time she walked through these halls, beneath this ceiling, across the veins of marble. Those who failed to make it through the audition process were packed up and sent away. But where would Selene go? She had no home, no family to return to. There was this or nothing.
The farther they moved from the front of the opera house, the uglier things became. The statues gathered dust, the marble lost its luster, the floors turned to wood. The walls here were just walls. The hallway was lined with private practice rooms. This part of the building faced an inconsequential side street. Most people did not even know this section of the opera house existed.
Gigi bent at the waist and sang a complex melody into her lock. It released. She pushed open the door.
Unlike their bedroom, Gigi kept this space mostly clean. There was a pile of broken shoes in one corner, but the rest were carefully hung up. She had a ballet barre against one of the walls. The floors were different in here than the other practice rooms. This was a dancer’s space.
Selene placed the marked-up sheet music on the piano. She sat at the bench, tucked in the corner. It was a wildly different setup than Selene’s practice room. She’d made a shrine to her piano, centering it in the room. Everything else was secondary to the music.
Gigi stood in first position. The opening chord took shape beneath Selene’s fingers.
The music reverberated through the upright piano in a way that made Selene crave the muted dark. Gigi’s voice was soft and gentle, striking each note with perfect intonation. The practice of singing words had long since fallen out of fashion. It had no effect on the magic and sometimes muddied the line and pitch. The mages were trained to keep their vowels round and their tones pure—the voice was just an instrument, after all. The better the imitation, the more likely the magic would carry through the orchestrations. The magic did not care about the size of the voice, but the openness of the singer and the precision of the technique.
Gigi’s heart was open and her technique was flawless. She kept her voice light enough that she could maintain the magic while her body moved through the dance. It was not an entirely new concept: pairing movement with magic. Her voice would float softly above the orchestration, with barely more impact than the second violin. Any more would distract from the dance. It was the exact opposite of Selene’s approach. Her voice was part of the magic, part of the performance. For Gigi, it was just a means to an end.
A diaphanous man appeared beside her. There was something familiar about him, stretched a little too tall with thin limbs. He looked like Benson. Gigi blushed and grinned. She changed her illusion into a dancer. Not quite as tall, strong with dark skin, and a sophisticated face. This was the entrée. The two of them moved closer and closer together, circling the space. The music was simple, with variations on the illusion to allow Gigi her breath without a secondary element. The dancing was the portion the audience wouldn’t expect. There had been previous attempts by magicians to dance while singing, but none of them held a candle to Gigi. Her strength and control was unparalleled. And her voice—clear and resonant as a bell—folded into the piano as if she were striking the keys. Finally, they were close enough to touch. Gigi took his hand.
Gigi stepped through the adagio slowly, each movement graceful and elegant, showing her strength and control. Her partner held his poise, offering her support as she needed it. It was strange, knowing that he was not real and that his offered hand was nothing more than air. When Gigi balanced, she did it alone.
The music picked up. Gigi and her illusion went through a series of leaps and turns, each more powerful than the next. Gigi had put work into her partner. He was close enough to flesh that his muscles bunched and released, sweat beading between his shoulders. Gigi had poured everything into this illusion.
They moved into the coda. There was a second element subtly written in. Gigi had written the motif for air in the bass, tucked neatly away. Selene played the music, but her heart beat at a different tempo. If Gigi pulled this off, she wouldn’t just be dancing.
Gigi leapt.
There was a brief moment when her partner held her in the overhead lift and Selene was sure Gigi had done it. But the wind wasn’t powerful enough to sustain her, and Gigi quickly lost hold of the illusion. She was alone on the stage. Falling with a ballerina’s grace. She landed, quickly picking up the melody for the man, and the two of them bowed.
Selene was drawn back to the man in the mirror and his dark wings. He’d stayed in the air like a dark angel waiting to pass judgment on her soul. Selene let the final notes resonate from the piano.
“Say it.” Gigi sat hard against the floor. She dropped her face into her hands. “I can see it all over your face.”
Selene did her best to still her features. “It is pretty.”
“I thought we promised not to lie to one another.”
Selene wasn’t technically out of the competition yet. There was a chance she would make it into L’Opéra du Magician. A mediocre audition from Gigi would be the best thing for her. All Selene had to do was say nothing and smile and let Gigi believe that her piece was good enough.
But if she did that, she’d be like Priya. And Selene was so, so much better.
“If the audience wants to see a pas de deux, they will go to the ballet.” Selene was already deconstructing the melody, thinking of ways to make it soar. “You are giving them something they already have. Where is the magic?”
Gigi’s dark eyes rippled like the water beneath the opera house. There it was: acceptance. “I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
Selene rolled her eyes. “This is your work. I’m just helping you make it better.”
Selene inverted that first chord, changing the sound. Gigi closed her eyes, no doubt envisioning the stage spreading before her. Her smile went wide with delight.
Selene played the second chord, adding a minor seventh. Gigi’s movements synched easily. Selene reshaped the music, pausing briefly to make notations on the page. Gigi danced through it, not adding the magic yet.
“No partner illusion.” Selene tapped the page. “Any ballerina can dance with a man. Who can you dance with?”
“Ballet is about uniformity and conformity.” Gigi went onto her toes and then back down again. “A perfect performance would be identical versions of myself.”
Selene struck a chord. “Excellent. And what else?”
