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.