“Yes,” Selene said, without thinking. She couldn’t afford to be unguarded around Madame anymore. “Why not me?”
Madame regarded her carefully. “Giuseppe wanted more for you.”
“More than this?” Selene swallowed, her stomach coiling like the endless shadows in the mirror.
“He’d want you to be safe.”
Selene chose her words carefully. “And that is difficult when the person who is supposed to be looking out for me, for all of us, has done nothing to stop the sabotage.”
“You’ll understand someday.” Madame’s eyes stayed trained on her. “You’re like a daughter to me.”
The carriage rolled to a stop. The driver jumped from his seat. The movement shook Gigi awake. She yawned and smiled woefully. “I had the most wonderful dream that Benson made it, too.”
Madame was out of the carriage first, already up the stairs and gone through the great, gilded door. Selene followed slowly behind her. The grandeur of the opera house seemed dark and muted compared to the brightness of the palace. She lingered near the dark statues, falling out of step with Gigi. She knew what she should do: go upstairs and change and get some much-needed rest.
Selene reached into her pocket and brushed her fingers against her father’s pocket watch and the seashell. She must hurry, now. Selene had crossed the first threshold. She was in the competition. That impossible hurdle seemed like a small, easy step. Selene now had to prove herself to the world. And she had no song to sing. She needed to go below ground to write her music in the secret dark.
“I’ll be right up,” Selene said to Gigi.
Gigi waved her off, too tired to argue.
Selene turned down the hallway, stopping first in one of the empty rooms to get a stack of sheet music and a spare fountain pen. With Priya still in the competition, Selene couldn’t write anything out in the open. She needed the promise and the secrecy of the dark. She needed absolute caution.
She needed the mirror.
Selene rounded the corner, close enough to the door leading beneath the opera house that she could smell the dust and damp and sweetness of the earth.
Madame Giroux’s cane tapped on the floor behind her.
Selene spun.
Madame darkened the end of the hallway, eyes boring into Selene.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” It was shaped like a question but was an accusation.
Selene held up the sheet music. “I was going to use the adrenaline to write something new.”
“Not tonight.”
Selene was too tired to argue. Too tired to think before she spoke. “Where are the letters Victor wrote me?”
Madame sucked in a breath, the truth written on her face. Another betrayal.
Anger that simmered inside Selene—the music, the coldness, the stars—boiled over.
“On second thought.” Selene smiled. “I think I will turn in. Goodnight, Madame Giroux.”
Madame opened her mouth like she had an answer, but Selene did not wait for her to speak. The seashell weighed down her pocket. It would have to wait just a little longer.
Gigi’s breath had already settled into the evenness of sleep. Her dress was added to the pile on the floor. Selene took the sheet music and the seashell and her father’s pocket watch and put them on the top of her dresser, next to the box with the glass rose. Selene carefully removed her dress and hung it up in the closet. It still smelled like brine and champagne and the woodsmoke scent of Victor.
She would lie down—just for a minute—and then go into the mirror.
But the minute her body sank into the mattress, she gave upon that dream. Her limbs were heavy, weighing her down. She barely registered the door opening. Madame Giroux sang light so softly into her palm and stood there for a beat before she shut the door behind her.
Selene dreamed of places she could not get to, of things she could not have. Restless, troubled sleep. The cry of the mourning dove woke her right before the dawn. Gigi was still asleep. And Selene wanted to fall back into dreams. She wanted to go back to that place, but she knew better. She needed to start writing the aria for the competition. Gigi and her competitors would use an adaptation of their audition piece. They would each perform a single song, one aria to determine the rest of their lives.
Selene had certainly planned for that—she would sing her father’s name back into the mouths of the city with her homage. But it had been taken from her. And she couldn’t bring herself to perform the disastrous tempest aria—even with the magie du sang. The music was rife with humiliation and failure.
