For a Muse of Fire

by Heidi Heilig

  Then another deep crack makes the ground itself tremble; with Legarde’s soul trapped in the stone, the temple is crumbling, the carvings broken, the walls tumbling away. We have to move. Already I can hear the sounds of the prisoners—they are screaming too, in terror as their prison falls, in joy as they see the dawn. Le Trépas is surely among them. What have I done?

  For an instant, I consider turning around, tearing the gun from Leo’s belt and tracking down the monster, the madman—my father. But then I hear it over the rumbling of the falling stone: the sound of the gong. Someone has raised the alarm, and Akra will not make it to the inn if I do not carry him there.

  We flee through the city, ducking and weaving through the shadows till we reach Le Livre. One of Siris’s daughters lets us into the inn and shows us directly to a room. They prop Akra with pillows and call a docteur, though I don’t know if it’s necessary. I don’t know if Akra can die, not even if he wanted to.

  But the docteur treats Papa too; when she’s finally done, the sun is high and the shadows small. She is cagey about his prognosis—it will be weeks before he can leave the bed, much less the inn. Shamefaced, I ask Siris about the cost of a brace of messenger pigeons—something to send to the rebel camp in the hope a note will reach Maman. So that she’ll know we are safe, so I can warn her about Le Trépas. But Siris waves away my question, and he pays the docteur as well. Before she leaves, she promises to come back tomorrow, telling me to rest as well. While I doubt I can, I go to my own room, where at least I can be alone.

  The bed is wide and inviting, the pillows thick and soft. And there is a bottle on the center of the silk coverlet: the bottle that Legarde had offered me—the treatment his daughter created. I had forgotten it in the fight. Leo must have brought it.

  I pick it up now, cool and heavy and so precious. My hands are shaking so much I nearly drop it: a month’s worth of the cure I’d sought for so long. What would life be like without my malheur? I hardly dare imagine—for what would life be like after the cure runs out? I cannot get more. La Fleur would never agree to treat the girl who killed her father and trapped his soul in darkness.

  I set the bottle aside, gently, gently. But beneath it on the quilt is a note—a creamy page folded neatly in half. I pick it up—and for a breath, I imagine the blood on my hands seeping into the page like ink, a litany of my sins, a book of all the souls I have sent to the King of Death. Will send, now that Le Trépas is free.

  But the blood is dry, and I unfold the page. It only takes a second to read, but in that second, a lifetime passes. What had Leo said about regrets? That the only way to soothe the pain was to do better.

  For a long time I hold his letter in my hands. Then I go downstairs to write my own—not to Leo, but to the king. To the rebellion.

  * * *

  Au revoir.

  Leo Rath Legarde

  * * *

  Author’s Note

  Sometimes, the inside of my head seems like the pile of returned books on a library cart. A well-worn high fantasy beside an account of the lives of party girls in Bohemian New York . . . a Shakespeare play sandwiched between a history of French colonialism and a book about shadow puppetry. These flying leaps from topic to topic are one of my favorite things about my own bipolar disorder, and they inform my world-building in unexpected ways.

  When I set out to write For a Muse of Fire, I wanted to write about a main character who shares my mental illness, and seeks a real life treatment for it. (Lithium, which occurs naturally in springs around the world, is a historical treatment but is still widely prescribed for bipolar. I took it myself for a while.) But I also wanted to create a magical second world out of my obsessions, which are in turn informed by my own malheur: I spent a long time in theatre in my youth, where my manic highs let me shine in the limelight. I was obsessed with death and spirits for a while, those thoughts meshing with my maudlin lows. There is a hedonism to mania as well, which is so often reviled in young women (unfortunately, I was no exception), so the cast of Le Perl gives me especial joy.

  And of course, my heritage and upbringing creeps in. I am half Chinese, but raised in a rainy valley in Hawaii down the road from a taro farm where a water buffalo grazed. I must admit, as a biracial person, I have sometimes felt like a man without a country, as it were. In this book, I leaned into the freedom that feeling can bring: inspiration for food, styles of puppetry, and language are taken from a broad cross-section of places and times.

  The technology, too, is a bit out of history. Though the headers on the letters from the Aquitans note that the year is 1874, the year is not quite analogous to our own nineteenth-century history. The repeating rifle came a bit earlier; copper-jacketed bullets came a bit later. Electric streetlights existed in our own 1874, but were not widespread for years. And of course, the evolution of flight came later, as did vaudeville and burlesque.

  Lastly, please note that while Aquitan and Chakrana are inspired in part by France and South East Asia, so many cultural, linguistic, political, historical, and religious liberties were taken that the story is truly a fantasy, and not an allegory or a close second-world version. This might be most noticeable in the inexact but French-like nature of the Aquitan words.

  Acknowledgments

  There are no stars of a show—instead, there are galaxies, and all of you burn so brightly.

  For all the direction she gave in shaping and polishing this piece, my editor Martha Mihalick deserves a standing ovation. Another round of applause for my agent, Molly Ker Hawn, a star in her own right.

  Composer Mike Pettry, longtime collaborator and friend, certainly deserves his name in lights for putting the music in Muse. As for the muses themselves? That lineup features Zelma Zelma, Bambi Galore, Cheeky Lane, Iris Explosion, and Lewd Alfred Douglas.

  Thank you to the expert dramaturgs: John Beeler for the insider knowledge of the stack on a steamship, as well as Audrey Masi-Spencer for advice on the French in the lyrics. Thanks as well to Katie Kennedy and Lori Lee, respectively, for booking them.

  Many thanks to Sylvie Le Floc’h, who has designed the set of this piece, and Tim Smith, whose attention to detail would impress even the most jaded stage manager. Words cannot express my gratitude to Gina Rizzo, publicist extraordinaire, who could get any show on the road.

  My thanks also to Michael Krass, who taught me how to survive as an artist, and to Justina Ireland, who told me why I should bother. My appreciation always for the most fabulous ensembles: The Fighters and Kidlit Alliance. These communities of generous and talented writers are an inspiration. Thanks, too, to NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, which taught me the value of working together.

  And as always, to my boys—Bret, Felix, and Hansen—thank you for my favorite collaboration yet.

  About the Author

  HEIDI HEILIG is the author of The Girl from Everywhere, which was an Indie Next Pick and also named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Bustle, and Paste. Its sequel, The Ship Beyond Time, received a starred review from School Library Journal and was named a Best Book of the Year by Paste.

  Heidi Heilig holds an MFA from New York University in musical theatre writing, and she’s written book and lyrics for several shows, including The Time Travelers Convention, Under Construction, and The Hole. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.

  www.heidiheilig.com

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Books by Heidi Heilig

  The Girl from Everywhere

  The Ship Beyond Time

  For a Muse of Fire

  A Kingdom for a Stage

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  Copyright
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  Content notes: Mental illness (bipolar), blood use in magic, gun violence, war, colonialism, racism, descriptions of dead bodies, mention of reproductive coercion, mentions of torture, mention of suicide

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  FOR A MUSE OF FIRE. Copyright © 2018 by Heidi Heilig. Map illustrations copyright © 2018 Maxime Plasse. Music for “La Lumière,” “We Meet by the Light of the Moon,” “The Dream,” and “Untitled” copyright © 2018 by Mike Pettry; lyrics copyright © 2018 by Heidi Heilig. Reprinted with permission of the authors. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.epicreads.com

  Cover art © 2018 by Leo Nickolls

  Cover design by Sylvie Le Floc’h and Leo Nickolls

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Heilig, Heidi, author.

  Title: For a muse of fire / by Heidi Heilig.

  Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2018] | Summary: “Jetta, a teen who possesses secret, forbidden powers, must gain access to a hidden spring and negotiate a world roiling with intrigue and the beginnings of war”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018008135 | ISBN 9780062380814 (hardback)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Fantasy. | Magic—Fiction. | Theater—Fiction. | Manic-depressive illness—Fiction. | Mental illness—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.H4446 For 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018008135

  Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-238083-8

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-238081-4

  18 19 20 21 22 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FIRST EDITION

  Greenwillow Books

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