“No, he’s not coming tonight,” I tell the crumbling skull. “He’s probably never coming back. Quit holding your breath.”
And every night as I curl up in my bed, I keep my ears alert for the sounds of a police force storming through the catacombs to come and cart me away. Surely, if nothing else, Emeric reported my existence. He seemed angry enough, and Memory knows I would deserve it for behaving the way I did.
As I await my doom, I whisper silent prayers that no matter what they may do to me, Cyril will be all right. In trying to extract Emeric’s elixir, I broke the promise I made to Cyril in my heart that I would keep him safe. The idea that he might suffer because of my foolishness fills my bones with an icy dread.
But no one comes for me, and the only sounds in the catacombs are the scrabbling of rat claws and the scuttle of beetles over the stone floor.
Emeric’s words about Cyril burn in my mind, hot as wildfire. He does not care for you. He does not care for you. He does not care for you. Over and over like a terrible chant that never stops.
But it isn’t true. Would a man who didn’t care for me raise me as his own? Bring me everything I asked for? Read me fairy tales in the night?
On the third day without Emeric, Cyril brings in another Forgotten Child. This one is a girl dressed in rags with hair the color of dishwater. When I transform her memory of Cyril, she bursts into tears and is inconsolable for nearly a half hour.
Guilt stings in my chest until I notice Cyril’s eyes gleaming with pride.
He wouldn’t look at me like that if he didn’t care for me. Would he?
So I shove the guilt away, letting my anger consume it until I’m numb.
The fifth night without Emeric, I cannot sleep. The instant I drift into slumber, his voice echoes in my ears as though he is in the room with me. Haunting me. Singing to me. I sit bolt upright in bed and scan every inch of my crypt for him.
He’s not there.
I stuff my face into my pillow and wrench it over my ears.
But I see his dimples in the dark, smell his caramels in the fabric, and hear his laughter in the silence.
All this remembering will drive me to madness.
He’s truly gone.
I squeeze my eyes shut as my power wilts along with my heart. An animal hanging its hungry head, its empty belly growling, echoing, pleading.
More music, it whispers to me. More elixir.
On my way out to the evening performance on the seventh night, I glance at Albert as I pull the door shut. “No.” I sigh. “Not tonight, either, Albert. You’d best stop asking.”
The skull’s empty eye sockets seem to follow me as I move to depart.
I pause but do not turn back. “Do you really think there’s a chance?” I whisper. “Do you think he’d ever return?”
I lift my gaze to the black, bone-lined corridor in front of me as the cold air feathers soft against my throat.
“I miss him.”
I wait for Albert to respond, but of course he never does.
Is this truly my fate? To live alone down here for the rest of my days? Talking to the dead because the living cannot bear my existence?
Before Emeric, that future didn’t seem so bleak. Now I feel as though it might suffocate me.
I trudge to the theater to sulk in the shadows, an ugly, unwanted thing hiding behind glamor and gold.
* * *
Cyril meets me outside his office after the show holding a large, white costume box. A nervous smile twitches on his lips, and he glances back and forth down the hallway as though verifying that we are as alone as we always are this time of night.
“What’s this?” I ask when he shoves the box into my hands.
“I need you to put it on. Tonight is the first part of that task I mentioned before. I think you’re ready.”
My grip tightens on the edges of the box, which crinkle slightly under my fingers. “We’re leaving?”
He nods. “Quickly. We have an appointment at eleven.”
“An appointment?”
“I’ll explain on the way.” He ushers me into his office and pulls the door closed to give me privacy while he waits in the hall.
My blood zings hot and cold at the same time. My stomach churns, suddenly bubbling with anxiety, excitement, and terror all at once.
With shaking hands, I settle the box on Cyril’s desk and lift the lid. I gasp.
Inside sits a pool of deep, moss green, gauzy fabric that I can only assume is some kind of gown. Resting atop it is a cream-colored mask with blushing, freckled cheeks, perfectly crafted so that it looks like a normal, human face. The material is soft and pliable, as though it’s made of real skin.
I pull off the black mask and set it down next to the box. Taking an extra moment to marvel at the perfect shape of the cheekbones on this new disguise, I slide it into place.
It fits perfectly, as closely as my black one does, but its flexible construction makes it move when I do. The mouth opens when I open mine, and the cheeks dimple when I smile. I glance into a small mirror on the wall and marvel at how lifelike the skin looks. While daylight and scrutiny would reveal it as false, the shadows of the night will serve to hide what I am completely.
With my heart thudding in my throat, I pull off my black gown and tug the green one over my head. It slides down my body, slipping easily over my curves. Its hem hits the floor with a quiet thud. Tying the sash around my waist, I notice a bit of cloth the same color as this dress sitting in the corner of the box.
The light fabric tumbles between my fingers, silky and slippery as water.
A veil.
I slide its comb into the knot of crimson curls at the crown of my head. The veil drapes across my face all the way down past my chin, and it puffs away with every exhale.
Cyril knocks, and I pull the door open. He surveys my appearance and nods. “Perfection.”
This dress, this veil, this mask...while wearing them, I can nearly forget the image of my own face in the mirror. With these things on, I finally might resemble a normal girl. Almost like one of the ritzy, glamorous patrons at the opera with purses full of enough coins to purchase the world.
Cyril offers me his arm, and I take it, trying to keep my hand from pinching the inside of his elbow too tightly. He leads me downstairs and out the back exit. A cab waits on the street behind a broad-backed, black horse whose mane stirs slightly in the cold air.
The driver hops down and opens the door. I keep my face angled away as Cyril helps me inside.
Just like that, I am out in the city, riding in a real cab like one of the opera performers I’ve watched from the windows for so many years.
The seats are firm but comfortable, and though the windows are small, they are all I need. I watch the streets rattle by in silent rapture.
Though the shops are all closed and the sidewalks are mostly empty, the city teems with life. Journal shops pop out on every other corner, with bright displays of a hundred different bound books for the express purpose of remembering things that will one day be forgotten. Windows boasting professional photography to memorialize life’s moments sparkle in the moonlight. Cafés advertising the perfect tea to improve the body’s natural elixir capacity wink from iron-framed panes.
What draws my attention the most are the Maisons des Souvenirs with their flapping crimson flags proclaiming to the world that this is the place to go have memory elixir cleaved from the mind. Stitched into each flag with shining, golden threads is the spiral Extraction Mark. I think of the identical scabbed mark on my thigh and tighten my grip on the armrest.
I hold my breath as we pass it all, recognizing nearly every street from one memory or another. Somehow everything seems so different—so much more exquisite—in real life.
In the alleyways, hunched figures stumble listlessly in the dark. The Memoryless stare
with glassy, empty eyes as we pass.
It is shocking how much like corpses they look, so drained of elixir they’ve forgotten how to live, how to function beyond basic survival instinct. A few more vials extracted from any one of them would leave them dead in the streets. When a person has that little elixir left in their systems, their bodies stop creating new memories in an effort to preserve what is left.
A shiver prickles down my neck that has nothing to do with the icy breeze leaking in through the cracks around the door. I back away from the window, unease making my hands clammy.
We round a corner and follow a slowly rising road to the wealthier neighborhoods built into the side of a hill.
“So.” I tear myself away from the view to face Cyril. He’s rustling through a stack of papers in his lap, his lips pursed as he scans the writing on each page. “Where are we going?”
“To pay a little visit to the Head of the King’s Council of Channe. Monsieur Gaspard LeRoux. He so enjoyed coming to the opera last week, I offered him the privilege of a little private performance.”
“A private performance?”
“Don’t worry.” He laughs. “I’m not asking you to do anything scandalous. Just go in there, act like you’re one of my best divas, and sing for him. You’re as accomplished a vocalist as any of my sopranos, anyway. He won’t know the difference.”
A thrill runs through me. I get to perform? “You want me to sing for him? Why?”
“Because it will give us the perfect opportunity to use a bit of your magic.” His eyes gleam. “When you’ve finished your little selection of songs, I want you to invite him to sing ‘La Chanson des Rêves’ with you. While he’s singing, you’ll go into his memories and put things there like we’ve been practicing with the children back in my office.”
“What kinds of things?” I chew on the inside of my cheek as my stomach sinks. Am I going to be able to pull this off? I may be wearing a particularly well-made mask, but if LeRoux looks too closely he’ll be able to tell it’s not real.
“The goal, dear Isda—” Cyril taps his papers against his knees to straighten them and meets my gaze “—is to make the man go mad.”
“I—but... How?”
“This is going to be a gradual process. Thankfully, my promotion has given me the perfect excuse to bring you to his home. As thanks for the honor of being named his first advisor, I’ve promised him a nightly private performance from my best vocalist.” He smiles, and I mirror the expression. “We’ll be coming to visit him every evening for the next few weeks. I’ve already ironed out all the details and have a whole wardrobe for you to use to play the part. But tonight, I want you to start out small. Just put a whisper of something horrific here and there. It would probably be best to begin several years ago so that the tweaks aren’t as noticeable. Each time you visit, you’ll add a little more.”
I listen, my grip on the armrests tightening with each word.
“Based on some research I’ve done,” Cyril continues, “I believe that as the psychological trauma in his past increases, his behavior will become more erratic in the present. The hope is that once you’ve added enough hallucinations to his memories, his mind will begin to conjure up those images on its own going forward.”
I lick my lips, which have gone suddenly dry. “But why the Head of the Council? He’s so well-known... If anyone finds out, we’ll be—”
“No one is going to find out, are they? You are going to be careful. Don’t let him get too close. Don’t give him any reasons to suspect you.” He pauses to set his papers into a black briefcase. “And why the Head of the Council? I should think my reasoning obvious. We discussed him not last week, didn’t we? Channe is on the brink of ruin because he doesn’t have the gall to do what needs to be done, and things are only going to get worse unless something changes.”
“You want his job,” I say quietly.
“If those fendoirs are siphoning elixir away for themselves as I suspect they are, they could stage an uprising. And with the number of them that live here, they pose a very real, very terrifying threat. Our police teams would not be able to stand against a group that large.”
I dig a fingernail into a seam in the seat and tease out a loose thread.
What exactly would an uprising by the fendoirs look like? If they’d be fighting for the chance to live as they wish and take off their masks...could that liberate me, too?
Would giving them back their freedom be so bad?
Cyril pauses, leveling my gaze with his steady one. “I want to keep Channe from collapse, and, unlike LeRoux, I’m willing to do what’s necessary, no matter how difficult, to rid our city of danger and make it a safe place once again.”
He lifts his chin proudly as he speaks and bats at an invisible fleck of dust on his knee with more poise and confidence than I’ve ever witnessed in any other man.
Cyril would make a fine Council Head. Fearless and brilliant, careful and well-spoken, it’s a marvel it’s taken so long for the Council of Channe to name him First Advisor. But if the fendoirs feel about unmarked people the way Les Trois did, they’d come straight for the Council first. They’d blame Cyril for their troubles. Slaughter him while he dreamed.
Ice walks fingers down my spine.
I want to be free, but not at the expense of the only family I have.
Cyril’s methods may be a bit extravagant at times, but it is only because he is so determined. Although giving a man hallucinations makes me a bit queasy, it does seem to be a solid plan. Cyril has been campaigning to be promoted for as long as I’ve been alive and was only just now given the role of First Advisor. There’s no telling how long it would take to overrun the Council Head’s rule using normal means. And it sounds like time is a luxury we no longer have.
“How can you tell the situation is getting worse?” I ask.
“The fendoirs are being given too much freedom,” he continues. “Walking about without restraint in the streets, interacting with people without supervision.” He sighs. “I know that might not sound like much, but fendoirs can be an unruly bunch. When they are given too much liberty, they begin to get ideas about what the world owes them. We don’t want another Age de l’Oubli, do we?”
“Certainly not.” I try to ignore the grimace that twists his lips when he talks about the fendoirs. As though he’s not talking about me, too.
But even as that thought crosses my mind, I know I’m different to him. I’m sure Emeric’s mother feared gravoirs as much as any other person before her daughter was born one, but she loved Arlette fiercely enough to risk her life to keep her from harm.
And Memory knows Cyril has risked his life for mine a thousand times over.
Chapter Thirteen
Monsieur LeRoux’s mansion towers over Channe, an enormous castle of peaked roofs that pierce the cloudless sky. Its stone walls glow white as the moon, and its expansive lawn shimmers in the breeze.
Cyril leads me to the entrance. Our heels click on the tiled porch. A butler ushers us inside, and my gaze trails upward to the rounded, ornate ceiling several stories above our heads and the elegant chandelier that hangs from it.
I close my eyes and inhale slowly through my nose, pressing my palm to my stomach as my mind conjures up an image of another chandelier—the tremendous, sparkling masterpiece that hangs so close to my perch in the theater.
I may not be singing on the opera house stage tonight in front of thousands, but I will be performing in front of an audience for the first time in my life. My mind whirs, and I cling to Cyril’s elbow to keep my balance.
“You all right?” Cyril whispers, nudging me gently.
I swallow down my nerves and smile up at him. The mask stretches with the movement. “Oui. Just a little nervous.”
“You’ll be splendid.” Cyril winks as a maid in a black dress pressed to perfection comes around the corner to escort u
s up a grand marble staircase and down a long hallway with plush, red carpet.
“Monsieur LeRoux,” she calls softly through a white door with gilded detailing. “Monsieur Bardin and his soprano are here.”
“Oui, oui,” comes the reply. “Entrez.”
She opens the door for us, smiles, and curtsies out of our way.
This is it.
The room is dark but for a roaring, golden fire in a luxurious hearth. Monsieur LeRoux rises from an overstuffed chair and sets his half-empty wineglass on the nearest table.
“Welcome!” His voice is as squat as he is. He grins as he combs his fingers through a thick gray mustache. “I’m so glad you’ve come.”
“Monsieur LeRoux,” Cyril says with a slight bow of his head. “May I introduce one of Channe Opera House’s best sopranos, Colette Dassault.” He tugs me forward, and I curtsy deeply, keeping my face angled away from the fire and praying that doing so shrouds everything in shadow.
“So pleased to make your acquaintance,” I murmur.
“The pleasure is mine,” he says. “How delightful! Come, come! I’ve been dying to hear more of that wonderful music from the other night.” He moves back toward his chair and plucks up the wineglass to take a nice, long swig.
“How about we have her stand near the window?” Cyril asks. “A fresh breeze does wonders for the vocal cords.” He indicates a corner of the room lit only by starlight. It is dark and shadowy—perfect for keeping me mostly hidden.
“Whatever you think is best.”
I make my way silently to the corner, hoping the trembling of my legs isn’t apparent in my gait.
“Whenever you’re ready, darling.” Monsieur LeRoux plops back into his chair and slings one thick leg over the armrest. The hem of his slacks rides up high enough for the chalky white flesh of his calf to peek out over the top of his sock.
Swallowing my nerves, I face him and try to let my arms hang loosely at my sides even though every inch of me is dying to reach into my dress to touch my pendant for comfort. I lick my lips, inhale, and sing.
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