The suite was simpler than Selene expected, tidy and stark. They stood in the parlor. To the left was a small kitchen and dining area. To the right, a study with a piano at its center and floor-to-ceiling shelves. They were almost empty, with a few scattershot books and tidy stacks of sheet music. Two doors waited like sentinels ahead. One was cracked enough so Selene could see the vague shape of a twin-size bed, a small table, and a rocking chair draped in a white cloth. Tiny ballet slippers hung on a peg on the wall, next to paper flowers pinned in clusters. This had been Gigi’s room, once.
That left a single door.
It opened on well-oiled hinges. The sounds of the street drifted through the cracked window. They were far enoughfrom the rest of the opera house that no music would permeate this space, even if there were a full production on the stage. Something about that made Selene sad. The rest of the room was stark and cold. It might as well be a prison cell.
Gigi shut the curtains and dropped onto the floor, pressing her fingertips against a knot in the wainscoting. “I was always curious about this panel as a child, so much so that my mother moved her dresser in front of it. You can see the scratches in the floor from where she moved that, again and again.”
The panel slid open.
Selene sucked in a breath and dropped down to her knees beside Gigi, singing for light. There was a space here that extended down into the dark, like one of Victor’s secret passageways. It was cluttered with loose papers, strewn books, a torn tapestry. A bouquet of dry flowers was half crushed by a huge, cracked wooden frame with its contents facing the wall. A porcelain doll with a split face looked up at Selene accusingly with its single, blue eye. Selene reached for a silver locket. The clasp was broken, and it flipped open. It had held a mirror once. The jagged teeth still clung to the edges.
Gigi held up a yellowed newspaper clipping.
Magician Leaps from the Roof of the Opera Magique
Hopeful in L’Opéra du Magician is in the hospital after jumping off the roof of the Palais Renard. Lamplighters found the student in the early hours of the morning and contacted the authorities. She was transported to the hospital and is currently being treated for substantial injuries. Monsieur Maurice de Lancret, manager of the opera house, reports that the student had been acting strangely, speaking of ghosts in mirrors.
“There is an immense pressure in this competition,” says de Lancret. “We are devastated by the loss of a talented magician. Our thoughts are with her as she heals.”
There is no statement from the student at this time.
Gigi handed Selene a second paper, pointing to a single line.
Brigitte Giroux has been removed from L’Opéra du Magician due to injury.
“Look at the dates.”
One day apart. Selene had wanted to believe this was a coincidence. But the truth of it settled beneath her skin. Madame had been the girl who’d leapt off the opera house. Madame had been the one to remove all the mirrors. Madame knew about the ghost and had tried to keep him secret from the world.
“I knew she’d gotten hurt.” Gigi put the papers back where she’d found them. “But I didn’t think she was the girl who jumped. She’d talked about it like it was someone else.”
“It probably feels like it was.” Selene shifted some of the other items, careful to note their placement.
“She’s been trying to protect us from that all along.” Terror shone in Gigi’s eyes. “It’s the ghost, Selene. It’s real.”
Yes,Selene thought.He’s more real than anyone else I know.
Instead, she shook her head. “I think the manager was right. The pressure.”
“Then why did she come back if not to save others from the same fate?”
Selene blew out a breath. “She said sometimes young girls make foolish promises.”
Gigi considered that. She pulled out one of the books. “These are older prints of some of the history texts. Odd.”
Selene leaned into the space, singing light and holding it up toward the cracked frame. The glass was spiderwebbed in the corner, casting lines over the architectural plans of the opera house. So much of the past, so much of what once was. She could use this if she found the right thing. There was a bundle of letters just beyond it. Selene recognized the handwriting before she saw her name—again and again—a thousand times over.
Oh, to stop the world and imagine a different life with that boy. Oh, to look into his mind and trace the years they’d spent apart. Oh, to have lived a life where she knew she mattered for all this time.
A door opened. The familiar sound of Madame’s cane striking the wood floor echoed in the room beyond them.
Selene’s heart pounded in her throat. She looked at Gigi and then back around the room. She moved quickly and quietly to the window. If they could get out fast enough, they could cling to the ledge. But the window wouldn’t open any more than it already was.
That left only one option.
Gigi figured it out a split second before Selene. She was already inside the wall, gesturing for Selene to join her.
The doorknob turned.
