Had the world itself come down around my ears in the next moments, I would not have heard it, could not have stopped it. Cacophony reigned inside my head, all the certainties and horrors of youth replaying themselves, all the inevitable ramifications crashing down with the sound of cymbals in my ears.
No voice master save le Monstre could care that his protégée should wear a mystical crown of command when playing the role of a queen—the role of perhaps the most famous queen in history. Not only playing her, non, but singing her, in the voice trained by his care and talent. Singing, to waken the greatest height of emotion, of passion, of obedience, in those who listened. Rendering them vulnerable to command, opening them to the machinations of induced emotions, preparing them to generate more emotion for le Monstre to distill and bottle and use. And in this modern era, Baker's vocals would be recorded, extending le Monstre's reach not just to those who attended the Opéra, but around the globe, to anyone who might ever listen to la grande dame's vocals soar and demand.
Had I any doubts, they were settled. Le Monstre was alive and had taken Josephine on as his student. I had failed as a youth, and la Ville-Lumière, perhaps all the world, was endangered again thanks to my failures.
Because worse even than le Monstre's plans for the crown could be the Führer's. If le Monstre had not survived to find Hatshepsut's crown, then it might have remained forever hidden and not an item of interest to a growing fascist regime. This single item could win the Führer unchallenged command over Egypt, over the very land from which Moses had led his people, then everywhere might indeed fall to his reign. Le Monstre then would seem a pittance, a laughingstock against the injustices meted by a madman on the throne of the world. In failing to kill le Monstre half a lifetime ago, I had failed more utterly than I could have comprehended.
"Amelia? Amelia." Distantly, as if I watched someone else and felt what they felt from a remove, I knew Khan's hand fitted itself around my elbow; knew that he guided me to a chair and sat me down, then wrapped something warm and soft around my shoulders. A hint of perfume drifted from it: Josephine's stole. I buried my face in it, eyes closed, as if that soft sweet scent and the wild woman who wore it could somehow save me from the errors I had made long ago.
"Forgive me my enthusiasm and the distress it's caused you," Khan said in clear concern. "It clearly can't be real, Amelia. Circumstantial evidence aside, if it was truly Hatshepsut's crown, Madame Baker would have lost her mind upon donning it. Unless, of course, it requires a certain awareness to trigger its mystical powers—"
"No." My voice and the world came back to me all at once. "I felt it in the theatre. We all did. She sang and we rose up as the Egyptian people might have, had Cleopatra commanded them. The compulsion was overwhelming. I thought it was only the performer, the performance—"
Baker sniffed, elucidating her opinion of it being anything else with that tiny derisive sound. Could I have laughed, I would have, but the magnitude of my mistakes and the task to set them right was too great to allow for humor now. I went on with a bleak conviction lending my words weight. "She is no ordinary mortal, Khan. She is Josephine Baker. She has been extraordinary since her first steps on a stage. She is a performer, larger than life, known around the world. What else might a queen be, than that?"
"But to what end, Amelia? Why give a performer, even a superlative one, the crown of Hatshepsut? Who is this mysterious voice master?"
"C'est le Monstre, Khan. Le Monstre aux Yeux Verts."
The Centurions—my brothers-in-arms, the others also born on the first day of the century and gifted with certain traits to help us defend the changing world from extraordinary threats—had known me long enough that no more explanation was necessary. Khan's comforting hand fell from my shoulder, and I heard him lean heavily into his chair, its joints creaking and complaining with the sudden weight. "Oh. And foolishly, I thought you had come for the race."
"Le Mon—the green-eyed monster? Who is the green-eyed monster? My master is Giuseppe Abatino—"
"Your master is a crime lord," I said as swiftly and harshly as I could. "I know it will seem unlikely to you, but I knew him in my youth. He has always been besotted by music, searching for the most powerful voices in order to work alchemical magics. My father died at his hands and my mother, who was a singer, nearly did as well."
"Oh." Josephine, too, sat back into her chair, and gazed at me as if unseeing for a little while. I could not guess at her thoughts, save to imagine she thought me mad, but in time she spoke again, more subdued than I had become accustomed to. "He teaches from shadow, like le fantôme de l'opéra. Of course I saw the parallels, but it seemed romantic and charming and theatrical, and his skill was indisputable. He moves—" She took a breath, as if steeling herself. "He moves short on one side, as if he can't stretch himself to a full stride or reach. All of his gestures come from the left, where his range of motion is easier. It could be that he's disfigured. I suppose I thought he was. Like the Phantom."
"Did you never wish to rip his mask away?" asked Khan softly.
"And expose myself to the horror of his face? I've seen the film, Professor. I know what happens to the eager ingénue. I am not that young." Josephine examined the backs of her hands momentarily, murmuring, "Perhaps I never was." As if her hands had told her a story she did not wish to hear, she closed them again and lifted her gaze. "I've never seen all of his face, but I've seen the color of his eyes. They are green. How will I help you ensnare him?"
"You will not," I said with unnecessary ferocity. "He is a matter for me to deal with, and I will risk no one, least of all you, Josephine, to his machinations. I shall bring you to my mother—"
"While I would adore to meet the woman who raised a swashbuckling daughter," she said in so dry a tone I could not determine whether she teased me or not, "you will certainly not hide me away from the world while you pursue a madman. I have not worked this hard to disappear in the hour of my crowning glory, and neither you nor your impressive friend will succeed in forcing me to."
Khan cleared his throat and, when we both looked to him, appeared abashed. "My dear Amelia, I must stand with Josephine on this, though I confess my reasons to do so are manifold. First, although I am as loathe as you to lead her into danger, I might point out that she is uniquely suited to draw le Monstre into the light. Surely, if he's taught her, he won't be able to resist seeing her perform at least once? So our goal must first be to keep her safe in daylight hours, a task for which your mother's apartment might indeed be eminently suitable. She, more than anyone, knows the risks of succumbing to him, and would certainly bar her doors against all strangers if required."
Despite having been the one to propose my mother's home as a place of safety, I muttered a sour, "Bars would not stop le Monstre should he suspect where Josephine had gone to ground," and my next thought was interrupted by Josephine's simple suggestion:
"Then perhaps you ought to remain at my side, Amelia. I have never seen anyone so well suited as a bodyguard, except perhaps Chiquita, and the authorities don't care for her being unleashed in public."
I gazed nonplussed at Josephine, unable to decide between delight at the prospect of spending my days in her company and offense at being compared to the world's most famous cheetah. "Madame, the authorities also do not care for me being unleashed in public."
Josephine showed no regret at all over the comparison, though her dark eyes sparkled enough to tell me she had made the jab deliberately, wanting, perhaps, to see if I would unsheathe my claws to scratch at her. She sounded pleased that I had. "After this past evening's performance, I can see why. Come home with me, Amelia. I'll introduce you to Chiquita and we'll see which of you is the more dangerous."
"Ahem." Khan shifted with discomfort as we both looked to him. "The trouble with this plan, Amelia, is that I, er, am in quite dire need of your assistance on the morrow."