Gigi sang the illusion of herself and moved through a few steps. She brought her leg up over her head; the duplicate Gigi did the same. Selene sustained the melody for illusion in the contralto. The two dancers moved across the floor. Gigi took a deep breath and caught the overlap, singing the second motif to bring in the wind. It was tricky to hold the magic like this—willing the illusion while singing another motif, tracking the combination of both in the piano. Made more impressive by the movement of the dance. But the audience didn’t know that. To them, it was all just performance. Only a trained magician would know just how technical and impressive Gigi was. Selene’s fingers moved through the chords, her mind racing to translate just how incredible this all was.
Gigi needed wings. Not terrible and black and made of blood and shadow. She looked down at the keys, something beginning to take shape. She wrote down a few notes, a line. Selene saw it like it was the first time. They were almost to the coda now. Selene moved the illusion into the bass and the wind motif up to the voice. She sang the line, hoping that Gigi would catch on. Of course Gigi did.
All at once, Gigi was not just a girl. She was winged and wild and poised in the air. Arms extended; toes pointed. She was an angel of music, made of perfect angles and bathed in light. She was the opposite of a ghost. Her wings trembled as she descended.
Selene was on her feet, rapt with applause. “That was amazing.”
“I’ve been trying to nail the lift for months. I thought I was going to have to cut it.” Gigi was giddy. “Can we run it again?”
“This time, drop the illusion of yourself a measure earlier, to build up the tension.”
“Brilliant.” Gigi was already in position to start again.
They ran the whole thing, and then the coda. Again and again. The air lifted Gigi and held her there like a human fermata. There was magic in her form, the extension of her arm all the way down to the smallest finger.
She landed perfectly and soundlessly.
Selene notated music and Gigi danced.
“This is it.” Gigi held on to the sheets of music like they were the last good thing in her life. “It has to be one of us.”
Selene lifted her hands from the piano keys, trying to absorb the shock of the blow. Because what Gigi meant was:it has to be me.Selene had her chance.
The sun cast colors of gold and burgundy, stretching the shadows until they took the room, inch by inch. Selene smiled fieramente. She wouldn’t fight harder; she’d fight smarter. The rules no longer applied.
Selene would have everything she wanted, even if that meant begging magic from a ghost.
Chapter 9
When Selene stood in front of the mirror again—clean and dressed in a lapis lazuli gown—she knew exactly what she wanted. She clutched a shard of glass in her hand and pressed it onto the pad of her thumb. The ghost had made such a little cut—merely a drop of blood.
She slid into the mirror. This time, she knew where she was going and what she wanted. The dark was just as disorienting, but it had a purpose.
She sang for light the moment she felt something solid beneath her feet.
He was crouched in the dark, head bowed against his chest. So lovely, he looked like he could be gilded and placed in this opera house. Perhaps it was the sharpness of his cheekbones or the cut of his jaw, the width of his shoulders or the curl of his fingers. Her breath caught in her throat, made a mockery of all her years of training. The tendrils of darkness scattered from him. Some of the shadows were still in his eyes, breaking up the clear blue. He blinked, and his eyes were back to winter skies, as if they’d never been touched by the dark.
“You came back.” He looked as if he had hoped for this but couldn’t believe it would come true, like she was the North Star on a cloudy night, enough to guide him home. No one had ever looked at Selene like that before. “Aren’t you afraid of me?”
“I’m not afraid.”
“But you saw what I am. What I become.” There was a tremor to his voice.
“I’m not afraid of you.”
She’d never been less afraid of anything in her life. She wanted to know more. She wanted to know everything. She reached for him, fingers close enough to touch. They both stood perfectly still, as if waiting for the other to pull away or push forward.
“You became something new.”
“A monster.”
How like Selene he was, and yet she could see all the wonder in him that she forgot in herself. He was pure magic—an impossible, lovely thing.
“It was incredible.”
He looked at her strangely then. “Magie du sang is an art unto itself.”
“Magic of blood?” Selene shivered.
