Chapter 26

The Point of No Return

Once upon a time, an orphan, a princess, a knight, and a tomcat broke into an opera house…

This time, the lock was small enough for a hairpin. Sylvie still had a few on hand as she stood outside the Palais Garnier. She’d always thought it funny that some Parisians called this building a grand wedding cake, but as she broke open its doors and stepped inside, she could see why: Layers upon layers of marble. Tiers of gold. Even the air tasted sweet, blooming with dozens of perfumes left over from audience members who’d gone their separate ways hours before. It was well past midnight, and aside from Honoré, there was no one to stop the two girls from running up the vestibule’s grand staircase and sliding down its polished bannister.

Well, there were the statues.

A pair of women stood at the bottom; the lamps in their arms were switched off, but Sylvie could still feel sparks inside them. It was the same with the metal salamander curled at the bottom of the column. Sylvie knew now that she could wake the sculptures if she wanted. She could make them sing or stand guard or spill secrets…

“Anastasia!”

The grand duchess paused at the top of the stairs—a strange sight in her nightgown and magical fur coat. “Yes?”

“Do you want to practice another spell?”

Sylvie and Russia’s youngest princess had been meeting every night over the past week to do just that. They unlocked the pink door and stepped into each other’s worlds. Paris, mostly. Their very first night had been spent on top of the Eiffel Tower, eating cloud crème éclairs while Sylvie pointed out the electric-lamp constellations that made up her city.

“Montmartre is that way! You can borrow wings from one of its cabarets. Oh, and down there in the Seine is a floating island where a magical carnival used to be. The carousel horses run wild now. They like to eat the silver-skinned apples that grow in the corner of the Jardin du Luxembourg over there.” She noticed something strange as her finger traced over certain arrondissements. The Champs-Élysées did not look as bright as it should, even though the neighborhood’s lamps were lit. Belleville—on the distant horizon—was even darker.

Sylvie skipped these explanations.

“What happened to the carnival?” Anastasia asked, through a hefty bite of cloud crème. It was a good thing they’d knotted their gowns to the Eiffel Tower’s iron, or the princess would have drifted away.

“Well…” Sylvie’s answer drifted too. She wasn’t quite sure. It didn’t make sense—why La Fée Verte had so easily abandoned her old dream of sharing magic. What would Paris look like if she’d kept on creating daydreamers after she banished the evil sorcerer?

This was their chance to find out. For seven midnights in a row, the two girls had wandered the city, sharpening their imaginations. Double-headed firebirds flew around cathedral towers and accidentally melted the feathers of Stohrer’s chocolate swallows. Anastasia was getting better at pulling ideas from her head, although the princess almost always broke hers, for the delight of watching them swirl to life. Glass snowflakes and rainbow parrots and even larger things that would not fit through the door back to Russia. It was just as well. None of these dreams disappeared at dawn, so it was better if they didn’t go swirling around Rasputin’s territory. Sylvie could manage the princess’s imaginings in Paris.

She managed most of their bigger magic too, spells Anastasia was all too willing to practice with her. “I think we can make these statues wake up!”

“Why?” Honoré had finished scanning the perimeter and was eyeing the torch-bearing women warily.

The grand duchess skipped down the steps to join them. “Why not?”

“They could attack us,” the other Enchantress pointed out. “Or they could turn on their lamps and alert someone that we’re here—”

“Or,” Sylvie said, “they could give us some clues about where to find the treasure.”

A snort from Honoré. “I’d hardly call the disembodied heart of an evil sorcerer a treasure.”

It could be made of gold, Marmalade added as he sniffed the salamander statue. That’s what King Tutankhamun entombed. But it could just as easily be a ball of yarn. Or a mouse.

“A mouse?” Sylvie squirmed.

I love mice.

“What is he going on about?” wondered Honoré.

“The shape of a heart,” answered Sylvie.

“It’s like this, right?” Anastasia traced a Valentine’s Day heart through the air, her fingers kissing.

“Real hearts don’t look like cupid’s ass,” Honoré said, as she rolled her eyes. “They’re meatier.”

“What about magical hearts?” the princess retorted.

They’re mostly made of what you love, Marmalade meowed.

Sylvie wasn’t sure that helped their search much—from what Céleste had told them, it seemed Terreur didn’t love anything at all. He’d cut off every attachment. Had it happened here at the Palais Garnier? According to the memories La Fée Verte had shared, this was where the Sanct’s path had veered off into darker magic. His point of no return. When Sylvie had studied her charred map of Paris, it had seemed like the most sensible place to start searching.

But once again, things appeared different in person. Standing here, Sylvie was struck with the true scope of their mission. The opera house was huge—mosaic ceilings, chandeliers dripping with crystal, staircases sweeping up and down. One building could take years to search, if they didn’t have any solid leads.

“Maybe the statues can tell us more.” Sylvie turned back to the torch-bearers balancing on the right bannister.

She reached out, both with her hand—joining Anastasia’s palm—and with her… well, she didn’t know what to call the force she felt rising in her chest. Anima, perhaps? It poured out like light. It caught the sliver of energy she felt inside the sculptures, and the lamps in the women’s hands began to flicker.

“Oh!” Sylvie pulled back. Honoré was right—they didn’t want to attract attention. She wasn’t worried so much about stray sopranos or managers, but if Terreur somehow found out they were searching… “Not so bright, please!”

The lights dimmed.

The statues began to blink.

Anastasia’s hand tightened in Sylvie’s. “They’re alive!”

It did look that way. The sculpture of the lower woman shifted, and the salamander scuttled around the column. (Much to Marmalade’s delight.) Sylvie was happy too. She’d tried the spell several times before on the lobster who graced the Portal of the Virgin, but this was the first time she’d managed to make a carving move.

“Um, hello!”

Both bronze women tilted their heads. It seemed she hadn’t given them quite enough life to speak, the way Notre-Dame’s gargoyles sometimes did.

“There used to be a Sanct who lived here, about thirty years ago. Do you remember him?”

The salamander suddenly curled in on itself.

Glass lamps shuddered in the women’s hands.

Sylvie took this as a yes.

“We… we’re trying to find his heart,” she explained. “Would you happen to know where it is?”

One of the statues shook her head, but the other woman raised her lampless arm and pointed. Up.

The heart hunters climbed the stairs and paused, taking in the vestibule from a slightly higher angle. Sylvie’s initial excitement faded as she looked around the landing. The statues below had shifted back to their original pose—of course, it couldn’t be as easy as that.

“See anything?” Honoré asked.

“There’s a cupid’s rear end.” Anastasia pointed to two small cherubs hovering above the entrance to the auditorium.

The other Enchantress let out another exasperated snort, but there was a hint of admiration in her words. “You’re quite precocious for a princess, you know.”

“Not really,” the grand duchess told her. “You should meet my older sister Olga. She’s cheeky too! But I guess most people see us the way they view hearts: Too sweet. No meat!”

This got a full-blown laugh from Honoré.

A rare sound. So rare, it startled Sylvie. The cherubs over the auditorium entrance jumped at the same time she did, and as she walked closer, the statues started jabbing their chubby fingers down at the door.

Beyond this was overwhelming darkness, until Anastasia pulled a firebird from her head and sent it soaring around the theatre’s seven-ton chandelier—flaming wings gleaming against an abundance of gold. Sylvie imagined scores of fireflies to join in. These twinkled over the seats. A few even formed a halo over Honoré’s head as she strolled down the aisle. She moved the way she always did in theatres—on the prowl.

“I don’t think Terreur left his heart lying under a seat,” Sylvie said, as the other Enchantress scoped out the premises.

“Maybe it is a seat!” Anastasia chimed in.

“Céleste said he cut his heart out so he could be untouchable,” Honoré said, “not so people could sit on it every evening listening to women who try their best to sound like dying cats—” This got a hiss from Marmalade. “Fine. Angry teakettles.”

“I like the opera!” Anastasia twirled in the aisle. Far above, her firebird did the same. “It’s the perfect place to eat chocolates—you don’t even have to wash your hands afterward because you’re wearing gloves! Mama always fusses about it, but Papa doesn’t mind. He even sneaks me treats sometimes.”

“See, Honoré? The tsar of Russia thinks it’s fine to eat sugar!”

“An emperor can afford new teeth,” Honoré replied wryly.

“So can we!” There was all that La Banque d’Ossements gold they never spent, but also… “We could just wish new teeth back in if they fell out!”

The other Enchantress’s jaw clenched. “That’s not how magic works.”

“Sure it is,” Sylvie said, flapping her butterfly wings. “Remember that leopard’s tail I gave you a few weeks ago? And Monsieur Cocteau’s ram horns?”

“Those are… accessories. Teeth are different.” Honoré sounded hesitant. “You can’t just wish yourself better, Sylvie.”

“You have to pray,” Anastasia told them cheerfully. “And use saints! ‘Our Friend’ put up a whole wall of icons over Alexei’s bed to guard his soul.”

Sylvie looked up and saw more angels carved into the ceiling’s corners, their meaty fingers holding trumpets instead of torches. These pointed toward the stage, past the painted trompe l’oeil curtains, which did not stir. Still, she felt a shudder in her chest that made her want to change the subject.

“My heart would be a stack of good books,” she said as they made their way backstage. “Or flying through a midnight sky. Or biting into a warm croissant. Or opening a can of pâté for Marmalade. Or palming the perfect diamond. Or making up stories with Céleste.” Or seeing Honoré smile at the green birds perched on her shoulder. Or watching La Fée Verte shine a bit brighter every time her knight walks into the room. Sylvie didn’t say these last lines aloud, but they still counted.

“What about your parents?” the princess asked.

“Honoré is my mother,” teased Sylvie. That was another thing she loved—making the other Enchantress’s eyes roll. It never got old.

“Really?”

“I’m her guardian.” Honoré put an undue emphasis on the word. “We’re both orphans.”

The princess’s lips pinched, as if trying to take back the words they’d already said. “I’m sorry. That—that would be awful. I don’t know what I would do without my family. They’re my heart… Snowball fights with my sisters. Long summer days on the Standart, running barefoot on the deck and pretending there are pirates in the distance to entertain Alexei. Oh, and reading aloud with Papa in the evenings. I love Mama too, of course, but she gets so wrapped up in worrying about my brother…”

Sylvie’s turn to swallow. They were in a less gilded section of the opera house now, a space filled with levers and ropes and trapdoors. It was hard to know where to go, even with their dreams lighting the way.

“What about you, Honoré?” she asked.

Shadows from the ropes crossed over the other Enchantress’s face as the Romanov’s firebird flew through them. “Mine would be made of Camembert,” she said.

After a bit more wandering backstage, they came across some fauns—painted with panpipes against a background of spring hills—who guided the heart hunters through the Foyer de la Danse to the dressing room of a star soprano. It was clear the door hadn’t been opened in years. Long enough for patina to eat away at CHRXXTINE LEROUX’s placard. Long enough for a fine layer of gray dust to cover every inch of the space inside. Nothing had been disturbed in decades. Pots of makeup still sat on the vanity—along with a crown that must have been a part of Mademoiselle Leroux’s costume. Faded dresses were tossed over a washed-out couch. A bouquet of long-dead flowers had been placed not in a vase but in a wastebasket.

“There’s no cheese heart here,” Anastasia announced. Her firebird perched on her shoulder as she began rifling through jars of rouge that now looked like the bottom of a dried-up lake bed. “But that’s probably good, given the state of things.”

“Some cheese gets better with age,” Honoré said as she walked around the room.

“And stinkier,” added Sylvie. She was inclined to agree with Anastasia. Nothing here looked much like an evil sorcerer’s heart.

A piece of art did catch her eye: A framed charcoal drawing of Mademoiselle Leroux herself. Onstage. Midnote. As Sylvie studied the woman’s pose, the soprano stopped singing and pointed toward the dressing room’s mirror. It was large, stretching from ceiling to floor.

It was also enchanted.

Sylvie could tell because she did not see herself in the reflection. She also knew due to the fact the room looked brighter inside the glass: its furniture and wallpaper, those gowns, even the trashed roses. They still had their petals, blooms that shifted from white to pink to red to black. Mademoiselle Leroux did not spare them a glance as she burst through the door. She was in costume—wearing a headdress of crystal-studded stars, her eyes lined with thick kohl. The makeup must have been applied carefully, but it was streaming down the prima donna’s cheeks, her tears falling as loosely as her black hair. The look in the woman’s eyes was pure panic. Her hands kept fluttering to her throat. Her mouth kept opening. Choking.

“Oh…” Anastasia set down the perfume bottle with a thud. “What’s wrong with her?”

Not what, Sylvie knew.

Who.

Mademoiselle Leroux’s hair didn’t move the way it should when the opera singer bent over her vanity. Long black strands tugged toward the open door. The soprano’s hands scattered through her costume jewels. She grabbed a comb topped with an opal crescent moon, but instead of brushing her unruly mane, she palmed the piece. Sharp silver teeth jutted through her knuckles. Tears kept blackening her cheeks. Her hair kept pulling away.

Sylvie felt her own hairs stand on end when the hungry man appeared.

He looked different—more man than hunger, back then. All the same, he didn’t bother knocking. He didn’t stop when the prima donna tried to shake her head, only jerked the dark strings between them, causing Mademoiselle Leroux’s entire body to go stiff, stiff enough that the silver comb started to stab her hand. Even so, she did not drop it.

The Sanct paused when he saw the roses blooming in the wastebasket.

Mademoiselle Leroux struck.

Her comb raked his cheek, drawing a few lines of blood. Fury. The hungry man’s lips curled back, and Sylvie thought again of how he must swallow stars as the soprano’s headdress disappeared in a swarm of darkness. The crescent-moon comb dropped to the carpet, and the Sanct leaned in, as close as a kiss, only he wasn’t so tender. His mouth was unhinged. His—

“Enough!”

The mirror cracked under Honoré’s dragon fist. Sylvie wasn’t sure if her friend meant to hit so hard—but she had—and now all the heart hunters could see were their own fragmented faces.

“But…” Anastasia kept staring at the glass, her cheeks pale. “What happened to her?”

“You’re better off not seeing.” Honoré’s voice softened, but her silvered hand was still gripping the mirror’s edge, choking off its enchantments. “Trust me.”

“I have seen strings like that before.” The firebird on the grand duchess’s shoulder flickered. Her voice did too. “They’re all around my mother.”

Sylvie bit her lip. She wasn’t sure exactly what Rasputin was doing to the Russian royal family, but it was clear to her that the Mad Monk’s magic wasn’t good, even if he did heal Alexei’s wounds. She supposed it was only a matter of time before Anastasia understood this, but she’d wanted to find some good news to share with the princess first. A happy ending instead of a heartless dead end…

A moan filled the dressing room, and wind ripped flames out of the firebird’s wings. The imagining vanished into smoke, but a breeze kept blowing through the broken glass.

Sylvie realized what this meant: “There’s something on the other side of the mirror!”

Shards fell to the dusty carpet as Honoré shoved the glass aside, revealing a passageway with a corkscrew staircase. There were no gilded cherubs on the walls, but the charcoal drawing of Mademoiselle Leroux kept on pointing down into darkness.

The heart hunters did not get much farther that night. The secret staircase ended in the deepest bowels of the opera house, at the edge of an underground lake. Marmalade had made quite a show of climbing onto Honoré’s shoulders to keep away from the water. Sylvie didn’t blame him. Even if she could swim to the tunnel on the other side, she didn’t think it was wise to touch the water. The surface of the cistern was smooth, but she kept expecting to see scales. Or fins. Or worse.

“We could fly.” Her voice dipped beneath the low arched ceilings. “Or conjure a boat.”

Yet Anastasia didn’t look up to imagining much of anything. She hadn’t even managed another firebird—though that probably wouldn’t have done much good, with how damp the air was here. The grand duchess was shivering. The fur on her coat grew an extra inch, but she didn’t look any warmer.

“I want to go home,” she said.

“Our treasure could be just around the corner,” Sylvie protested.

That’s not a corner. Marmalade gave a prickly growl. It’s an entrance to the catacombs. I smell death on the other side.

Now it was Sylvie’s turn to shiver.

Honoré frowned. “What’s Marmalade saying?”

Lots and lots of death, the tomcat added.

Sylvie glanced back at the grand duchess and her chattering teeth. “He says he enjoys being your scarf.”

Honoré’s eyes narrowed, and Sylvie suddenly got the feeling that the other Enchantress knew more cat-speak than she let on. “I think the princess is right—we’ve gone far and it’s late. Let’s get her back to Russia before some maid finds an empty bed and her parents start a war.”

So they made their way back to the pink door on rue de la Réunion. Anastasia looked a little less peaky as she stepped into the Children’s Palace and shrugged off her coat to hang in one of the many failed-portals-turned-closets. A miniature sloth crawled up to nest in one of the pockets. Rock-hard gumdrops littered the floor below; a naval frigate teetered on top of the growing mound. Sylvie was fairly sure the candy would crack a tooth at this point.

The door was locked shut, but not before a tin soldier tottered through.

Marmalade caught the toy gingerly between his teeth and dropped it at Honoré’s feet. A much better friendship offering than a rotting mouse carcass, though one couldn’t tell by the way the Enchantress stared at the metallic man.

“Listen, ma rêveuse, I know you like being friends with a princess, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to keep Anastasia Enlightened.”

“It is a good idea!” Sylvie protested. “It’s dozens of good ideas!”

Honoré kept turning the tin soldier, over and over, in her silver palm.

“Her magic helps mine! If we hadn’t animated those statues together, we wouldn’t have found that magical mirror—”

“Exactly,” the other Enchantress cut in. “You’re letting her see too much, Sylvie. Do you know what it’s like watching your family be bound up with dark magic? To watch your brother held captive—” Her dragon fist closed over the tin soldier, too tight.

There was a crunching sound.

Tears stung Sylvie’s eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was from shame or because of the slap behind Honoré’s question. Do you know what it’s like watching your family?

She didn’t.

And she did.

Sylvie didn’t need an enchanted mirror to see that Céleste was in danger or that Honoré was afraid. “Erasing Anastasia’s memory won’t help Alexei either,” she reasoned. “I know that magic can’t fix everything, but nothing will get better if we’re too scared to believe in it.” She thought again of Île du Carnaval, with its overgrown tents. Of the wishing well gone dry. Of how many imaginings burned to dust under the morning sun. “We have to stay awake. We have to keep dreaming.”