Streets whiz past. I elbow people aside and dodge cabs and carts at every turn.
Meet me in the darkness, meet me in the night, I chant in my head, as though Emeric might be able to hear it and heed my pleas.
I dart a look over my shoulder and catch sight of Cyril, also on foot, shoving a cart out of his way. He’s far behind me now, but his legs are longer, his gait is quicker, and his body is uninjured. He’ll catch up to me soon.
I jam my hand into my bag to retrieve another vial of elixir and try to dump some into my mouth without slowing my pace. Half of it spills down my front, but I manage to swallow some. A sudden burst of fire burns through my legs, and I channel that into a full-on sprint.
Chapter Thirty-Five
People gawk as I pass and dive out of my way, screaming.
I pay them no mind.
As the meager supply of elixir in my body starts to wane, my ears catch on the sound of voices nearby. Lots of them.
I am only a few blocks from the opera house.
With the sun now completely devoured by the horizon, I don’t have to look at my pocket watch to know it is nearly time for tonight’s performance. I have less than an hour left. If I can make it to the street in front of the entrance, perhaps I can lose Cyril in the crowd.
Gasping for breath, I speed around the last corner, yanking my hood up as I reach the swarm of fancy cloaks and well-pressed jackets. I duck among them, keeping my head bowed to hide my face. My heart thunders against the wheezing strain in my lungs, but I force myself to slow down so as not to draw anyone’s attention, keeping my hands tucked carefully inside my cloak.
All around me, conversations bubble like the fizz at the top of a glass of champagne.
“I saw him the other night—he was absolutely spectacular!”
“They’re saying he’s the best voice Vaureille has ever heard.”
“He’s not bad to look at either.”
Emeric’s name follows me everywhere, in quiet, excited murmurs and bright, cheerful cries.
If they knew what he was like, if they knew about his caramels, gentle hands, and relentless teasing, they would love him all the more. But they will never know that Emeric. The singer on tonight’s stage is nothing but a shell of that boy.
I glance over my shoulder to see where Cyril has gotten to. After a moment of searching, I find him in the crowd. He keeps his expression composed and comfortable in the company of so many of his patrons, but he peers into every face that passes, obviously scouring the area for any sign of me.
Slouching away, I weave among the sparkling gowns and pressed tuxedos. The elixir has depleted entirely from my veins, and my body is tingling for more. I reach the edge of the throng and shift around the corner of the opera house where I’m less likely to be noticed. Fumbling with the bag at my waist, I pull out another vial and raise it to my mouth to pull out the cork.
Someone shouts.
“It’s the gravoir!” A woman points a finger in my direction. “From the papers!”
Jamming the vial back into my bag, I sprint away from the crowd, ignoring my cramping legs and the way it feels as though someone has plunged a knife into my side.
More shouting. More running footsteps. More gunshots.
Wheezing, I dash for the nearest street.
Half a dozen guards barrel toward me from the other end.
Wheeling around, I tear back the way I came, but Cyril is there, pulling a gun from his belt.
I am trapped.
Cyril squeezes off a shot. I dive for the opera house and barely dodge the bullet as it whizzes past my head. Wrapping my good hand around a drainpipe, I hoist myself upward, begging my legs to hold out for a moment longer, begging my heart to keep beating.
Gritting my teeth through the agony in my left hand, I climb. Each step is fire, and pain fills my vision with white smoke. I press on.
Emeric needs me. If I fail to restore his elixir within the next hour, he’ll spend the rest of his life a puppet, good for nothing but an empty performance on Cyril’s stage forevermore.
The beast in my chest growls.
I won’t let Cyril or this Memory-forsaken city win. Not when I have the power to shatter the world.
The drainpipe clangs in my grasp. I glance down. Cyril has taken hold of it and is following me up the side of the building. One of the policemen in the street aims his pistol at me, and a bullet ricochets off the wall near my nose. Stifling a shriek, I pull myself higher, praying that they are all just as unlucky in their aim.
Another shot singes through the rim of my hood, and I choke down a gasp.
“Don’t shoot!” Cyril bellows. “She’s mine!”
I seethe.
Not anymore, Cyril.
I yank myself higher. My arms shake, and my body feels as though I’ve been run over by a cab, but still I keep climbing. With every movement, I think of Emeric’s kiss, soft and fierce and full of passion. You are a song.
Finally, my hands reach the edge of the roof. As I muster the strength to pull myself upward, another gunshot splits the sky and slams me against the wall. My left shoulder explodes with pain, and a scream tears through my lips.
Hot blood pools in my sleeve, slides down my arm, drips from my fingertips.
Cyril laughs.
Spitting curses, I use my right arm to drag myself onto the roof. Once I’m over the edge, I roll away, sucking cold air through my teeth and blinking furious tears from my vision.
Gripping my ruined shoulder with my good hand, I scan the rooftop for a way in. I might be close enough now to access Emeric’s stone, but I still don’t have a knife to make the carvings in my palms.
A small entrance decorated with winged angels juts from the roof next to the domed ceiling of the theater. I stumble toward it, but my legs buckle, and I skid down into the snow.
“Come on, Isda!” I hiss, forcing myself upright and staggering forward once again.
But my legs seem to be made of jelly. I trip, landing so sharply on my left arm that I shriek.
I jam my good hand into the bag for some elixir, but my fingers are slick with blood, and the vials slip out of my grasp.
Cyril reaches the roof and hoists himself to his feet. I scramble backward away from him, leaving a trail of crimson in my wake, until I’m pressed against the door. I reach up to its handle and twist.
But, of course, it is locked.
“Valiant effort, chérie. I applaud you.” Cyril dusts snow and dirt from the sleeves of his jacket. “I’ll admit, I didn’t expect you to be this clever. Brava. It made for quite an exciting afternoon.”
Glaring through sparks of pain, I grip the door handle and try to stand.
If death is coming for me, I will meet it on my feet.
He strolls toward me, as leisurely as though he were taking an outing in one of Channe’s city parks in the spring. He stops a few feet away and raises his pistol.
I meet his gaze and jut out my jaw.
“You were supposed to be it,” he says softly. “All I taught you. All I sacrificed. All the money and time I spent on keeping you happy, alive, and safe. It was for a purpose, and now you’ve ruined everything we built.”
The wind lifts the white hairs around his face, and for a moment I am reminded of how he used to look after a long night of recordkeeping for the Council. With exhausted circles around his eyes and his hair mussed out of its usual styled perfection. How he’d stop by to check on me before retiring to his home to sleep until the opera house’s evening performances.
I always thought he made that extra trip to the opera house because he wanted to see me. Because he cared about me.
Now I know better.
“Why?” My voice is as weak as the skittering pulse in my veins. I sag against the door, but I hold his gaze. “Why me? Why am I still alive when you have hur
t and killed so many others?”
His smile fades, and his nostrils flare. “How did you find out about that?”
“Does it matter?” I wheeze a laugh. “You’re going to shoot me.”
“I don’t want to.”
I laugh again. “Unfortunately, Cyril, I’m not so gullible as I once was.”
His knuckles are white on the gun, but his gaze is steady. “I’m not lying.”
Black stars eat away at the edge of my vision. My legs wobble. I inhale a slow, rackety breath. “What?”
“I don’t want to do this any more than you want me to.” He mops his face with his free hand but keeps his gaze steady on me. “You asked me why I chose you. I’ll tell you why, Izzy. You were the first one I found. You were an ugly little thing. Skinny, bald, hideous...but your eyes were so trusting. They gave me an idea.”
His words echo with the ones he said in the cab weeks ago. Your eyes, sweet Izzy. I looked into your little face and they were all I could see. I had no choice.
“I suppose it was fate. Destiny. Kismet. You learned all that I taught you, and you believed all that I said. Everything was going according to plan except...”
“Except what?”
He grimaces. “Except I never planned to care.”
My blood froths to a boil in an instant. “Save the breath and the lies for someone still deluded enough to believe them. You did not care for me. Buying me pastries and gifts is not the same thing as caring. You know what a person who cares about me wouldn’t do?” I’m shouting now, and tears run down my cheeks, hot and furious and free, and though my body sways, my anger grounds me in this moment, here on the roof, with the man who gave me everything and then destroyed it all. “A person who cares about me would not call me vile. He would not hand me to the police and sentence me to death. He would not reduce the only person who actually does care about me to a walking corpse. And—” I raise my injured hand and shake it at him, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper. “He would not take away my music. Not when he knows what that would do to me.”
Cyril swallows, his eyes never leaving my face.
“So pardon me, monsieur, but I’m done letting you pretend you know a thing about what it means to care for someone.” A wave of dizziness overtakes me at the expense of so much emotion, and I lean back against the door to steady myself.
Cyril cocks his gun. “I suppose ‘care’ isn’t quite the right word. I should have been more precise. You’ve proven yourself to be a blasted nuisance today, but in spite of that, shooting you still seems like such a waste.”
“I was your weapon. An expensive, precious prize. One you spent a lifetime building. Of course you don’t like throwing that work away.”
He glowers at me for a long moment, and then, finally, nods. “You did always have a smart tongue.” He steadies the pistol.
“I am still curious about one thing, though,” I say, leaning heavily on the door handle. “Why did you do what you did to all of those other gravoirs? The torture and the symbols?”
He considers me for several breaths. Bells ring distantly, and I wonder for a moment where they’re coming from until I realize that the sound is all in my own aching, whirling head.
“If I hurt you, you wouldn’t have trusted me anymore,” Cyril says quietly. “A dog who loves his master is much more obedient.”
“They were your test subjects.” My voice is so weak now it’s barely a whisper. “I suppose I knew that. I just hoped it wasn’t true.”
His mouth twists. “You always did believe whatever you wanted to. Living your life in a fantasy world made of sparkles and feathers to cover up the hideousness of reality. Well, let me teach you one last thing, child. Life is ugly.”
I do not blink. “I know enough of ugliness to recognize it when I see it.”
He bares his teeth. And pulls the trigger.
Click.
We both stare at his gun for a split second before he tosses it aside, rips a knife from his belt, and rams me back against the door, pressing its edge to my throat.
“We were so close,” he hisses into my face. “With you by my side, we could have had such power, could have rid the world of fendoir corruption. It would have been only a matter of time before the King would have been begging me to serve on his Imperial Council.” His expression turns cold. “But then you had to go and get yourself seen, and now the whole city is begging for your head on a platter.”
Tears sting the corners of my eyes, and I swing my fist against his forearm, which loosens his grip enough to send his blade flying. It hits the ground and clatters away. With a grunt, he wraps his hands around my throat.
“But luckily, you are not so special. There are other gravoirs, other ways for me to get what I want.”
I struggle against his grip, gasping for air.
“And,” he continues, “thanks to you, I’ll be Channe’s savior, the slayer of the monster. With the Rodin boy singing on my stage, I’ll begin my reign as Council Head with an influx of wealth and prosperity that will change the way Vaureille looks at Channe forever. And now that I control the Council, I’ll be able to prove to King Charles how dangerous the fendoirs are. Finally, I’ll be able to purge the world of them and their influence. You’ve orchestrated everything out so perfectly for me. Well done.”
I buck against Cyril, and he tightens his hands around my windpipe. I gag, kicking at thin air.
As my vision flashes, I see Arlette’s face from Emeric’s memory. Wicked and wild in Marvault’s town square, wrapped in the elixir of an entire marketplace. Dragging memories out of everyone in sight even though none of them were singing. All because of those marks on her hands and that stone at Emeric’s throat.
I need to get to Cyril’s knife.
I dig my fingernails into his eyes, and he throws me to the side. I slam against the dome of the theater’s roof. Coughing, I scramble to the fallen blade and dig it through my bandaging and into my left palm. Pain jolts up my arm, but I tighten my grip and keep working. Once I’ve finished the first symbol, I position the hilt between my teeth and slice into my other hand. The runes are clumsily done, but I have no time to fix them.
Cyril barrels into me, pressing me into the opera house’s roof, his fingers rigid around my windpipe once more, his eyes swollen and furious. Blood trickles from my nail marks on his right cheek.
The dome beneath us vibrates with the sound of the orchestra. The performance has begun. Emeric is directly below me, most likely waiting behind the curtain to come onstage. His stone should be close enough.
Yet I feel nothing. No thrum of power, no tingle in my hands, no tide of a thousand memory rivers come to whisk me to sea.
I swing the dagger at Cyril’s face, but he jerks me sideways by the throat, knocking the weapon from my bloody fingers.
Shards of white slice through my vision.
I kick weakly, dragging slippery hands against Cyril’s vise grip. My lungs scream for air. My body spasms uncontrollably.
I was wrong. The stone must not be a catalyseur. I am going to die here on the roof, and Emeric will spend the rest of his existence no better than dead.
My mind whirls with music that has nothing to do with the symphony below. Music that is faint at first, but soon grows. The tinkling of tiny bells in a pendant, the strum of organ chords against stone walls, Emeric’s laugh.
The beast in my chest twitches as my vision fades.
Darkness welcomes me, drags comforting fingers along all the places where I hurt, dispelling the pain until there’s nothing left but quiet and stillness.
I was not fast enough.
Cyril has won.
“Goodbye, chérie,” Cyril whispers.
Then Emeric’s voice fills the sky, and the world explodes into gold.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The dome beneath me shudders. Cyril’s gr
ip loosens. Coughing and gasping, I shove away from him. The symbols I’ve carved into my flesh shine with a brilliant light to rival the stars.
Cyril gapes, eyes wide with wonder and fear. Sweat glistens on his brow. My blood streaks his white tuxedo shirt.
I push to my feet as Emeric’s voice crescendos into my soul.
Sweet, sweet music.
The melody caresses my arms, strokes down my spine, winds its fingers through my hair.
And it thrums like life in the marks on my hands.
At once, it dawns on me. I thought Arlette used her powers to drain everyone in the town square even though no one was singing. But someone was.
Emeric.
The stone wasn’t the catalyseur; he was.
That’s why my power was so drawn to him, why his music affected me physically. Why his memories were so different from everyone else’s.
The roof’s shaking increases until dust rises from the corners. Cracks spiderweb across the dome, and amber light swirls out from them, twinkling gold dust in the night.
There is a moment where the ceiling seems to billow outward, as though the opera house is inhaling.
And then the roof collapses.
The chandelier beneath my feet is a sparkling array of diamonds and light, and it falls as though in slow motion. Each shard of glass and each sculpture of crystal reflects the iridescent blaze in my palms as the air swoops upward, whipping my dress and hair.
Cyril and I plummet.
Two thousand faces turn upward, and, with Emeric’s voice vibrating through the symbols in my hands, two thousand souls tug on my power at once. Instead of focusing on those memories, I swivel about as I fall, fixating on the stage and the lone figure standing at its center.
“Emeric!” I shout.
A crash shatters the air as the chandelier hits the stage. Crystal and glass smash across the wood. Fire erupts.
Cyril cries out as he slams next to it, splintering into the wood with an earsplitting crunch.
Somehow my power has already begun to grasp onto people’s elixir, and it flows toward me in tiny, sparkling droplets that thicken the air and slow my fall. When my feet finally touch the edge of the stage, I break into a mad dash for Emeric.
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