It was a memory she should have been thrilled to lose. The pain of it was too much for her to carry, and yet the loss was just as great.
Magic has a price.
Selene couldn’t stop now. There was no turning back.
Instead, she remembered the crushing disappointment of her music being sung by someone else, thought of the look on Benson’s face as his mind shattered, felt the warmth of Victor’s body on hers.
But the mirror would not acquiesce.
Selene tried to slow her racing heart. She would have to write as much as she could from memory. Piece the song back together as best she could. That seemed an impossible task without the ghost. They’d created something so perfect; she was afraid she’d never be able to re-create it.
Her only option was to bring him what he’d asked: the death of a dream.
She walked up the stairs, her mind shuffling the possibilities of what the mirror might accept: a morning glory burst into bloom at first light, a candle sung to flame and then doused, the fragile body of a bird fallen in flight. She could argue their purpose, connect them to a dream’s end. But she knew the shadows expected more. Whatever she gave up, it had to matter. Each of her offerings to the mirror had been etched with her angst, her wanting, her pain. The fight and the freedom of the feather. The endless possibilities in the seed, stolen from Madame’s piano. The memories tied up in the shell. And everything the pocket watch had meant to her father. There’d been a purpose in each of them.
She’d need to find something of equal measure to win back her music and see the ghost. To get her music, to apologize for nearly touching him. She didn’t want to do anything to hurt him. She hadn’t meant to do it at all.
She made a brief stop in the library. Benson’s table was still piled high with books. Her fingers traced over the tops of them, sending little dust motes up.
It was painful to stand so near the place where Benson had put together the pieces of his own destruction. All those late nights, writing the perfect song. For his brilliance, he’d been destroyed.
And now all that was left to remember him here was a pile of books that would soon be put away.
She made it back to her room and wrote down all she could recall on a blank page in a frenzy. It was undeveloped and completely unworthy. Frustrated, Selene peeled off Gigi’s ruined dress and kicked off her shoes. She was in bed before she even had the space to register where she was.
The light broke through the window, shattering the remnants of sleep. Selene sat up, banishing the whims of her subconscious.
The room seemed wrong.
Gigi’s bed had been stripped. The dresser moved out. All of Gigi’s clutter and glitter and creativity were gone.
Something terrible must have happened. Selene’s heart raced, trying to purge the image of the blood that poured down Camille’s neck. She had to get Madame, and quickly. She grabbed her cloak from its peg and rushed out the door.
Selene should have been here. She should have checked her priorities and watched Gigi’s back. Gigi was far too trusting, far too kind. She didn’t deserve any of this.
Selene had hardly crossed the threshold when she was stopped by the familiar sounds of Gigi’s snoring echoing in the hall. There was a new lock on Benson’s room.
Unsettled, Selene knocked on the door three times. The snores cut off.
“I’m busy,” Gigi called back, her voice thick with sleep.
There was a rush of relief, followed by a deep cut of sadness.
There were two possibilities: Gigi had moved out and had not told her. Gigi had packed up her things in the secret, stolen moments while Selene was out. They’d always done everything together, but the line between friend and competitor was thin.
Or Gigi had been moved by order of Madame to isolate them. Because she knew they were stronger together, a force to be reckoned with. Because she knew what they’d done.
Selene’s heart ached. Everything had gone so wrong.
Once she was back in her room, she put her trembling hand into her pocket and felt the sharpened tip of the pin. She held it up to the light. The ghost had created this magic from nothing. And here she was, weak and helpless without her music, without him. She dropped the pin onto the dresser.
She needed a way back into the mirror. That was her focus now. Where else could she go to feel safe and free from the worries of the world? She searched her too large, too empty room. She found a scrap of sheet music, a broken pointe shoe, a moth that had strayed too close to the light. Nothing was good enough, and she knew it. She couldn’t feel the magic in any of it; the wonder she’d felt with the feather and the nautilus and her father’s watch absent. She paced the room, looking for something—anything—she could bring the ghost. All she needed was the death of a dream.
What else could she do but take her broken heart and make it into art.
She half ran to the library, hopeful that the space would be neglected with all the preparations for the competition. There had to be something, some scrap of Benson left behind.
The magic of sleep had swept in and reordered things. The room looked pristine. All of his haphazardly stacked books put back on the shelf.
