“I thought you said you were going to be careful,” Emeric murmurs under his breath as he hands me a plate.
“What do you mean? I’ve barely been here two minutes. I haven’t—”
“I mean showing up looking like that. No one can take their eyes off you.”
I glance around. People watch me from behind their masks and whisper excitedly to one another.
My stomach lurches. I turn away from their stares.
“Easy. They’re only curious.” He grins sideways at me. “And I don’t blame them.”
I try to ease the jumpiness in my limbs and turn my attention to the food. My mouth waters.
Cyril has always kept me stocked with a supply of baguettes, cheese, dried meat, and the like. Every now and then he’s treated me to finer cakes, pastries, and wines. But never in my life have I seen food like this.
Trays of steaming vegetables, platters of roasted pheasant, and plates piled high with croissants feathered with powdered sugar weigh so heavily on the table it’s a wonder the whole thing doesn’t collapse.
I fill my plate to overflowing. Pastries stuffed with cream. Succulent meats smothered in buttery sauces. Plump grapes and soft cheeses. Hearty breads with hard, golden crusts.
“Easy there. You don’t want to make yourself sick.”
“Speak for yourself.” Stuffing a bite of foie gras under my mask and into my mouth, I moan as its savory flavor dissolves over my tongue. “For food like this, I’m willing to take the risk.”
He chuckles. “Fine. Just don’t blame me later when you vomit all over that dress.”
“Monsieur Rodin!” I scold. “It is not polite to talk about such things in proper company.”
“Apologies, mademoiselle.” He grabs us a pair of drinks and steers me past a marble statue of a centaur to a bench in the corner.
It takes everything in me not to wolf down my whole plate at once. I focus on eating like the dainty lady I’m pretending to be. The boning in my corset creaks as I swallow more and more food. Finally, when only crumbs remain, I set my dish on the nearest table and sigh contentedly.
“Good?” Emeric asks as he polishes off an éclair.
“Utterly divine.”
The orchestra finishes its piece and launches into a Vaureillean valse. Emeric catches my eye. “Dance with me?”
A wave of nervousness washes through me. “I have never danced before. Not with a partner, anyway.”
“You danced with me when we were practicing the Le Berger finale.”
“That’s not the same. That was choreographed.”
“You’ve seen nonchoreographed dancing, though, oui?”
“I’ve watched enough other, both of us blushing as applause fills the room”
“Perfect. All you need to do is follow me, anyway. Come on.” He grabs my wrist and tugs me onto the dance floor.
“If I injure you, you cannot say I didn’t warn you.”
“I promise if I end up maimed I won’t press charges.”
When we reach the center of the room, he grasps my right hand in his left and curves his other around my upper waist. I wipe my palm on my skirt and rest it on his shoulder.
“See? You’re already a natural.” He grins.
“We haven’t even started yet.”
“Oh, curses. You’re right.”
All at once, he sweeps me into the dance. I stumble, but his steady grip keeps me upright. I study his feet and try to mirror his movements.
As the beat picks up, he pulls me in so close his breath tickles against my ear. “Relax,” he whispers. “Stop trying so hard. Let me lead.”
Feeling suddenly faint, I manage a nod.
He guides me across the floor as though he was born in a ballroom. The hand braced on my back is warm and comforting, and with it he moves me easily around in slow, arcing circles.
“Where did you learn to dance like this?” I ask.
“My mother taught me.”
I think of the woman I know so well from his memories, with her messy brown braid and tired smile. “Where did she learn?”
“She was a dancer long ago. It’s how she and my father met.” He shakes our entwined hands a bit. “Stop squeezing. You’re going to break my fingers.”
“Sorry,” I mumble, loosening my grip.
“Don’t concentrate so much on what your feet are doing. You’re a musician—your soul will respond to the music even if your body doesn’t know how.”
I force myself to relax and follow his lead.
The beat escalates, and soon the room is nothing but a blur of color and light. I tip my head to look up into Emeric’s face. He’s watching me with a flush in his cheeks and a confident quirk to his brow.
“That’s better,” he murmurs in a way that makes me tremble, and he tightens his hand on my waist.
There is nothing but him and me and the music. Our movements become a duet: his body calls, and mine answers.
For so many nights, our voices have been the ones dancing, but now our bodies are wrapped around each other, my skirts swishing against his legs as he pulls me across the tile. As perfectly as our voices fit together, our bodies seem to fit even better.
We surge and retreat, twist and flow. Closer and closer we whirl, until my skin is alight with the feel of him everywhere and my soul is on fire with the look in his eyes.
The music rises, and every muscle in my body tenses.
The orchestra strikes its final chord. Emeric pulls us to a sudden stop.
We stare hungrily at each other. My hair is everywhere around us, red as blood, wicked as fire. Our chests press together, our hearts thudding madly in the same torturous, syncopated beat. Our breaths heave in and out. I’m drunk on the taste of caramel in the air. His thumb caresses my knuckle, light as butterfly wings.
Someone begins to clap.
We let go of each other, both of us blushing as applause fills the room.
A group of women breaks free from the sidelines and rushes to encircle Emeric.
“Monsieur Rodin, you dance as well as you sing!” one cries, pulling a swan-esque mask away to reveal smooth skin and perfectly pink cheeks.
“An absolute pleasure to watch,” a woman in a tiger costume agrees.
“Perhaps you should give the rest of the men here lessons,” a third teases from behind a bejeweled crimson disguise, twirling black hair around her pinky finger.
“Might I steal you for the next one?” a tall woman asks in a voice as smooth as one of the cream sauces over on the table. Her mask and dress ruffle with bright green and purple peacock feathers that shimmer with every movement.
Emeric raises a brow at me over her shoulder.
Though every bit of me wants to claw past them and claim him as my own, I force myself to nod. It’s all right, I tell him with my eyes, hoping he’ll understand my message. Go. I’ll be fine.
He purses his lips, then turns his gaze back to the woman in the peacock dress and gives her a polite nod. “It would be my pleasure.”
Ignoring the sinking feeling that squeezes my chest when she takes his arm, I make my way to the corner to watch, putting some distance between myself and the prying stares that seem to follow me everywhere I turn.
But as Emeric takes the woman’s hand and twirls her onto the dance floor, my blood boils. I turn away and rush to the nearest door. It opens out onto a balcony, and I stumble over to the railing, gulping at the frosty, starlit air.
Gaslights illuminate flurries of snow twisting on the breeze. Winter is fast approaching, and its icy chill strokes soothing fingers along my bare skin, cooling the jealousy simmering beneath it.
It’s better this way. Emeric is, after all, one of the main reasons for the ball in the first place. With all the revenue and popularity he’s brought to the opera house, it’s best if I don’
t draw any more attention to myself by dancing with him again. People have already been watching me more than I’d like.
My fingers curl on the railing as the music behind me swells, and I force myself not to glance back to see whether Emeric is smiling at his partner or if she fits as well in his arms as I do.
I wait for the song to end. And then another. And another. I know I have only so much time before I’ll need to leave—Cyril will likely show up soon, and I’ve barely spent any of my evening actually at the party. Yet the idea of seeing Emeric dancing with any of those other girls makes my stomach turn, so I stay right where I am in spite of the way the winter air has frozen the skin on my arms.
A shout echoes in the ballroom behind me, and the symphony creaks to a stop in the middle of a melodic line. I turn, frowning, and make my way back into the room to see what the commotion is about.
“The phantom! It’s come to kill us all!” a familiar voice shouts from the middle of the ballroom, his cries bouncing off the marble floors and walls.
My stomach wrenches into my throat.
It is Monsieur Gaspard LeRoux, the former Head of the King’s Council of Channe.
I need to leave now.
I keep my head bowed as I weave through the crowd, aiming for the nearest door.
“There!” LeRoux screams, and several people nearby gasp. I dodge a look back at LeRoux, who is staggering closer to me, flailing his arms at the ceiling. “See its teeth? And its eyes!”
Hoisting my skirts higher, I quicken my pace until I am almost jogging. “Pardonnez-moi,” I murmur as I shove past people.
The crowds around me titter and shuffle their feet. LeRoux’s voice grows in volume until it sounds as though he is everywhere at once.
“Colette!” he cries.
Panic seizes my gut.
How did he recognize me?
I dive in the opposite direction. His tone becomes more belligerent. “Colette, you’ve seen the phantom, haven’t you? Tell them!”
I elbow past a group of men, chancing a look over my shoulder. Monsieur LeRoux is reaching for me, his hands inches from my face. His cheeks are ruddy and purple, and spittle trails white over his chin. I lurch away from him. I’m nearly to the door now. If I can make it out—
“Colette, stop!” He yanks on the back of my dress, and I stumble sideways, knocking into a waiter holding a platter of drinks. Glass flutes tumble to the ground, shattering and spraying champagne everywhere. “Mademoiselle Dassault, please!”
I scramble to my feet, my shoes sliding in the alcohol on the ground.
Before I’ve made it three strides, LeRoux grabs a fistful of my hair and jerks my head back. The string of my mask snaps with a sound like a crack of lightning.
Chapter Twenty-One
My mask is gone.
I fling my arms up to cover my face as I make a break for the door. Panic courses through my every limb as I skid through shattered glass, twist an ankle, and come down hard on my side, dropping my hands to break my fall.
A man shudders away from me and roars, “It’s a gravoir!”
The ballroom erupts into chaos.
LeRoux’s gaze registers on mine, and his face goes gray. His eyes roll back into his head, and he topples.
I scramble for the nearest exit.
An arm catches me around the middle and drags me away from the door. My feet twist in my skirt, and I hit the floor again.
Someone screams.
I try to shield my face as I fumble back upright, but hands tear at me from every side.
“Someone alert the police!”
“Shoot the gravoir!”
“Does anyone have a pistol?”
I barrel through the crowd, but I make it only a few paces before a fist knocks into my cheekbone and sends me sprawling to the glistening white tile for the third time.
I wrench myself upright, ducking to miss another fist, and anger boils in my stomach. These people don’t know anything about me. Even if I opened my mouth and sang just like all the opera stars they love so much, it would not matter. They would still hate me.
Someone spits at my feet, and I seethe.
I hate them, too. They taught me how.
“Hurry, before it drains us all!” a panicked voice shouts.
All at once, they are on me. Jeering, horrified faces. Fingers ripping at my gown, nails dragging across my skin. A man twists my arms behind me, jerking my head back with a fist in my hair.
“How did it get in?” The man’s shout is so close to my ear it makes me wince. “Who let this monster in here?”
A woman nearby catches sight of my face and shrieks.
As she does, my ankle prickles in the same way it usually does when people sing. Her memories pull at me through her cry.
Desperate, I latch on to her scream and send LeRoux’s ghoul blazing into her most recent recollections. The woman careens backward, knocking into one of her friends, and hits the ground. Her head cracks on the tile. Blood spreads, dyeing her pretty blond hair crimson black.
The screams begin, one after the other. I fling my monster into every memory I can find, filling the guests’ minds with shadows, pale faces, and fangs gleaming the color of the girl’s blood.
“It’s the gravoir!” someone roars. “Kill it!”
“Don’t shoot! You’ll hit me!” the man holding me cries.
A gunshot rips through the air, and the man shoves me away, bolting for the door.
All is chaos. Shouts. Cries. Flashes of gilded masks. Faces twisted with disgust.
My power blooms in my chest, hot and ready to burn. I reach out for cry after cry, raining terror on their minds one by one as the beast inside of me fills with rage.
Someone shoves me from behind, and I fall, smacking my head against the tile. I push to my hands and knees, but the world tips dangerously around me. A terrible, high-pitched ringing noise fills my ears, drowning out every other sound.
Including their screams.
The ballroom tilts, and vomit spews from my mouth. I scrabble on hands and knees through the muck to the nearest pillar and pull myself up, only to be dragged backward by my hair and rammed against the wall. A man with a sleek, black mask jams the cold barrel of a pistol into the hollow of my throat.
His face distorts in and out of focus, and the rest of my dinner threatens to come up. The man’s mouth is moving as though he’s shouting, but all I hear is a faraway, garbled mash of syllables.
He yanks my hair harder, and I let out a shout.
“I’ll shoot!” His words finally break through the ringing in my eardrums. The cacophony of the ballroom roars suddenly loud in its absence.
He shoves the pistol deeper into my neck.
This is it. Emeric was right. I will die here because I wanted a moment in the light.
A gun fires.
I flinch, but there is no pain. No death. Only sudden quiet.
Someone shouts, “What in Memory’s name is going on?”
My legs buckle at the sound of Cyril’s voice, and when the man’s grip on me slackens, I wrench away and sprint blindly for the door.
Don’t let Cyril see me, I plead. I can’t bear the thought of him witnessing me like this, defeated, disobedient, and destroying everything we’ve worked for.
“It’s a gravoir!” someone cries.
“Bring it here.” Cyril’s voice is ice.
Hands wrap around my arms and haul me backward. I squirm, but they drag me across the room and toss me like a rag doll against Cyril’s shoes.
I scramble away from him, ashamed of the tattered remains of the dress I wear, ashamed of my missing mask, ashamed of my face.
“I’m sorry,” I whimper from behind my arms. “I didn’t mean for—”
“Look at me.”
I blink up between clumps of
limp, red curls.
His eyes meet mine. Ice-blue and impassive as stone with pupils hard as flint.
“Please.” My lips are slow and thick, as though they’ve forgotten how to form words. My cheek stings where I was struck, and the side of my head aches.
“Why are you here?” His words are crisp and cut and cold.
“I wanted to—I thought I could—”
Boots pound on the floor behind me.
“Channe City Police,” a voice barks. “We were informed you have a gravoir on your premises.”
“Please,” I whisper again.
Cyril stares at me a long moment, and then his mouth twists with disgust. “I want this vile creature removed immediately.”
His words bludgeon through my chest.
I stare at him, and all I can see is the man who brought home raspberry jam to smother on baguette slices. The man who read stacks of fairy tales to me. The man who gave me the gift of music.
Who is this stranger?
He dusts his jacket as though ridding himself of a nuisance. Two pairs of gloved hands yank me unceremoniously out of his sight.
The vomit I’ve been struggling to keep down erupts, and gasps of horror and revulsion ripple around me.
Someone spits as we pass, and the mucus slaps against my left cheek.
With tears burning in my eyes, I let the police drag me away.
The world has won.
We’re nearly to the door when a great groaning sound echoes through the ballroom. Someone shouts, and I glance over my shoulder in time to see the centaur statue fall. It smashes into the refreshment tables.
Food explodes. Chunks of marble hurtle. Glass shatters.
The hands on my arms disappear as the policemen dive to cover their heads.
Something sharp knocks me across my temple. White stars spasm across my vision.
And then all is black.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I awaken to a hot cloth dabbing gently at my cheekbone. Hissing, I lurch away from the shock of pain.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
I sit bolt upright, and then promptly collapse back against a pile of pillows when the world rocks violently to the side.
Sing Me Forgotten Page 17