“Like this?” Selene sang the line. The ghost played the same notes on the piano. Selene ran it through a few times to solidify the rhythm before she wrote it down.
“What if the music is more, Selene?” He moved with the music. “What if instead of magic, it told a story?”
Her father had changed the world by giving magic a story. Could she do the same by adding story to the song?
Selene considered it, feeling electricity beneath her skin. She’d seen the operas, heard the sounds made popular by singers, watched every form of sung magic she could find. The tableaux were the story, every essence of entertainment focused on the magic and the loveliness of the vocals. For the most part, the songs were simple and repetitive. They had to be, for the vocalist to balance the magic and the music. Even Selene’s arias were like that. She’d focused on what magic could do, instead of what music could be.
“What story?” Selene tapped her fingers against the glossy black keys.
“The only one that matters.”
He played the counterpoint on the piano, the magical motif starting in the voice and then breaking and spreading between each of the parts. Selene had only ever written music with the motif contained to a single instrument. She’d start it in the voice and then let the cello or the clarinet continue the melody while she sang in the second element. Simple, easy ways to maintain the motifs. This was brilliant, using the combination of the voice and the orchestra to channel the same magics, but with a careful subtlety that allowed for endless variation. It had the power of the motif but none of the repetition. It told a story, but not just with the magic. The song was the story. It was art made new.
“Yes.” The ghost’s smile was a rising moon. He wrote it in his blood.
“The aria will sound like an aria.” Selene suppressed a shiver. “I always wanted to push the boundaries of magic. I never considered doing it with the music.”
“Anything can be magic if you make it so.”
The intensity of his gaze shifted from Selene back to the piano. His fingers danced through the first movement. She hummed along, writing the notes and flourishes he added when he played. She’d always considered writing a solitary act. Others hired coaches, worked with their friends and teachers. Besides Gigi, she’d never dared collaborate. Writing was personal, private. She didn’t want anyone to hear the wrong notes or see the mess on the page.
Selene traced her fingers over the bars. The piece was lovely, nearly perfect. But she could see the gaps in what they were writing. What this piece begged for was a second voice.
“Sing with me?” Selene said.
“It would be better practice if you sing it alone.”
The ghost’s breath warmed her shoulder. She couldn’t be this close to him without touching him. She stood up, moving to the other side of the piano. Close enough that she could still see the music but far enough that she wasn’t tempted to lean intohim.
“Just this once,” Selene said.
“All right.”
The ghost played the first chord. His voice rose like a promise, meeting hers. The languidness of the line drew her closer to him. She watched his hands fly over the keys, listened to the purr of his voice and how easily it fit with hers. Did he know how exquisite he was? From the shape of his shoulders, to the movement of his hands, to the way his lip trembled with vibrato. She’d never seen a man more lovely than music.
When she could no longer bear the sight of him in such rapturous beauty, she closed her eyes. They could be anywhere, singing like this. She could practically feel the rush of the ocean, the sand beneath her toes. She could taste the salt air and feel the sun on her face. And he was there with her, outside the mirror. They were free from all of it. From the mirror, from L’Opéra du Magician, free from their lives. She wanted nothing more than to touch him, to be touched. She imagined taking his hand and pressing it over her heart so he could feel the vivace rush of her heart, those full lips on hers.
Singing with him was like breathing. Singing with him was like dreaming. Singing with him was everything, all at once.
He lifted his hands from the keys, their voices swallowed in the dark. He looked at her with a happiness she had yet to see on his haunted face.
“Thank you, Selene.”
She pushed a damp curl from out of her face. “I should be thanking you.”
“All I’ve brought you is a way to shape pain.”
Selene shook her head. “You’ve changed everything.”
“That final note.” The ghost played the chords leading up to it. “What if you took it up to the sixth. A little dissonance, and then resolve.”
Selene sang it over the piano and wrote it down. She could see the magic, rising in her mind like it would on the stage. She indicated the places where she needed pain with a breath mark.
She tried to focus on that, and not the elegant way the ghost’s hands moved over the keys. Not the way it felt to sing with him, like it was the last song. Like it was the only song. Like it was her whole heart. She reached the end of a measure and realized what she’d done.
Carefully, she wrote the wordfinein delicate script.
The aria was finished. And it was brilliant. Far beyond what she could do on her own. She’d have two sung elements, and numerous places where the melody was written in, but the magic would come by blood. Two types of magic and endless possibilities. A spectacle of ingenuity. No one else would come close to what she had created.
