“To catch flies?”
“To catch boys who want things above their station.”
There was something chilling about that assertion, something too close to home. “And what of the moon?”
“It was close enough to touch,” the ghost said, his musical voice taking her in for a story. “And every night the hungriest of us would bite along the edges, little by little, until there was nothing left. And then we’d wait for it to grow again to something big and round and full.”
Selene leaned into him. “What does the moon taste like?”
“The same sugar they catch us with.”
A chill traced up Selene’s spine like a finger. The playfulness of the mood had turned and the ghost’s pale eyes were downcast and stormy.
“Why did you come back?” he said.
“I couldn’t leave you,” Selene said. “Alone in the dark.”
“Surely there is more reason than that?”
There was so much she could say. She’d run possible questions and answers through so many times it almost felt like she had lived them. She knew exactly how to appease the papers or a crowd, to garner adoration or sympathy. It was harder to find words for the truth.
“My father was the greatest magician that ever was,” Selene said. “And when he died, people seemed to forget. If I win, I have a chance to right history. To give my father the legacy he deserves.”
The ghost held up the knife, watching the colors change in the light. Selene couldn’t look away from the set of his jaw or the shadows cast by his long eyelashes. He was the kind of beautiful that seemed like a lie. “And this is truly what you want?”
“More than anything.” She didn’t know who she was without this. Losing her chance was like losing herself. “It’s been every part of me for longer than I can remember. Haven’t you ever wanted something so badly you’d do anything to have it?”
“I want to see the sky.” He tilted his head up to an imaginary sun. “I want to breathe the salt air. I want my name, and everything else that was stolen from me.”
Selene sucked in her bottom lip. With all that she knew, with all the resources at her disposal, there had to be something she could do. “I can help you.”
The ghost’s dark brow furrowed. “Why would you do that?”
“Because.” Selene stood a little straighter, channeling her best Madame Giroux. “You’re going to teach me your magic.”
He held out his hands, showing his scars in their fullness. He pressed his fingers against the line on his arm. A silver scar where there had once been a wound. It matched a hundred other marks. She wondered if he remembered each one, or if they’d been stolen like his name.
“Why would you want this?”
“I need to win.”
“That’s not enough.”
The dark slithered like a quiver of snakes. It frightened and calmed her. How could she tell this next part of the story without betraying her heart?
“Then what is? I am here, in this impossible place, asking, begging you to change my life. This is all I want. This is all I have.”
He regarded her. She let him assess her, as she’d been weighed and measured by so many teachers, and waited for him to somehow know. She was worthy. She would fight for this.
He must have sensed that in her.
“Magic has a price.” His voice was soft and low, sweet and soothing, as if she were a wild thing.
“Of course it has a price.” She swallowed, aware of the movement of her collar on silvered scars around her throat. “I’ve been paying my whole life.”
“I need to know that you are sure.”
The memories came to her in a terrible rush of blood red and sky blue. She swallowed them down like sickness and licked her lips. Slowly, she undid the buttons around her throat. Her pulse fluttered beneath her fingertips. She’d gone to such great lengths to conceal this part of herself. Everyone knew how it happened, but few knew the reality.
