The ballet that night began on a bright note. The Champs-Élysées was one of Paris’s best-lit neighborhoods, with electric streetlamps along all its major avenues, and when Céleste stepped out of the cab onto Avenue Montaigne, her crème de menthe–colored gown turned into something truly liquid. Drinkable. Several gentlemen stopped to stare as the young woman made her way to the theatre entrance, so mesmerized that they didn’t see that they, in turn, were being sized up, measured by the fabric of their waistcoats and the contents of their pockets.
By Honoré and Sylvie, respectively.
It had been a long time since the Enchantresses had performed a long con, but Céleste fell back into her role with ease. Be the shiny thing. Be as gold as the doors of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, which are brilliant enough to break a bird’s neck. Brilliant enough too to bounce Céleste’s reflection back at her. Her wig was black, and her smile was perfectly painted on. Only her eyes felt familiar, as gray as Père Lachaise’s gravestones. And just as haunted.
There was a wealth of potential marks in the theatre, though the audience was a strange mix. This ballet had brought out the bohemian crowd. Men who tied their hair back with twine and had pencils tucked behind their ears in case inspiration struck. They were frowned upon by the wealthier patrons—the ones who wore tails and tulle, diamonds and ospreys. By the stage was a woman dressed in a boa made of peacock feathers. Deep teal, velveteen purple, a green as drunk as Céleste’s gown… it was unlike anything she’d ever seen, which meant it had to be worth some money. The woman wore gold too. Her wrists shimmered with bracelets, and when the orchestra began tuning, she waved her arms as if she herself were the conductor. Strange… too strange to make a target of, certainly.
Their next victim was more likely among the gentlemen who milled at the edges of the theatre, talking business. Honoré’s moustache and suit blended seamlessly as she eavesdropped for opportunities. From this distance it was easy to lose her in the crowd.
Sylvie, on the other hand, was starting to stand out.
The youngest Enchantress was in the middle of the aisle, holding a pocket watch—twenty-four karats and ripe for stealing. Or it would have been, if the man who owned the timepiece hadn’t secured it to his vest. Twice. His first fob chain dangled loosely. The second linked Sylvie—undeniably—to the crime.
She’d gotten herself caught.
Céleste made a quick study of Sylvie’s would-be victim. He was quick too. He’d already snagged the girl by the wrist, and the fact he chained his valuables twice over meant that he was familiar with thieves. Aside from the watch, he didn’t seem to have much worth stealing. Whereas most men in this theatre sported top hats and dapper suits, this one wore a looser version of the outfit: no jacket, only a vest to keep his rolled sleeves in place. His hair was as dark as calligraphy ink, but colors splashed his fingertips—so Céleste could place the man as a fellow painter.
She found herself wanting to paint him.
The sensation surprised her. It had been years since she’d worked with live models—or had any desire to—but there was an edge to this young man that drew Céleste in, a sharpness that had nothing to do with his jawline or his forearms. Both were so defined that she’d need to whittle a pencil to its finest point to mark his likeness onto paper. She’d have to press harder for the brows, except at the part where a scar nicked through the right arc. This, along with the small blue mark that had been tattooed beneath his left eye, only made Céleste aware of how symmetrical the rest of his face was. What beautiful bone structure! There was a divot on his chin that sparked an irrational desire to place her own thumb there.
She reached for Sylvie’s hand instead, her heart racing. “Pardon me, monsieur! And pardon my sister, please. I asked her to find out the time, but she hates speaking to strangers, so she must have tried to peek at your watch. She meant no harm.”
This was where Céleste would normally swish her skirts to show a sliver of ankle, but something told her this man would see past that. She couldn’t decide what color his eyes were. Brown, technically. But it was the kind of brown that broke into different colors, depending on where he stared. Hints of amber. Flecks of mica. They flashed when he watched Céleste. Not quite gold, but not quite angry either.
“Your sister?” He danced delicately around the word. His scarred eyebrow lifted in a broken arc, no doubt trying to bridge the differences between Céleste’s pale features and Sylvie’s shading. “I suppose you both do share the ability to stop a room.”
The theatre had paused, Céleste realized, when she dared to break away from his gaze. Other ballet patrons were watching the taut gold watch chain, waiting to see what this handsome stranger would do.
He continued speaking, low enough for only Céleste and Sylvie to hear. “I’m afraid your sister has made a poor choice.”
It’s certainly worse than stealing a few stale loaves of bread.
If the artist filed a police report, Sylvie could get locked away… Céleste gripped the girl’s opposite wrist and started counting out the exits in her head; they were already starting to shrink—an usher was making his way down the aisle. On the other side of the theatre, Honoré had unbuttoned her cuff links and was all but leaping over seats in an effort to reach them. Businessmen forgot about potential investments. Ladies gasped behind their fans, scandalized.
How much of a mess would it be if Honoré pulled a knife from her suit? And she would, if she thought the other Enchantresses were in danger.
Céleste wasn’t sure they were just yet.
There was still room to talk her way out of this… she could see it in the artist’s eyes, the way they lit from Sylvie to his watch. The extra chain’s gold links winked like a fuse beneath the theatre lighting, but his grip on the girl’s other wrist wasn’t as tight as it could have been. Again, Céleste noticed the paint splashing his fingertips, the rough crack of a callus beneath.
They had more common ground than not.
“Monsieur, please. The only scenes I enjoy creating are still lifes with fruit and flowers and the occasional lobster.”
A smile. It was crooked, yes, but a smile nonetheless. “I bet you have a damn hard time getting lobsters to sit still.”
“Not really,” Céleste quipped back. “Sisters are much more of a challenge.” She nodded at Sylvie. “I’m sorry for the trouble mine has caused you. Would you happen to have the time, monsieur?”
The artist shook his head and turned toward the usher.
Shit.
Honoré was still several rows away. Sylvie squirmed. Céleste wondered if she should wrench the girl free and run—if she’d even be fast enough in these skirts. But before she could try anything, Sylvie’s victim released her himself, waving the usher away with paint-streaked fingers.
“No. As I said, your sister made a poor choice.” The artist tugged on his double fob chains. His smile looked just as taut. “My watch doesn’t tell time.”
Tick tock. It took Céleste another second to realize what had happened.
He was letting them off the hook.
Sylvie, however, still wasn’t releasing the watch. The girl’s fist tightened over the timepiece. “It’s not broken! I can feel it ticking!” the youngest Enchantress insisted.
“That would be impossible.” The artist pulled his fob chains even harder, reeling the pocket watch from her palm. There was an hourglass with wings engraved in its filigree—a symbol that meant time is fleeting in the language of tombstones—but when he opened the watch, it was clear that the hands were frozen. Stuck at 8:45. “See?”
Sylvie stared and stared, as if she could make the gears move by sheer force of will. “Why would you wear a broken watch?”
“Why would you try to steal one?” he asked, not unkindly.
“It’s shiny.”
“Ma rêveuse!” Céleste scowled.
After so many homespun fairy tales, Sylvie chose now to tell the truth? Admitting a crime was the worst crime of all. “Oh… that’s right. I’m supposed to tell you that I’m an orphan. And you should feel sorry for me.”
“Is that so?”
“It is!” Sylvie chirped. “Do you feel sorry for me?”
“Not particularly,” the artist told her. “But I understand, seeing as I too am part magpie,” he said with a wink.
Sylvie cocked her head. “You’re a bird?”
Not a bird but a fellow thief, Céleste realized. That would explain the second fob chain. It would also explain why he hadn’t raised more of a fuss with the theatre staff, why his lips were still set with that slightly crooked smile. She didn’t realize how hard she was staring at them until his eyes found hers again.
“I find it difficult to resist shiny things,” he said.
Crème brûlée. That was their shade, she decided, just as Honoré arrived, ready to speak in a proper baritone and sweep the other two Enchantresses away. But as soon as she saw the artist’s face, she froze, as rigid as the ring on her middle finger. Céleste knew for a fact that this wasn’t because of how handsome the man looked. No, there was some different chemistry between them.
Something that caused Honoré to break character—when she spoke, her voice was high and cracking. “Rafael?”
It was the artist’s turn to straighten. His eyes widened. “Gabriel?”
Honoré had stolen plenty of identities over the years, but as far as Céleste knew, she’d never named herself after an archangel.
“No…” The artist was staring at the dragon ring, his face pale. “Mon Dieu! You look just like him…”
Honoré looked as if she’d been stabbed. Her own knife stayed tucked up her sleeve, glinting just past that unbuttoned cuff.
“Wait!” Sylvie chirped. “You know Honoré?”
“Honoré?” The artist’s eyebrows rose as his hand wandered to the back of his neck. “That wasn’t her name when—”
“Rafael and I grew up together.” The other Enchantress shoved her fists into her pockets. She was no longer frozen but shifting back and forth, matching the uneasy sounds of the orchestra.
“My name’s changed too. I go by ‘Rafe’ these days.”
This got a snort from Honoré. “Rafe?”
“It fits better on the bottom of a canvas,” he answered.
“Still painting, huh?”
“Céleste paints!” Sylvie volunteered gaily.
Rafe’s eyebrows arched even higher. “Oh? So that part was true?”
It was. And suddenly, this made Céleste feel as wriggly as Honoré or that lobster she’d dropped into a boiling pot of water. That still life had been relatively painless. Well, not for the lobster. She’d split its shell for dinner that night, and somehow, now, she could feel that too: seen at the seams, then cracked open.
Was Céleste becoming a worse liar?
Or was this man an even better one?
Judging by Honoré’s reaction, it was the latter. “What the hell are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in Constantinople by now? Or stowing away on some luxury streamliner?” There was a bitterness to the other Enchantress’s voice that Céleste had never noted before. “Eating some shit like caviar?”
“Caviar are eggs, I believe,” Rafe said, with a voice that did not match the way his hand gripped the nape of his neck. “Though I can’t say with any certainty. I never did manage to make my way to first class—and it turns out that Paris is the best place in the world to be a penniless painter. Me voilà!”
“You aren’t penniless! You have a gold watch.” Sylvie reached for his timepiece again, tapping its glass face with her finger.
Just like that, the watch started to work.
Céleste inhaled sharply when she saw the hands move. They weren’t ticking but spinning, gliding over minutes and hours, until they came to a halt at half past twelve. The theatre suddenly felt as if it had fallen out of time itself. The stained glass ceiling—which had been pieced together to look like sunrays bursting through storm clouds—went dim. Violins sharpened their tune. Dust swirled in the stage lights, and Céleste started to sway.
Sylvie reached out to steady her.
Rafe did too. “Is everything all right, mademoiselle?” His hairline somehow looked even darker as his brow furrowed. “Are you well?”
Honestly? No. Céleste was seeing things that weren’t there. The open watch spun from his waistcoat. 8:45. Gold backing. 8:45. Gold backing. 8:45. Behind her, the instruments ceased tuning, and there was the rainlike patter of ballerinas’ slippers behind the curtain. She thought she’d had more time than this…
“Mon amie?” Honoré whispered.
“I’m fine,” Céleste said. Everyone else in the theatre was taking their seats, and a hush had sunk into the venue, making its velvet richer, its shadows bolder. “We should sit.”
Rafe closed his watch. An odd look passed over Sylvie’s face as the artist returned the timepiece to his waistcoat, securing the loose fob chain for good measure. This was probably the first time the youngest Enchantress had failed to pick a pocket. It wasn’t an easy thing, to discover you were not invincible.
Céleste’s steps wobbled as she started down the aisle, and when Honoré offered a steadying arm, she did so with her left. The hand with the dragon ring stayed stuffed in her pocket.
“Good thinking on the fake faint,” her friend murmured as they found their seats.
Céleste still felt lightheaded, but she did not say so. She didn’t ask about Rafe either.
“Did you overhear any investment opportunities?” she wondered instead.
Honoré shook her head. “All anyone was talking about was this ballet…” She pointed to the second title in the program: The Rite of Spring. “It’s about a Russian virgin who dances herself to death as a pagan sacrifice. Most avant-garde.”
“Was it written by a man?”
“Obviously.”
The stage curtains lifted, and ballerinas in long white tutus began fluttering to the music of Chopin. Sylvie watched, rapt, the dancers turning like stars in her eyes. Even Honoré got caught up in the fluent movement of the performers’ limbs. Crescent-moon Cs and serpentine Ss. Across the aisle, Céleste could see Rafe sitting on the edge of his seat, running his thumb over the face of his pocket watch. The rest of him was still, so still, and the stage lights brought out the most dramatic shading around his face. Again, she felt her fingers itching for a pen.
His gaze met hers, suddenly, as if he hadn’t really been watching the dancers after all.
Céleste’s pulse quickened.
The edge of Rafe’s mouth sharpened—another smile?
She found herself matching it, even as she looked away to join the polite smattering of applause when the first dance ended. The lady sitting in front of the Enchantresses did not clap. It was the same woman wearing the peacock boa—her pale shoulders peeked through its feathers. The bones beneath were sharp, the muscles tense. She was no longer watching the orchestra but the side stage, where the dancers were disappearing. The shadows there struck Céleste as strange. She studied them for a moment and realized they were stretching in a way that didn’t agree with the spotlights. They looked almost sticky.
Her grin slipped from her face.
Was she seeing things again?
Suddenly, the other woman stood. Feathers fell in an iridescent trail down her back—not a boa at all but a cape. It swirled around her heels as she leapt toward the stage: up and over. She disappeared behind falling curtains.
“Is she allowed to do that?” Sylvie wondered.
Honoré looked up from the program she’d been poring over. “Do what?”
“The woman sitting in front of us just jumped backstage,” Céleste informed her.
“Oh…” Honoré stared at the empty chair for an extra beat. Her brow crinkled. “Maybe it’s part of the performance. I’ll admit I’m curious to see what the fuss is about. Virgin sacrifices aside, a ballet can’t be that scandalous, can it?”
Céleste wasn’t sure. She looked back to the shadows onstage, but they had settled. The audience had done the opposite. They lit up the back of her neck with their whispers. She heard someone hiss, and again she was reminded of a fuse…
Rafe was no longer in his seat when she glanced across the aisle, but for some reason, her pulse kept on thundering. Her heart felt like cannon fire in her chest as the musicians lifted their horns to their lips. There was a furious rush of spring pipes, the exact sound you’d hear if you stepped on a hornets’ nest. Curtains drew back. The dancers behind them bore no resemblance to the ballerinas from before. Their homespun dresses shuddered as they stomped across the stage; their braids swung in unwieldy arcs. With each press of their feet, the shadows by their slippers stirred, around and around and around.
The darkness did not merely stretch this time. It swarmed.
Céleste watched in horror as the shadows broke apart and grew dozens of tiny wings, whipping up into a cloud strong enough to make the painted background flutter. The spin of Rafe’s watch, she could pass off as dizziness, but the dark fog onstage only grew worse as she gripped her seat. Her chest tightened too. This couldn’t be happening. This shouldn’t be happening. Was she hallucinating? She’d heard of people doing that, calling out to long-dead parents or seeing angels at their bedsides, but that was usually right before their final breaths.
She couldn’t breathe now. Panic gripped her throat, forcing her to cough into her opera gloves. Rouge smeared across their creamy fabric. No… not rouge. Céleste stared at the color. It was wrong, wrong, wrong. Too dark. Like the floor by her feet, where the shadows seemed to rush around her ankles, tugging like some inevitable tide…
There was a scream.
It might have been hers. That would explain how Céleste heard it above the cacophony that called itself an orchestra. But when she heard the piercing sound again, when she looked up, there were no shadows on the stage at all—the dancers were stomping on a floor filled with feathers. Swirls of teal. Pliés of purple. The last gasps of green as they were pulverized.
There was no starry light left in Sylvie’s eyes when she caught a crushed feather in her cupped hands.
On the other side of Céleste, Honoré flinched. A crumpled program had hit her between the shoulders, thrown by some upset audience member. It was impossible to tell who. When Céleste turned around, all she saw were hostile faces. It was as if the pagan pulse of the drums had slithered into everyone’s veins. Beautiful women in beautiful gowns snarled like tigers. The gentlemen next to them rolled up their sleeves.
And their shadows. Their shadows were pulling away just as the dancers’ had, smudging the outskirts of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées like a charcoal drawing. Céleste could no longer see the gilded quote above the wealthy men’s boxes. She couldn’t even see the shine of the exits.
“We need to leave!” Céleste screamed over the orchestra. The musicians kept on playing, despite the fact that more projectiles were being launched at the stage: Programs. Fruit. A champagne glass. This shattered a bit too close to Honoré’s top hat as she wedged it back on her head.
“Immediately,” she agreed.
Sylvie was already in the aisle. Céleste tried to follow, but two men lurched in front of her, their fists flying. Smashed spectacles and black eyes. It was exactly the kind of brawl you’d expect in a back alley.
The kind of fight Honoré trained so relentlessly for.
The other Enchantress threw herself in front of Céleste, clearing a path with a few well-placed jabs. Her eyes lit up as she began to undo her cuff links. “Go, mon amie! I’ll meet you and Sylvie back at the cemetery!”
Céleste pushed toward the rear of the theatre, trying to catch up with the youngest Enchantress. Shoulders, elbows, feathers, shadows, screams—everyone was screaming, and somehow this made her feel better.
Someone stepped on her dress.
Then her toes.
The floor felt mired, as if she were sludging through mud instead of carpet. Céleste managed to pull herself up the aisle and through the lobby, then finally into the night. Here she stood. Out of breath. Scanning the sidewalks frantically for Sylvie. There was no sign of the youngest Enchantress in the steady pools of light cast by electric streetlamps.
Other ballet attendees had begun gathering beneath them. Women sobbed about their torn gowns, while men with bruised knuckles tried to comfort them. Someone was calling for the police. Accusations were flying: “Those damned bohemians were the ones who started it! Throwing fruit as if they were jungle apes!” followed by, “Better fruit than a bottle of Veuve Clicquot!”
No one was talking about the way the dancers’ shadows had swarmed like hornets.
Céleste stared back at the theatre. She did not spot Honoré. She almost didn’t recognize Rafe either, when the artist stumbled out. His hair had come untied, falling in front of his face. Through black tangles, she could tell his lip was split. Bleeding. He didn’t seem to see Céleste until she was close enough to take a second swipe at his pocket watch.
She resisted the urge.
Barely.
“Have you seen Sylvie?” she asked instead.
Rafe wasn’t smiling when he swept his hair from his face. His jawline looked sharper than ever. “Who?”
“The magpie girl—”
Something about his stare caused Céleste to falter. She’d lost her wig, she realized. It had gotten ripped off in the chaos, and now her roots were showing—hair that had gone as silver as starlight despite her youth. It was her most striking feature, in more ways than one. She gritted her teeth whenever fellow painters compared her to an Alphonse Mucha drawing and suggested that she wear a lily behind her ear, like some budding spring goddess. How lucky you are to be born with such beauty!
They had no idea how wrong they were.
But Rafe made no mention of flowers or the unnatural shade of her hair. “Ah, yes. I saw your sister helping herself to more sparkly accoutrements in the lobby. She seemed to be enjoying the crime immensely. But you, mademoiselle…” His gaze landed on her gloves. “You’re bleeding.”
There was no denying it, but her tongue searched for a lie out of habit. Out of sheer self-preservation. It’s makeup. It’s red wine. But none of these excuses were convincing enough.
It was blood.
It was hers.
Céleste was not all right. Up until now she’d been able to ignore it, to dismiss it, to tell herself—and the other Enchantresses—that her hay fever was simply worse this spring.
But roses couldn’t do this.
Not even damned ones.
“You’re bleeding too,” she told Rafe.
“Eh.” The artist dabbed his lip. The skin around his right eye had an extra shine—the beginnings of a bruise. “I’ve been in worse brawls. This isn’t even my first fight at a ballet, if you can believe it. Did our mutual acquaintance start this one too?”
Honoré. There was still no sign of her, but Céleste did spot Sylvie exiting the theatre, wearing a sapphire necklace. Obviously stolen. It was bound to attract the attention of the police officers who’d started to canvas the crowd.
Sylvie’s eyes lit up when she caught sight of Rafe and Céleste, and as the girl began to make her way toward them, Céleste felt her own red panic rising again. She wanted more time. She wanted her stained gloves to be a costume, something she could peel off or pretend away. She wanted the youngest Enchantress to stay out of jail, out of sight of the policeman who was now interviewing witnesses by their lamppost.
“Excuse me!” Céleste grabbed the man’s uniform sleeve, tugged all his attention toward her. “Monsieur! What on earth is going on? I demand an explanation!”
The officer paused when he saw Céleste, and she felt the loss of her wig more keenly. She could see Sylvie from the corner of her eye—the pause of silver and sapphires. This became a shooting star streak as the girl made her way across the street, fading into the evening. Céleste exhaled and released the policeman’s sleeve.
“I’d like an explanation as well.” The officer produced a notepad and a pen. “No one seems to be able to tell me why this riot broke out. Did you see anything of note, mademoiselle?”
I saw a broken watch tick. I saw shadows spin their own dancers. I saw an entire theatre of people possessed by some strange darkness.
Céleste knew how these things sounded. “There were feathers,” she said instead.
Rafe looked at her sharply.
“Feathers?” the policeman asked.
“The woman seated in front of me was wearing a feathered cape. She jumped backstage before the music began, and then there was a scream, and then… feathers. Floating everywhere.”
The policeman nodded, but it was clear he wasn’t taking her seriously. He wasn’t even taking her statement. His pen tapped idly against his notepad. He glanced back at Rafe. “And you, monsieur? Did you see this woman with the cape?”
“I—I can’t recall,” he said slowly.
“And the feathers?”
Rafe pinched his lips. “All I saw was an ostrich headdress getting plucked like a Christmas quail. To be fair, it was difficult to see much of anything. That theatre was chaos incarnate.”
“Clearly,” the officer said. “The ladies seem hysterical.”
Céleste’s fist tightened around her bloody gloves. Hysteria—always the convenient excuse, always targeted at women.
But was it the truth this time? Was the consumption inside her so hungry that it had climbed from her lungs into her brain? Had her panic somehow set off the rest of the audience?
“The gentlemen were even worse,” Rafe told the police officer, who was taking down his statement word for word. “The wealthy crowd and the bohemians have always been at each other’s throats about the meaning of art. My guess is that tonight was the ballet that broke the camel’s back.”
Men and women kept fluttering like moths around the brightly lit theatre doors—but if you looked high enough, you could forget the chaos. Céleste stared up at the stone edifice—where a carving of Apollo played his harp for the nine muses. The woman standing behind the naked god had a massive pair of outstretched wings.
That was the sort of statue she’d want guarding her own grave.
She hated that this thought came to her so quickly. Hated that she’d have to walk back to the cemetery—with all its buried bones and unspent gold—and tell the other Enchantresses that they needed to plan for a future without her.
She didn’t want to go.
Not yet.
But what choice did she have?
Rafe’s watch chains winked at Céleste beneath the lamplight. “I think I could use a drink after that rampant display of chauvinism,” he said, once the policeman wandered off.
“What, you didn’t have enough champagne bottles flung at you during the riot?” Céleste asked with a smile.
A small smirk grew on Rafe’s face too. “I did get hit by a tin of caviar, if you can believe it.”
She didn’t believe him, but it was a nice excuse to laugh. For just a moment, Céleste Artois could forget about the terrible fate that lay ahead. She found herself wanting to hold on to the feeling a little longer.
“What do you say, mademoiselle? Shall we bid adieu to this unruly scene and start another? I know of a charming place on the Left Bank that serves no fish eggs whatsoever.”