“It is the second thing I ask of you.” There was a softness to his eyes, like he didn’t want to make her face this.
“I did.” Selene forced the words out. The words she had never spoken out loud before today. “I killed my father.”
“This I have asked, and you have answered,” the ghost said. “Go back to that place. Live that pain. But understand: the pain is a currency that can be spent.”
Panic crashed like cymbals inside Selene. He’d said there would be a price. Would Selene lose the precious few memories she had of her father? Was this the true reason for the ghost’s lack of memory?
“Will I forget?”
There was a moment of hesitation, a measure of rest that unnerved her. The ghost’s expression tightened, then relaxed, as it had when he’d remembered.
“The memory should stay but the pain associated will be gone, like the letting of a wound.”
It was worth the risk. Selene closed her eyes and took a measured breath.
Like many terrible things, it happened on a day far more beautiful than it deserved. Selene settled into the memory, each step, each breath. The colors were so vivid. Her pale pink dress was a primrose’s delight, the white pinafore so bright and clean, like it had been made from starlight. The blue, blue, blue of the sky like a jay’s wing in spring.
Her father stood by the piano in their suite. His hand hovered over the keys; his violin tucked under his arm. Selene remembered this excitement, this joy. Her father was going to perform for the king today. It was one of the last performances, the finality marked by the boxes and boxes with their things stacked around them. Selene rushed to his side.
“What are you singing today?” She reached up and took his hand.
“Something new.” His smile didn’t touch his exhausted eyes. “You have to stay here, Nightingale. I promise I’ll be back soon.”
He paused at the door, drew her in for an embrace. His fingers were cold and trembling. The skin under his eyes bunched in a way it hadn’t before. He reminded her of the anatomy drawings she’d studied with Victor’s tutors. Skeletal, held together with wires and strings.
He kissed the top of her head and slipped out the door. Selene crossed her arms over her chest. She’d never missed an opportunity to hear her father sing.
She found Victor exactly where she expected him: lying beneath one of his mother’s famous damask rosebushes. When he saw her coming, he broke a rose from the bush and held it out to her.
“You look very clean,” he said, studying her. “And pretty.”
She tried to ignore the way his compliment made her cheeks heat. It wasn’t always like this. Something had changed, folded between the years of thirteen and fourteen. She quickly explained the situation to him, with a twinge of guilt. Her father rarely asked anything from her, and yet he’d asked her to stay.
“I overheard my father this morning. They’re in the conservatory.” Victor dusted off his pants. “Secret passage?”
“Secret passage,” Selene said without hesitation.
“Your dress might get dirty.”
“So?”
“That’s my girl,” Victor said, and kissed her cheek. It was only a peck, something they’d always done.
Selene turned her face away, that feeling of elation and embarrassment creeping in again. She couldn’t let him see.
They raced across the palace grounds, ducking between a pair of columns that looked flat against the wall, offset enough for a person to slip through. Another part of the palace made for spying or quick escapes. Selene and Victor passed dozens of similarly hidden exits, rooms they’d both slipped in and out of without warning over the last five years.
“I hope we haven’t missed it.”
“Never better late,” he whispered. It was a silly inversion of the line, something that infuriated the king, which was exactly why he did it.
Selene followed behind Victor closely, nearly colliding with his back when he stopped at the conservatory. He held a finger up to his lips. Selene slowed her breathing and bid her racing heart to still. He dropped to all fours and crawled toward the light, Selene at his heels.
Her father stood at the center of the room. It was all glass and columns, showing off the green of the palace gardens and the glint of the sea. The light refracted in endless rainbows. Selene loved this room. It was one of her favorite places to come and sing. The glass caught her voice and reflected it back in such lovely ways.
Her father didn’t look prepared for loveliness. His face was creased with worry. The king was saying something, too low for Selene to hear. He sat in a wide, regal chair, facing the palace grounds—away from Selene and Victor. It was unlikely that he would see them. Her father, on the other hand, might. She hoped that his violin would consume his focus, as it usually did.
“Is he going to do the dragon again?”
