“Go on.” Gigi nudged him gently.
Benson kissed Gigi and sighed his way up the stairs, leaning against the stone wall for support.
“What do you think will happen to them?” Gigi popped up onto her toes, an anxious habit.
“If Camille lives, she’ll likely never sing again. Wealth will keep Cecile out of prison, but she’ll never be allowed to do magic.” Selene inched toward the staircase to the roof. “She’ll likely be sent to live with some distant cousin until the papers have moved on, and then married off to someone twice her age.”
“Bleak.” Gigi was on her toes again. “Do you think either of them had anything to do with your music?”
“No.” Selene wished it could be that simple.
“This isn’t right. The way we’re pitted against each other until we break. When did magic and music stop being fun?”
“Has it ever been fun?” Selene had loved doing magic with her father, but that was different. She wasn’t a performer, then. She was just a girl enraptured by the endless possibilities of the world. Once they’d moved to the palace, everything was different. This had always been for a purpose.
They stood in the hallway, neither of them looking at the other. Selene couldn’t scrub the bloody image from her mind. She didn’t want to. She needed to hold on to it while she searched for her piece of sky. She’d bring both to the ghost and have the magic necessary to win.
“Selene, wait.” Gigi’s footsteps pattered behind her. “I think there’s something more going on here. We’ve seen sabotage before, but it’s never been like this.”
“I need fresh air,” Selene said tentatively. “Do you want to join me on the roof ?”
“Yes?” Gigi had never liked the rooftop. Too much sky and not enough railing, and the lingering fear that somehow she’d be pulled off the edge of the roof like the girl who’d seen the ghost.
They started up the first of many staircases. Selene kept her hand flat against the banister. Each time her cut thumb pressed against the wood, it served as a reminder of what she wanted. She glanced at Gigi, who took the stairs two at a time, flexing her toes on each of the landings. Always in motion.
“Do you remember that short, dark time in which Maestro Naron insisted we form a choir?”
“Ha,” Gigi said. “That poor man. To think that a group of cutthroat soloists would have the ability to blend.”
Selene remembered the bright cacophony of voices. “Ensemble work is not our strong suit.”
“Speak for yourself,” Gigi said. “If I recall, I was the perfect choral specimen. Mother—Madame—even tried to use that to get me barred from the competition.”
Selene put a hand on Gigi’s arm. Madame Giroux had never been particularly motherly, but the movement toward L’Opéra du Magician had created such a chasm between her and Gigi. “Perhaps she’s creating distance so as not to manufacture conflict should you win. That way it’s your merits, and not hers.”
“Then why wouldn’t she say so? Why instead look for reasons to have me removed?”
“She’s a peculiar woman.”
“I’ve been thinking about your music.” Gigi moved up the many flights of stairs with an elegance Selene admired. “I’ve narrowed down the timeframe Priya and Revelio could have been in our room based on our rehearsal schedules and when I know one of us was in the room.”
Selene nodded for Gigi to go on.
“Three days before auditions, you finally took a break from rehearsing. I remember you locking your music in the drawer, and we went to dinner. It’s the only time in the last few weeks that you were away from your music.”
That had to be it. She’d tweaked the coda a few days before—and Revelio had performed the newest version. It wasn’t like they could have used an old copy. “The only problem with that theory is that both Priya and Revelio were at the same dinner with us.”
“I know.” Gigi looked at Selene with a sort of resolute horror. “I don’t think they stole the music. I think it was given to them.”
An unease came over Selene. There was only one person that could be. Selene didn’t want to imagine a world in which her mentor could do such a thing. Madame could be cruel, but this was beyond that. “Why would she do that?”
Gigi pushed the door open. “There isn’t anyone else.”
The sky was a bright, endless blue. The city below cut into shapes and patterns, buildings crossmarked by the bustling streets. Everything cramped and forced together. The opera house was the heart of Songerie, towering over most of the city. Selene’s stomach clenched as she looked over the edge of the railing, imagining the brief and overwhelming feeling of slipping from this roof. There was no way the girl who’d seen the ghost could have survived her fall to the cobbled streets below. Selene could imagine her body there—broken and bloody. It was hard for her to fathom that the ghost was responsible for such a death. There had to be something more to the story.
Just beyond the tangled city, in the place Selene yearned for but could not reach, was the sea. She imagined herself growing old in the little cottage, everything the same as it had been when she’d lived there as a child. Sandy footprints and seashells in glass jars. On a clear day, she could see the line of the horizon. But today there was a haze above the shoreline. The farthest she could see was the palace. It glistened in the distance, wrapped in its familiar white walls. Rainbow light glinted from the glass conservatory. The gardens and menageries formed a barrier between the castle proper and those shining gates. The difference between those it kept in, and those it kept out.
How many summer days had she spent trying to scale that white wall with Victor by her side? They’d wanted so badly to be free, and yet now Selene would do anything to be back there. They’d only managed to escape once. Victor had bought her a scarf from a street vendor to commemorate the event. They hadn’t even made it down another street—nowhere near the opera house—before they’d been caught. Victor had been whipped mercilessly by his father for endangering himself. His shirts wept blood for weeks.
