“Sounds lonely,” Victor said.
“I could do with a measure of loneliness after all this is done.”
“And what if I come to call?”
“I’ll pretend I’m not home,” Selene said.
“Rude,” Victor said. “Though I believe I’ve proven myself a master of doors.”
“A breaker of them.”
“And fixer. I learned that trick from your father, actually.”
Selene’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “My father took the hinges off of doors?”
“Just one door,” Victor said. “There’s a suite in the palace that used to belong to the King’s Mage, back when there was just one, and not a new one every seven years. It’s been locked for a century. I was doing some sneaking, and I saw your father trying to sing his way in. When that didn’t work, he simply removed the hinges and went in without a hitch.”
“Did you follow?”
“Of course not. That’s how you get caught.” Victor winked. “I went in after he was gone like any sensible rogue.”
Selene leaned forward instinctually, waiting for the next part of the story. “And what was in there?”
“Dust, mostly. Whatever you father was looking for, I don’t think he found it. And then a few days later …”
“He was gone.” Selene inhaled sharply. “I wish I could make sense of why he pushed himself that far.”
“The king gets what the king wants, regardless of who it hurts.” Victor’s eyes darkened. “I often wonder what would have happened if he’d released your father early, as he’d asked.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry, I thought you knew. I overheard it from one of my hiding places.”
“The king refused?”
“He threatened you.”
The king. He’d been at the center of everything. He’d called her father out of retirement, set them in the palace, pushed him too far. It wasn’t for her or even for himself, but for the king. Her father had not sung for himself. He’d always sung for an audience.
And on that last day, he’d sung for an audience of one.
Who killed your father, Selene?
She could hear the echo of the ghost’s voice and oh, how she longed for a mirror, for a dying dream to unlock the door so she could be let in. He’d asked and asked, and she hadn’t understood.
Who had killed her father?
She’d only been a child. She hadn’t known what she was doing; she’d only reacted. And her father was gone before the lightning strike. His mind had been drawn tight and snapped before Selene ever sang his death. This wasn’t her fault. It had never been her fault.
She’d blamed herself for so long, it seemed wrong to let anyone else share the burden. But he wasn’t wrong. Everything had happened in service of the king. Father wasn’t even supposed to be there for a second seven years. He was supposed to be home with her. But he’d gone because the king had asked. He’d stayed because the king had insisted. And wasn’t all of it at the king’s whim? The competition, the magic, all of it. Selene felt like a puppet catching sight of her strings.
“It wasn’t my fault,” she said. Then, louder: “It wasn’t my fault.”
“Of course it wasn’t,” Victor said. And he had been there. He knew the truth of what happened. The secrets that had been swept up and stored away. He wrapped his arms around her. She listened to the staccato beat of his heart, finding comfort in the rhythm. “You were only a child. Please tell me you haven’t been carrying that burden this whole time.”
Selene’s laugh was wild, hysteria around the edges. She broke from his embrace, unable to think. “My father’s end has weighed on me since that day.”
Victor opened his mouth and shut it. The corner of his lips twitched. He pressed his hand on the side of her cheek. She leaned into his touch: the warmth and the roughness of the calluses, the comfort of knowing the right answer, at long last. He brought his hand down from her face and touched the fabric around her throat.
