Tell him what? He blinked. He had eyes only for the ceiling, dripping glass and lights. The chandeliers seemed to turn and move, if he looked at them long enough, like whirling skirts made out of stars. Diana’s slender fingers anchored him back down to the rich-carpeted floor, but he found he couldn’t remember what they were talking about.
His eyes came into focus. Towhead, was his first thought. A man, laughing through a shower of deep freckles — his laughter at odds with how he was pawing uneasily at the part of his hair. Like he expected it to jump aside in a sudden draft.
He knew he was smiling Anatole’s thin smile, and had been for some time, because his face hurt. He barely knew the words that came out of his mouth; he heard them like they were someone else’s. That was fine — they were. “Circle, you and your Bastians,” said Anatole, with a humming little laugh.
“I wouldn’t say that to Mrs. Madison, when she arrives,” snorted Dr. Levesque.
“‘Variety is the very spice of life,’” hummed Anatole, “and I am firm in my opinion: there is no language for opera like Heshath. You cannot argue,” he found his voice rising over Levesque’s beginning protests, “you cannot argue; Heshath is the language for opera; not even Deftung comes close, and especially not Estuan, not even Bastian Estuan –”
“But what about Cavalcanti? What about The Gondolier?”
“All fine works, yes; I can enjoy the Bastians, Arthur, I’m not a chrove –”
Diana was laughing, now, real laughter, and Anatole – he – whoever he was – he couldn’t seem to keep from laughing himself, and it came out of him deep and rich and smooth, and if he spent a second listening to it, it might’ve terrified him; but he didn’t have any thought to spare. It was early in this evening, and he hadn’t had a drop to drink – he’d promised Ava, without words – Ava, who was – he couldn’t think of Ava. Tonight, he was Anatole Vauquelin; he could be who he wanted when he got home, “home”, if he could figure out who that was.
Diana patted his arm gently. “I can enjoy both,” she said, finally. He looked over at her. There was a warm smile on her red-painted lips, and a flush in her cheek, and one blond hair out of place, because it was the windiest day in Yaris so far. She was looking at him with eyes that told him she was looking at Anatole, and he didn’t like it, but it made him feel like he’d succeeded at something.
They all stood in the foyer of the Royal Opera House, in the scattered crowds; you could hear the distant hum of an orchestra warming up, the chatter and laughter, smell the cloying cloud of cigar smoke and cologne. Every few moments another, new field brushed his and went, and he got the urge — budding, and growing, ever since he’d started casting — to pull his field in against his skin, jealous of the few clairvoyant mona that now drifted comfortably in the buzzing mess of his porven. He was grateful for the porven, too; he was afraid he’d’ve been sweating his discomfort if his field were any more his own. Diana’s perceptive field was calm against his, warm and bastly, and Levesque’s static mona danced with his amusement.
“Besides,” Diana went on, “Milo will undoubtedly take his side. I’ve heard he’s distantly related to the librettist, Lucretius Savatier.”
He didn’t know who Lucretius Savatier was; Anatole would have. Instead, he put in, “I shall be so pleased to see Milo again. It’s been such a long time.”
“The two of you were so close,” said Levesque, picking up the thread he left with enthusiasm, to his relief. “And you’re looking so much more yourself, Anatole; we knew you’d pull through. I’m certain Milo and Linnea will be more than pleased to see you in such good health.”
So much more himself, Anatole thought. There were mirrors set along the walls, interspersed with wood paneling; he couldn’t see himself in them, and it relieved him, and he didn’t know why. He looked down at his feet, at the sheen of the distant light on his shoes. The carpet spread out beneath them, a landscape of its own, a dizzying network of vines and flowers. Deep red and brown and gold. The sickly scent of his own cologne. The distant breath of strings. The weight of the watch in his waistcoat pocket, the tickets in the inside pocket of his jacket, against his chest. The silk necktie like a noose.
It was hot out there, and hot in here, too. He tugged at his collar, silent for a moment; sweat prickled at the back of his neck. It felt strangely cold.
“Ah, speak of the hatcher,” breathed Diana, touching his arm, “and with Linnea, too.”
He looked up at two approaching galdori, and didn’t have to fit Anatole’s smile on his face; it was already there. Diana was dipping low in a bow, and he followed, smoothly. “Good evening to the both of you,” he called, suffusing his voice with a pleasure he could almost taste; and it tasted as cloying and chemical as the perfume.