Chapter Text
Renata Glasc’s eyes follow her without error.
This is her third time in Seraphine’s opera house, and Seraphine tries not to let it shake her. She’s a singer, an artist who spins energy into song, and any discomfort will throw her from her perfect choreography. Her patrons deserve better. These people cross the city, still shaken from the coup, to find her little haven at the boundary of what was once Piltover— they do not deserve to have their moods ruined because Seraphine is out of sorts.
The first visit, she was a trembling wreck, barely capable of limping through her arias. The second, she tripped while getting on stage— although that had the modest silver lining that she had already made a monumental mistake by the time she began to sing, and so had nothing to lose. On the whole, the second performance had been decent.
Decent. Not excellent. After a disastrous first effort, that should have been the end of Renata Glasc’s interest.
And yet she showed up again.
Seraphine knows the woman’s reputation. Everybody does. Her shadow looms large as a crashing moon. Under her imperious thumb, nothing but excellence is tolerated.
But here she is again. To see Seraphine sing an actual opera, this time, not merely a few songs. Leaning forward, her white coat slung elegantly over one shoulder, the inky blackness of her scleras feathering down into her noble cheekbones, she appears thoroughly engrossed—but not in Evelynn, who is singing the opening aria beautifully. Renata Glasc is watching her. Renata Glasc does not stop looking at her when she is in the wings, as she is now; the angle of her box gives her a direct sightline, and Seraphine wishes it didn’t.
She cannot be distracted. Tonight she sings Kayle, a part written for her by a composer who had come all the way from Demacia to watch her perform it, and she is across from Evelynn herself, and she will be utterly embarrassed if anything goes wrong. This show is everything that matters. A vision of unity. A vision of peace between the diametrically opposed. A future for a people crushed together.
This time, the Baroness will see what she is capable of.
Everybody will.
She steps out from the shroud of the curtain, and Renata Glasc’s eyes do not change. Perhaps there is a smile on that impassive face; she cannot tell, with the mask obscuring it. She looks for half a moment longer, and then turns to her audience, and all is forgotten, because here is Seraphine’s life beating outside her body, the pulse and the thrum of the crowd.
On the other end of the stage, Evelynn sits penitent, the last notes of her aria fading from the air. The orchestra prepares themselves for Seraphine to take her place, brass calling out with the Angel motif, and she opens her mouth: Sister, why do you pray for them?
From there Seraphine is absent, and it is only the work.
Three hours.
She makes no mistakes.
The moment the curtain drops, Seraphine has to fight the urge to grasp Evelynn and squeal. Evelynn, used to this kind of attention, merely gives Sera a genuinely pleased grin that makes Seraphine feel like she’s going to burst. Evelynn— the wandering prima donna— pleased with her! They do not have the time to celebrate— the curtain is going to come up again in a moment, after all— but this is what she lives for, this agonizing, brilliant rush of energy, of feeling her work project and multiply in meaning for every single soul in the audience.
In this moment they do not care that she is, by blood, a Zaunite. They do not care that the person weeping beside them stood by the Council when the war broke out. They are unified by the music, by her, and it is a joy she would not trade for anything. Evelynn had been radiant as Morgana. And Seraphine had shared that stage with her and been found worthy.
This is a high that she will never feel again.
The curtain comes back up. Seraphine looks through the crowd, glowing with achievement, her smile uncontained, as the ensemble comes in to take their bows, and only falters when she feels the feathered darkness of Renata Glasc’s eyes upon her once again, constant as a monument.
She has changed position. She is leaning forward, her hands clasped, her broad shoulders bent forward, intent as a diving raptor, and there is the tick of a smile beneath her eyes.
Seraphine’s stomach drops into her feet. She smiles at the crowd anyway, praying that it doesn’t shake. Evelynn clasps her hand in her own, raises them, and bows; Sona rises from the orchestra pit to take her own bow, looking utterly pleased. And then the curtains close for good.
Seraphine rushes away immediately.
There are people she should be speaking to, but she hurries instead to get to her dressing room, a tiny, barely-partitioned refuge where she can escape her armored costume. She pulls the helm from her head and drops it on the nearest table, breathing cool air for the first time in ninety minutes. Her fingers tremble when she tries to unlatch the buckles of her harness. The wings are mastercrafts of costuming, but they are awful to try and get out of.
“Miss Seraphine.”
She has never heard this voice before but does not question for a moment whom it belongs to. It is sharp, harsh, arresting; the kind of voice that snaps around her wrists and freezes her hand mid-motion. The makeup on Seraphine’s face is unbearably hot. She can feel the sweat pearling at the corners of her face, melting into the powder. After performing in a helm for half of the show, she must look a mess. She tries not to look at herself in the mirror. The Baroness’s eyes are not deterred.
“Baroness,” Seraphine says weakly.
“Zaun has no titles, girl. Not anymore.” She says girl like a name, like it’s the sum of what Seraphine is, and in this small dressing-room with Renata Glasc leaning against the thin doorway, maybe it is the only name that matters. “You will call me Miss Glasc.”
“Yes, Miss Glasc.” Seraphine is the crown jewel of the Twin Cities’ underground. She has staged plays so transgressive that they threaten the roots of Piltover— or so the letters threatening her death have said. All this, and in the presence of this woman, she sounds like a subordinate. Renata’s face hardens almost imperceptibly. She curls her hands into the white-gold folds of her dress and says, “Do you have business with me?”
Her lip curls upward. In pleasure or disgust, Seraphine can’t tell. “Your ceilings are low,” she says. “Your floors are coming apart. The boxes are unstable and your curtains are of subpar material.”
Seraphine flashes cold, then hot. She turns her eyes up to match Renata’s. She cannot say I clawed my way into this theater from the alleys of Zaun and it is as much mine as my beating heart; she can’t show her hand so quickly . “It’s been difficult to rebuild after the fire,” she says instead.
“The fire,” Renata echoes. “Yes. What a terrible tragedy. And so soon after you had staged that lovely little show about the Piltovan princess and the Zaunite girl. You lost the libretto, too, didn’t you?”
“How—How do you know about that?”
“The Piltovans kill what threatens them, even now. They are harsher for their loss,” she says indifferently. Seraphine’s eyes flicker, quite against her will, to the elegant steelwork of Renata’s lost arm. “Your songs describe a future that cannot come to pass.”
Seraphine’s palms are sweating. She knows what comes next. “But the future has already passed.”
Renata chuckles. “I suppose two years may seem like an age to you . My Zaun is an infant. She remains vulnerable, as do you.”
It’s a sting, and lands like one. Seraphine looks down at her feet, her face burning as though she’d swallowed too much champagne. “Are—are you going to offer to protect me?”
Renata’s eyes narrow. “Clever thing.”
She’d seen the state of the opera house. She knew Seraphine barely had the money for her costumes. Seraphine didn’t charge much for opera tickets, and let people in to watch rehearsals for free; there was very little money in her business. That was the way she wanted it— open to everyone, like a pair of arms flung wide. “I’m not interested,” Seraphine says.
“They will burn your theater again,” Renata says.
Seraphine knows. If she continues like this— well, she’s heard the stories. At worst, the Steel Shadow, from whatever shroud she retreated to, will dispose of her once she strays too far into dangerous territory. At best, the Piltovans will begin to call her a radical, a rebel, and they will slip out of her audience to avoid the association.
She could take Renata’s offer. Survive indefinitely, with the one fatal caveat that she will be working for a chem-baron— a Council member, now, but they all know where Renata’s money came from. Or she could deny it, and… Well. Who is she trying to fool? Denying Renata Glasc is not an option. It never has been. Everybody works for her eventually.
But Seraphine? Of all people? Seraphine, who has devoted herself to peace and unity, underneath the thumb of Renata Glasc, who tore the world apart two years ago, and remade it in her image? Anathema. Impossible.
Inevitable.
Her mouth is too dry to speak. Renata watches her with those monstrous eyes, like flame on coal, and Seraphine’s body is full of sand. She is heavy. Boneless. “Why?” she rasps after a long, long hesitation.
Renata tilts her head ever-so-slightly. Every one of her movements feels measured in advance: never too far, never too open. Inscrutable. The queen of Zaun, who holds in the palm of her hand every card and every string. Everything that matters, she owns. “You have become an institution,” she says. “You are among the only things that unite the people. You are significant.”
Coming from her, this is some of the most exorbitant praise Seraphine has ever received. She blushes to the ears— thank Janna for her makeup, it won’t show. “You want to buy me,” she says weakly.
Renata inclines her head marginally. “You are a wise investment.”
“I barely make any money,” Seraphine protests.
“You provide something more valuable,” Renata says. She leans down, a little closer to Seraphine, and Seraphine knows, suddenly, what it is to be caught between the talons of an eagle. “Money is the basest and least important currency in the world, little flower. And I have enough of it. What matters is loyalty. Trust. People who will come to your side when called.”
She does not say dominion. Seraphine hears it. “I don’t control my audience.”
“Where you go, they follow. Where you sing, they swarm. You are a star— you pull them to you. I do not make this offer lightly. I know you can’t pay. I will guard you and your theater. You will sing for my Council. You will become an elemental force.”
Seraphine wants to laugh. It’s everything she’s ever wanted for a price she can never pay. “But I—” Her voice stutters out.
“Make your decision whenever you please,” Renata says dryly, pulling back. She is immaculate. The ambient dirt and wear of the opera house is a stark contrast to her white suit. “Preferably while you still have a stage to sing upon. But I will not wait forever.”
For such an imposing woman, she vanishes with ease. Seraphine looks back at her mirror. Usually, she doesn’t notice all the wear, but when she beholds her face— painted white and gold, gilt feathers bleeding down from her eyes— the scratches seem to scar it.
She scrubs at her makeup until she is bare-faced and plain once again. The dye is coming out of her hair, the roots brown. Her eyes are puffy, shrouded. She looks exhausted. It has been a long, long few months, preparing and performing, and she has no strength left tonight. She has to speak with Sona and Evelynn. Tomorrow she will sing again.
If there is still a stage, she’ll sing again.
Renata’s offer hangs heavy over her for hours. She makes the requisite visits, the requisite celebration, but her night is spoiled by the blade hanging over her neck. If she accepts Renata, she will compromise all that she stands for— if she rejects her, what then? Will she retaliate? Even if she doesn’t, in time the theater will burn again. Seraphine had known that since the first night, when she raced from the flames and turned to see her life’s work in ash and cinders. Renata had merely spoken it aloud.
Evelynn slides up next to her, champagne bloody red in her hand— her own special vintage. Her golden eyes are sharp, her mouth perfectly pursed. She is pristine. “You’re moping, darling,” she says.
Seraphine withers. Evelynn knows how to take any sequence of syllables and make them express anything. It’s what makes her such an incredible performer, that gift for innuendo— and you’re moping means you are the bright young star on the cusp of your career unfolding, and you are wedged in the back of the room hardly speaking to anyone, and you are embarrassing me.
“I’m sorry,” Seraphine offers, weak as a kitten under Evelynn’s piercing gaze. “It’s just that I got a— a business offer.”
Evelynn doesn’t blink or avert her gaze. She twirls her glass without looking at it, the champagne washing a thin pink tide right up to the rim before receding back down. “And what about that has you moping?”
Glasc or no Glasc, Seraphine shouldn’t be lingering here, on the outskirts of her own afterparty, ignoring the people who have put her here. But going out into the mass of them, where she can practically hear the thudding of their hearts, is so much all at once. She won’t be able to hold a whole sentence in her head. She’ll see Renata Glasc in the shadow of the curtain and shatter her glass. “Tell me,” Evelynn orders.
“Renata Glasc offered to buy me,” Seraphine says in a jumble.
Evelynn’s brows raise. “ Well, ” she murmurs. “And here I thought she’d prefer someone more mature.”
“Not like that! ” Seraphine says. Without her makeup to protect her, she can feel Evelynn’s gaze tracking the blood that rushes to her cheeks. “She offered to buy the theater.”
“I know, sweet thing. I was just teasing.” Evelynn takes a long, luxurious draught from her glass, a space of time enough to make Seraphine squirm with embarrassment. When she finishes, she adds, “Are you going to take it?”
Seraphine shakes her head resolutely.
“Such naïvete. It’s charming, in its own foolish way.” Evelynn twists the glass. Her golden eyes trail through the room, hooking into people one by one.
“She’ll make it all different ,” Seraphine murmurs. “And maybe, yes, maybe she’d save the theater, but—”
“But what? But the people of your broken city will have something to hold on to? But there will be joy in this place again? The revolution has come and passed; the time for resistance is over. Take what you have and sink your teeth into it.”
Sometimes, Evelynn unnerves her. Seraphine locks eyes with Sona, across the room. “I should really go,” she says weakly.
“You were divine tonight,” Evelynn says, lifting one hand to contemplate her sharp fingernails. “It would be a shame if the city lost you.”
“Zaun will never lose me,” Seraphine says, but it’s only to herself. Evelynn has turned away, her eyes finding some hapless young man at the edge of the crowd, and she has a smile on her face that makes Seraphine vaguely anxious. She walks off with a farewell flutter of her hand, and Seraphine is alone.
Never really alone. Not in this line of work. Sona comes to her a few minutes after. “It’s a larger party than I expected,” she signs.
“The work deserved it,” Seraphine answers. “You’re a gift to us. I’ve never seen the crowd so moved.”
“It was you.” Seraphine blushes, but doesn’t defer. She did do well. This is her life’s work. She’s good at it. “It was an honor to have you sing for me,” Sona adds, and now Seraphine’s face feels so hot it might just slide off. She’s glad she took the makeup off.
“I only did what I always do.”
Sona smiles. Her face isn’t sleek and polished like Evelynn’s or inscrutable like Renata’s. There are crow’s feet around her eyes, lines around her mouth where she has smiled a thousand times before. “I will write more for you. You were a wonder.”
Maybe this is the only good thing to come out of the evening. It’s enough for Seraphine. Sona takes her by the hand, guides her into the crowd, and signs, “Go and meet the admirers.”
Seraphine lets herself go. The vibrations of their hearts, the murmur of their conversations, the old routine of hello, thank you for your support, wonderful show, wonderful audience— it’s nearly enough to drown out the burn of those eyes on her skin.
Nearly.
She sleeps like the dead, that night. When she jerks awake in the closed shadow of her room, unaware of time, her mouth is dry. The taste of smoke sinks deep into her mouth. She is not dreaming; she knows her dreaming, and she never wakes before the fire catches her.
Seraphine is moving before she is fully conscious.
Clothed only in her nightgown, she emerges into the cold like walking into a solid wall of needles. And she watches her theater burn for the second time, her hands on her elbows, powerless to stop it. Three shadow figures dart across the streets. Seraphine’s skin prickles. Her eyes sting.
And then the sky opens.
Seraphine closes her eyes and thanks Janna for the wind that blew the storm to her. The rain is an upended bucket. It is three or four in the morning, judging by the position of the moon, and she is cold, soaked, will certainly catch her death if she stays out here. She turns.
Some part of her expects to see Renata Glasc standing behind her, imperious in her white cape, dry despite the downpour. She can almost hear the voice.
I told you, girl. I told—
She wakes up for the second time.
Her heart pounds in her chest. Her collarbones are slick with cold sweat. It is so, so dark in this windowless room, shoved somewhere in the west wings between the costuming room and the stage. Seraphine has no home except this theater.
She won’t be able to sleep again. She pulls a robe on, shivering despite the humid closeness of the shadows, and walks out to the stage. Odd, to see it empty, bisected by the moonlight. The orchestra pit is a yawning emptiness, the stage set over it like a dais. She sits on the edge and looks down, across her little domain. She feels distant, apart from her body— still cold, the wood against her legs warmer than her skin.
One dream is not enough to drive her into the arms of the Chem-Baroness. She can’t let her fear rule her. Seraphine wraps her hands around her arms and shivers, staring emptily at the windows.
Your ceilings are too low. Your curtains are… What had she said? Seraphine rolls the curtain between her fingertips. Does it matter? The people come for her, not for the beauty of the house itself.
Maybe they deserve beauty.
She’s only just started. The theater will grow with her. She is young and filled with promise, and surrounded, in every direction, by love.
But—
“Sera, Sera, Sera! ” Zeri’s voice is an electric shock.
Seraphine twitches back to attention with a soft gasp. “What is it?”
Zeri leaps from the seats to the stage in one great jump. She takes Seraphine’s shoulders in her hands. “Are you okay?”
It’s impossible not to be winded in her presence. “Yes…?”
“They threw a rock through the front window. I saw it,” Zeri says breathlessly. “The— I didn’t see their faces—”
“The militia,” Seraphine fills in. Her eyes sting. “But it hasn’t even been one night since I staged the play.”
“You’ve had a target on your back ever since you got up from the fire,” Zeri says. Her eyes zip up and down the length of Seraphine’s body, assessing her for damage. This is the way Zeri responds to everything: jump-start, action, never still or silent. She and Seraphine have been friends from the beginning, but Zeri has never come to see a show. Too restless.
“I’m okay,” Seraphine assures her.
Rain patters on the rooftop. Zeri nods once and releases Seraphine’s shoulders. “I’ll get my people to see what we can do about the window,” she says.
“You don’t have to,” Seraphine begins to say, but Zeri is already back out the door, fleeting as the green spot in a sunrise.
She hunches low to her body and tries not to think about the shattered glass; or about Sona, so hopeful, or Evelynn, so coolly realistic, or about how the ashes of the theater smelled, like nothing but plain burned wood. How her whole life had been reduced, in an instant, to char and scaffolding.
Instead she thinks of Renata Glasc. How she could lift a hand and make Seraphine safe. How Zeri would never forgive her. How the theater will burn, again and again and again, until her throat is made fallow from the smoke.
Some time before daybreak, Seraphine begins to cry.