“I saw you,” she said. “There’s a painting in the opera house, the day they broke ground. You were there.”
The ghost’s face cracked into a smile. “Prince Renard had that ridiculous golden shovel. It bent as he pushed it into the earth.”
“You remember!”
“I remember a little more, every time I see you.”
Selene’s heart beat vivace. Could this be enough to get him out? “What were you doing there? Were you part of his retinue?”
“No. I was there, but I was not. Something in between.” He smiled. “A ghost then and a ghost now. I’ve always had a talent for slipping between the cracks.”
Selene was close to something. She was asking the wrong questions.
“How do I unravel the magic that binds you?”
Something rippled in his eyes—not quite a memory. He opened his mouth.
“You must—”
Shadows shot like arrows from the churning dark and wrapped around his mouth. He fought against them, but something terrible happened with each brush of them against his skin. His pupils dilated all the way dark and then moved back to that pale blue. They were taking parts of him. Stripping away his hard-earned memories. Taking everything he had left.
Selene sang the light. She brought it all around him, her voice near enough to a scream that she felt that burn of pain. The shadows shuddered and faded into the beam.
The ghost fell to one knee, his chest heaving.
“I’m sorry.” She fell beside him, leaving more space between them than she wanted. “I’m so sorry.”
He looked up at her with vacant, searching eyes, his remarkable beauty matched with a hollowness. He could have been carved from stone in that moment, a monument to some long ago with no remnant of today. Beauty for the sake of beauty, but nothing else. Selene was gutted. He’d forgotten her, after all. He’d lost her to the dark. A tear cut like a knife down her cheek; she didn’t bother to wipe it away. This was her fault. She couldn’t lose him, too.
“Selene?” Recognition lit in his eyes.
Her heart lost its tempo, erratic and unsure and far too hopeful.
She moved as close to him as she could allow. “I didn’t mean—”
He pressed his hands into his forehead. “It isn’t your fault.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Pain is inevitable.”
“What did it take from you?” Selene was afraid of the answer.
“Everything.” His voice was quiet. “Except you.”
I could never forget you, Selene.
He pushed himself to standing. Selene was still on the ground looking up at him. A statue, indeed. His chest rose and fell raggedly. Selene wished she could hold him, wanted to brush the dark strand of hair that fell onto his brow, damp with sweat and something darker. Wanted to trace memories into his skin with her fingertips. She wanted to protect him from the shadows that kept him prisoner in an impossible, living cage.
“You can’t save everyone.” The ghost seemed to sense the weight on her shoulders, the guilt and grief all bound up in her body.
He summoned a violin out of shadow and held up the instrument. He coaxed sound from the strings, even though they were merely wisps of smoke. “When a violin is played too hard and it breaks, is it the fault of the bow, the bout, or the hand that played?”
“I’m not sure what you’re asking.”
“Who killed your father?”
Oh, that question. That knife between her ribs. She’d hoped it would get easier to answer. But it was the same pain every time. Worse, even, with time to fester.
