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Hector Auvray wanted to die.
He was no stranger to this feeling, to this empty listlessness punctuated by moments of mad fury; to the sorrow that sat in his chest like lead.
No, it was not new, but that did not lessen the weight of it.
He stared out at the square below, the grim light of the early morning just beginning to peek between the houses opposite. Boniface was beautiful - or, if not beautiful, exactly, it suited him just right. It was quiet here, especially in the mornings. There was bustle a street or two over, coffee shops and night clubs and salons should he ever feel the need to be in the throng of it, but here, there was hardly a soul to be seen not delivering coal or sweeping the streets. There was a mother across the way, he knew, an older woman with three little ones in tow, sniffling and too thin. He wondered sometimes if they were hers or if she’d inherited them. They had aged her, perhaps, or perhaps that was just the way of things.
He shuddered to think of his own reflection, his eyes pulled to the gilded mirror across the room as if by compulsion. He did not wish to see the lines beneath them; the softness that had gathered at his waist; the chalk and stubble that he could not seem to care enough to scrape away.
Hector was not old - he could barely be called middle-aged - and yet he felt ancient, hollow and rotting like a fallen tree, and he was beginning to look it, the days of locking himself away in this tomb of an apartment taking their toll three days at a time.
He hadn’t performed in several weeks. Dufren had given up haranguing him after the first two, gently convinced to take a paid holiday in the south. He did not go easily, for which Hector was quietly grateful, and he hadn’t quit in a huff, as any sane person might have done. Dufren was perhaps too good for him.
A knock sounded on the door, and Hector did not bother to answer it. Étienne strolled in without waiting for a response.
“Is there still coffee?”
Étienne was definitely too good for him.
Hector nodded and sat up a little taller, stretching out the crick that had settled into his spine, hunched as he had been against the window.
Étienne dropped down beside him, steaming mug in hand, and lit a cigarette. He offered one to Hector and Hector took it but did not light it.
“You’re not well, Hector.” Étienne took a puff. Hector could feel his eyes tracing the lines of his face.
“I don’t know.”
Hector’s gaze returned to the window, to Boniface, to the window he knew belonged to the woman and her children. Sometimes he’d see her in it, wrapping her shawl about her thin shoulders. He thought her desk might be in front of it - sometimes, she was sitting there, writing her letters. He wondered who she wrote to. He suspected it might be creditors, though he hoped it wasn’t.
“You can’t keep doing this forever, you know.”
Hector nodded, absently spinning his cigarette in the air above his palm.
“Enough’s enough. I’m taking you out.”
“Étienne-”
“Tonight. Dress up.”
Étienne stubbed out his cigarette and stood.
“I have business in town. I’ll be back at 6.”
“Don’t trouble yourself.”
“It’s already done. See you soon, old friend.”
Étienne gave his shoulder a squeeze and left as quickly as he’d come.
It was like this most days. Where he’d found the spare key, Hector still hadn’t fathomed, but Étienne had let himself in every day for a month and had made himself comfortable in Hector’s kitchen, in and out like a noisy maid. It was a nuisance. A welcome one, he couldn’t deny, but a nuisance nonetheless.
Hector sighed and stretched again.
Maybe Étienne was right.
Of course Étienne was right.
But Hector’s bones felt too heavy to bear and he fell back into bed half-dressed.
The knock came at 5:58pm - predictably, Étienne was never late - and Hector barely heard it, barely saw the light filling the room as his drapes were pulled apart, barely felt the hand on his arm working to rouse him.
“Come along, Hector.” Étienne spoke softly, like Hector was a troublesome but well-loved child, and his hands were gentle as they eased him up. “Let’s get you dressed.”
“I don’t- I don’t have anything suitable-” Hector groaned, thinking of his suits and the state he’d left them in. The luckiest ones had only a bit of char around the cuffs.
“I know.” Étienne held up a garment bag and Hector wanted to weep.
“Étienne, you can’t-”
“I did. Don’t make me dress you.”
Hector laughed at that - he couldn’t help it - and Étienne flashed him a grin before stepping out of the room. Hector managed a shave and stepped into the suit Étienne had bought. It was fine - a double-breasted black silk jacket, embroidered with a neat hand - too fine, and Hector felt a stab of guilt. It was no use arguing with Étienne. The man had more money than sense, and he would never hear a word of protest.
“That is a nice suit,” Étienne said as Hector emerged.
“It fits well. Thank you.”
Étienne took a puff on his cigarette and gave him a nod.
“Shall we?”
The carriage pulled up outside The Crimson Peacock, and Hector cringed.
“Étienne-”
“Trust me.”
Hector sighed.
“Yes, alright.”
They stepped out of the carriage and Hector made to go up the steps, but Étienne caught him by the arm.
“This way,” he grinned, leading them instead around the back of the building.
“Étienne-”
“Shhhhh.”
Étienne opened what appeared to be a servant entrance and hurried him in, closing it silently behind them.
Hector followed him breathlessly through the winding maze of the servants’ stair. The Peacock had been built into an old and fashionable house after the death of the last Dupuy heir, its endless passageways still intact. Hector and Étienne moved through them now, like many a nurse and scullery maid before them, Étienne graceful and certain and Hector stumbling like a toy boat in his wake, until at last, Étienne stopped before a door.
“Shh,” he whispered again with a wink, and the door swung open with a creak.
The light in the room was low, lit only by a few hovering candles placed around its edges. Hector’s eyes needed little time to adjust from the dim passageway. There were perhaps two dozen chairs set in neat, circular rows, filled by perhaps twenty people. No one paid them any mind as they slipped into two empty seats in the back. Hector flashed Étienne an anxious glance, but Étienne only grinned at him.
You’ll see, he mouthed silently. Hector glared at him, and still Étienne grinned.
“Ladies and gentlemen.”
A voice hovered over the room, seeming to flicker the candles with it, and the light rose ever so slightly to reveal that the walls had been draped with thick red velvet, giving the impression, Hector thought, of being pressed between the cushions of a sofa. He was already feeling a bit too warm, his shirt collar a bit too tight.
“What you will see tonight will dazzle your senses. Rest assured, you are safe. Everything you see will be quite real, but it will not harm you.”
A single violin began to play something sweet and sad, though, like the voice, it was impossible to tell where it was coming from.
“We have among us one of the most talented performers the world has yet seen.”
A viola joined, and then a cello. Hector felt a flash of panic and looked once more to Étienne, but Étienne’s gaze was steadfastly forward.
“Mr. Auvray, it is a pleasure to have you with us.”
The voice felt closer now, almost as if it was whispering in his ear, and Hector flinched, his heart now pounding in his chest. What the hell was this?
Étienne squeezed his knee reassuringly. No one else acknowledged him, and he wondered for a moment if maybe they hadn’t heard, but just then a single spotlight came down on the makeshift stage to the front just, casting shadows on a slight figure just outside its reach. The figure stepped into the light.
“Nina,” Hector breathed.
He should have known her voice, should have guessed that-
“Do you hate me?” Étienne whispered softly in his ear, and Hector found he could not swallow the lump that had formed in his throat.
She was resplendent in an emerald green gown that made her eyes flash gold, the candlelight glowing in her dark hair as she gazed placidly around the room.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” Nina spoke, and it was like fire in Hector’s veins. “My name is Nina Beaulieu, and I am the Witch of Oldhouse.”
The sudden roar of shattering glass was overwhelming. The crowd ducked in panic as the velvet curtains ripped away to reveal millions of glittering shards, swirling in the air above them like a swarm of hornets. They seemed even to buzz like hornets, clattering amongst each other, in an angry, bickering cloud, louder and louder-
And then all was still.
The glass floated there, everything frozen in place for just a breath. The string quartet struck up something gentle and lilting, and the glass began to sway, weaving itself in careful streams above their heads until it hung in a curtain, glittering and beautiful. From somewhere, a bass drum padded out a roll like thunder, and the spotlight flashed, and the glass fell like drops of rain - falling but not, never getting any closer, even as it began to pour. It rained softly at first, then in a torrent, the bits of glass swirling in a gale, round and round until the funnel began to form, the music from the strings increasingly dissonant and staccato. The tornado swept its way around the outside of the room, tossing shadows that looked like farmhouses and livestock around as it went, unrelenting and fierce.
Hector stared, transfixed. He’d taught her card tricks, but this?
The tornado made one last sweep of the room and then rushed at the crowd before exploding again into shards of glass that floated to the ceiling. The crowd gasped and shrieked, fear giving way at last to delighted laughter and applause.
Nina bowed, and the glass above them dipped with her.
The quartet played a waltz, and the glass again began to move, one shard at a time, towards the outer edges of the room. Hector had not noticed before the gilded mirror frames surrounding them, so taken by the spectacle of the glass, and he gasped as it occurred to him what she might do.
No, he thought. Certainly not-
The first shard of glass fitted itself into the edge of the frame nearest him and he nearly crowed in delight. Onward the glass came, knitting itself together in a dozen frames simultaneously, lilting with the waltz until the final notes trailed off and the mirrors shone in the candlelight, miraculous and whole. The red curtains fell around them, casting the room back into dizzying darkness, and the crowd roared to its feet, dazed and enthralled.
Étienne grabbed Hector by the arm and tugged him gently toward the door as the spotlight fell once again upon Nina and she bowed in gratitude.
The carriage ride home was silent, with Hector lost in thought and memory and Étienne watching him cautiously.
“You never answered my question,” Étienne said later, in Hector’s apartment. They sat near the windows again, freed from their jackets and cravats, a bottle of wine between them.
“Hmm?”
Hector hadn’t said much in the intervening hours, his mind oscillating wildly between a dozen feelings surrounding Nina and trying desperately to work out how she’d done it.
“Do you hate me?” Étienne had lit another cigarette. Hector smoked with him, but absently. “Was that too much?”
Hector considered a moment, taking a long drag.
“No,” he mumbled. “I don’t hate you.”
“I thought you should see her.”
“Why?”
Étienne laughed.
“You are a menace. Why, he asks.”
Hector didn’t really see what was so funny, but sometimes it was like that with Étienne.
“She’s doing alright,” Étienne continued. “Better than alright. She’s magnificent. You didn’t destroy her. This self-flagellation is for nothing.”
“How did she do it?”
“Time heals all wounds.”
“No, no- I mean the trick.”
“Ah, well that’s your domain, my friend, not mine.”
Hector stared at the panes of glass in his window as if he could will them to part and Étienne sat up.
“You really don’t know,” he whispered.
“No.” Hector caught his reflection in the glass and looked away. “I have no idea. It should be impossible.”
“You didn’t teach her that?”
“I taught her how to levitate sugar cubes, Étienne. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”
Étienne let out a breath.
“Seven hells. She’s doing better than I thought.”
Hector felt something in his chest clench.
“Yes.”