But the curse hadn’t stopped me.

I’d felt it snatching and grabbing at me, trying to hold me back. But something stronger pulled me through, and then I was stumbling, falling onto the sand of the beach. Rolling onto my back, I’d looked up at the night sky, more vast, open, and unending than anything I could ever have imagined. I’d been rendered immobile as I stared up at the tiny pinpricks of light scattered across the sky, their number and brilliance growing as I watched.

It was my father’s voice that had pulled me back to reality, the edge of panic in it. “Tristan?”

I’d sat up, watching as an expression I’d never seen swept across his face. “Find her,” he shouted, and suddenly I was running.

He meant Anushka, I knew, but even if Cécile hadn’t called my name, it would have been her I’d gone to first. Like we were attached by a silken string, I was drawn in her direction, my passage down the dark road and into the city a blur I barely remembered. Even before I was close enough, I swore I could hear her singing, the crystal sound of her voice in my ears as I’d walked through the theatre and found her sitting on the stage, surrounded by flowers. There were moments in life that burned themselves into memory, forever vivid in the mind’s eye. For me, seeing her again on that stage was one of them.

But it was not an untarnished moment.

I did not doubt that she was telling the truth about how she’d come to have my name. I’d heard tell of those who’d dreamed themselves into Arcadia, and it was popular opinion that those who went to sleep and never woke were those whose minds drifted and were caught by winter fey.

But never had I heard of it happening to a human. It made me believe that my uncle was meddling, which was troubling. I was in the debt of the Winter Queen, and knowing that Cécile had incurred a debt to the Summer King made me wonder if this was some game in the endless war between the two kingdoms. What mischief they might bring to this world if they were free to walk here once more. There were fell and dangerous creatures lurking in the shadows of my ancestors’ homeland, and I wasn’t sure we’d be able to control them as we once had. We were not as strong as we once were.

But believing the truth of Cécile’s story did not change the fact that she now had the power to control me. She had not uttered it since, and I did not believe she’d do so idly, but I’d heard it drift across her thoughts, each time it did, my mind going blank of anything other than the anticipation of her command. Her knowing it was what had allowed her to break me free, but there was a large part of me that would have gone eagerly back to my cage to regain the autonomy of my will. And to go back to my work.

Sighing, I climbed to my feet, needing to move. The creature Cécile called Souris was sitting on the floor next to me, tongue lolling out between sharp incisors, surprisingly canny eyes fixed on me. She had said he was a dog, but I wasn’t entirely convinced of the verity of that claim. “Will you watch her for me?” I said to him.

As though understanding my question, the animal made a soft yip and leapt up onto the bed. Pawing at the covers, he rotated in a circle three times before settling down behind her knees. “I’ll be back,” I said.

The rooms next to Cécile’s were devoid of anything other than furniture, but at the end of the hallway, I found the master chambers belonging to her mother.

Genevieve de Troyes’ room was very much a boudoir, decorated with ornate furniture, plush burgundy fabrics, and artful clutter. The walls were covered in paintings of women in repose, many of them work I recognized as having originated in Trollus, and all of it expensive. Trinkets of glass and porcelain cluttered the tabletops, and a stack of gilt embossed books sat next to a chair by the fireplace.

I knew well enough how little an opera singer – even a star – was paid, and it came nowhere near close to enough to pay for all this opulence. Her benefactor was a marquis well known to be a patron of the arts, and he must be generous indeed to endow her with all this.

Cécile had only rarely spoken of her mother, and I’d never been able to decide whether she loved the woman to the point of adoration, or hated her. Having never met Genevieve, my opinions were all based on hearsay, but what I’d heard, I hadn’t liked. Past and current behavior suggested she was at the least, selfish, and at the most, a narcissist. But that might all be a front, an image cultivated to fit the perceptions of how an opera star should behave. From what I knew, she’d been born into a family of modest means, her father dying at a young age, leaving her to be raised by her songstress mother.

Yet Genevieve walked in circles far above her social status should allow, which suggested that there was more to her than what the gossipmongers whispered. I was intensely curious about her, doubly so given Cécile’s frantic plea that she needed saving earlier tonight.

With fingers of magic, I began to rifle through cabinets and drawers, making certain I left everything as it had been. I found little of interest other than stacks of love letters from would-be suitors, and pages of badly written poetry signed by someone with the initial J. Her closets were full to the brim with expensive clothes, shoes, and all the accoutrements a wealthy woman was likely to own, the whole of it dominated by a spicy perfume that tickled at my nose.

The drawer in the bedside table I opened, immediately closed, then opened again, my curiosity stronger than my moral fiber as I assessed the collection of silken cords, feathers, and bits of lace. Interesting.