Obviously, the prince got a private box that stared right down the center of the opulent opera stage. Étienne had only brought two sets of opera glasses, so he gave me his. As we waited for the show to start, I scanned the crowd with the magnifying glasses, inspecting all the lords and ladies.
This was Étienne’s idea of a casual not-date? All around me were the richest of the rich, draped in gold, silks, and jewels, with trailing trains, glittering makeup, and hairpieces topped by enchanted plants that blushed different colours according to the ambient pre-show music filling the hall.
Étienne was dressed to impress in a white and gold suit, adorned with swirly embroidery across his chest and tassels on his shoulders. Antoinette had donned a pine green gown with gathered shoulders and a slit up the thigh, plus delicate onyx heels that pushed her another three inches over Étienne and I (HAH! I knew Étienne gave short king energy! Take that, fandom!). As for my outfit, Antoinette had made the right call, fitting me in a long cream skirt and a semi-sheer glittery top that shrugged low on my shoulders but didn’t show off any cleavage. We fit right in, as shiny and stunning as the rest.
Why wouldn’t Antoinette have come here herself? Was the world that empty for the characters when Marie wasn’t directly interacting with them? If I walked in on Louis or Rémi unexpectedly, would they be T-posing with their faces half-loaded in?
Speaking of the game…
This was the first special solo event with a love interest. I was glad Étienne was here to keep my training wheels on. I was wary, though. Since this was a scenario meant to test the player’s interest in each of the love interests and start racking up the invisible approval points by the dozens, I was going to face lots of choices.
But maybe, judging by how Antoinette and Étienne were having a conversation, I’d changed the scenario enough that the programming wouldn’t chase me around?
Étienne was telling her, "I saw Madame Saphir perform the Empress Dionne when I was young, right here in the Rialto. I didn’t truly understand the themes or the story…but she sounded so beautiful. I asked my au pair every night to sing me World on a Canvas even once I’d well outgrown lullabies.” At this, he blushed. Yes. Yeeeessss! “Needless to say, she was much less fond of the song than I was."
Antoinette smiled. Actually smiled. I couldn’t help doing the same behind my opera glasses. That sweet story was the player’s first clue that Étienne’s route would focus on his chilly familial relationships. And yet here he was, telling Antoinette, not Marie–or, well, me, but still! Perfect. Étienne might not like her tendency to bully and had to think about the tensions between their families, but he was able to protect her from prison with merely a word in her favour, right?
I noticed that the couple I was watching pore over the playbill had gone still. Too still.
Oh no.
Even if Étienne’s back was to me, the dialogue box hung over the frozen scene.
Your…au pair sang to you? Not your mother? Oh, how I'd love to hear that song… Shh, it’s about to start.
Damn it.
Hopping into their personal conversation like an overexcited puppy wouldn’t win me any points towards my shiny new ship or my friendship with Antoinette. I tried to wait the options out, and still they hung over my head mockingly.
Gritting my teeth, I pressed 1. Surely Antoinette knew all about governesses and au pairs and whatever. Étienne speaking about it could encourage her to connect with him, right?
I butted in with those pre-written words, spice!Marie puppeteering me so I set a hand on Étienne’s armrest.
He blushed but didn’t skip a beat (wait, no! Only Antoinette should make him blush!). "My mother and father were often busy when I was younger. We were wrapped up in negotiating with…ah, it doesn’t matter. An au pair took care of me for much of my childhood; she was a formidable woman."
"We were negotiating"? I guess it was easy to start thinking of yourself as part of The Crown, capital T, capital C, when you were the only prince, even if you were barely out of diapers at the time.
Antoinette pulled the conversation back on track. I’d never been so grateful for her selfish steamrolling. "I never got to see Empress Dionne performed live, I fear. Though my mother gave me a record of the single show that was recorded live here. Perhaps that was the very same performance, Étienne?"
"Maybe! I’ll always remember it, because the au pair sang the version Madame Saphir adapted for Eavredor. Instead of the line about cherry-blossom fragrances, she wanted to make it local, so she sang–"
"Winter holly fragrances," Antoinette said. A little song in her voice twirled comfortably around the lyrics, even with its rasp. My heart fluttered.
"Yes, exactly! We did hear the same one, then!" Étienne exclaimed. "The turning heart like the turning air, winter holly fragrances, a summer’s trailing breeze–"
He froze.
No.
No, don’t you dare!
A spring-time love affair? An autumn’s harvest fair? A late-night gleaming…chair?
I groaned out loud. Whatever I chose, it would circle back, all adorable and inside-joke-y, if I romanced Étienne to the finish line.
Too bad, otome game. I would not trip face first into their moment. I’d seem rude at best, obsessive about Étienne at worst. The lyrics were crap, anyways!
I put down my opera glasses and dug in my purse (an Antoinette cast-off). I pulled out a handkerchief and buried my mouth and nose into it, pressing my lips shut tight, and pressed 1.
As Étienne speaks, a ribbon of music curls through my mind. It’s foggy, impossible to snatch with my fingers, but it brings words to me…
A spring-time love affair sounded more like a mumble fighting through a cough. Both Étienne and Antoinette stared at me in alarm.
"Oh, sorry, excuse me." I pretended to cough again.
Antoinette sighed and sat back. Étienne, to his credit, hummed the tune of the next few lines anyways as he settled into his seat, not even seeming to realise he was doing it.
My coughing fit quit right as the lights dimmed. A sea of compacts clicked shut and opera glasses clinked against rings. A man in a fine suit, the same red as the velvet curtains, came out on stage.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he announced in a booming voice and looping French accent (making me realize that I was super lucky this world wasn’t actually all in French), "welcome to the Théatre Rialto. We are beyond pleased and grateful to present The Weeping Woman to you, an opera written by the lead performer and songstress, Madame Maxime Saphir. It has been thirteen years since she performed outside of her delightful home country, and I trust that we will all make her feel welcome.
"Before we begin, I ask for your attention regarding a very important matter. The Weeping Woman discusses, in part, the loss of a family and a dear homeland. Recently, the family Gagnon from the city of Altolia suffered the tragic destruction of their estate by arson. All of the immediate family members are missing. We simply ask that if you have any information regarding this situation, please speak to the members of the garde stationed in the lobby."
Murmurs broke out. I stiffened.
Oh. Yeah.
All my worrying about Étienne and Antoinette made this reveal totally slip my mind.
That family? They were Marie’s. The news had just spread to the crown city, and would spread further, dropping clues all over the plot that seemed harmless enough with its potion-making and cute boys.
With that, the gentleman onstage bid us adieu. The stage went dark. The music began.
~*~
I was less interested in the opera than I was in Antoinette and Étienne. When we’d first entered the box, I dawdled, pretending to be enthralled by the view off the railing, so Antoinette could accept Étienne’s invitation to take her seat first like Marie did in the game. I remembered one silly detail and it paid off: the edge of the box was decorated with a mermaid statue whose tail blocked a bit of the view, forcing Antoinette to sometimes lean into Étienne to see the actors. Étienne didn’t seem to mind.
They watched the opera like cats watched birds. Fanfiction played around with Antoinette’s interest in opera, but usually it was relegated to tying her deeply into Sylvain’s backstory with his love of music. I never expected how much it would warm my heart to see it in person.
In person. The weirdness of that struck me, shocking but not exactly painful, like the little plip of a cold raindrop on my nose.
At intermission, Antoinette took her leave, citing a visit to the powder room.
She was going pretty fast. Apparently even beautiful otome game villains need to use the washroom after sitting in a theater for an hour.
Once she was gone, Étienne smiled coyly at me. "So…you invited her, is that so?"
"What? Yes, of course." Did he think she butted into my plans? I guess that would be like her… "She sounded like such a fan of Madame Saphir that I couldn’t imagine her missing the show. She’d regret it forever."
"I’m glad you two are getting along. Has there been any more trouble with the rooming arrangements?"
"Just typical girl arguments, that’s all."
I’d been sitting for way too long. I stood, stretching my legs and back, glad that Antoinette hadn’t made me wear a restrictive gown. And then I risked a hard-hitter of a topic. "Um, I hear there’s some tension between the Delphines and the Alaries." I’d heard it from playing the video game like a hundred times over and scouring Antoinette’s wiki for any crumbs of a backstory. Besides…well, myself, that was the biggest hurdle in getting these two to smooch. "What’s that about?"
Étienne adjusted the button on his glove, as if using that extra second to think of his answer. He’d need a more subtle tell if he was gonna be king. "Our fathers disagree on many things. They come from long traditions–mine from royalty, hers from merchants–and they’re very set in their ways. There was a disagreement when Antoinette and I were barely children. I honestly couldn’t tell you the details, besides how it involved patents and regulations. Georges Delphine apparently found enough loopholes in His Majesty’s laws to make his… ‘objectionable’ plan work, kicking off protests and a bit of a media frenzy, but I’ve never heard both sides of the story."
Yep, about as much as I learned from the game, once Marie tells Étienne about Antoinette’s bullying (though he was a little harsher in-game, revealing his protectiveness over Marie). Made sense. After all, Aconitum was the company whose schemy secrets landed Antoinette and all the involved Delphines in jail.
"Do your dads want you to stay away from each other?"
"Oh, I’m sure that would put them at ease." Étienne chuckled. "I refuse. I want to bury the hatchet–a hatchet neither Antoinette nor I ever wielded! When you brought Antoinette, I was surprised and, I can admit, a little uncomfortable. But I think you did me a favour." He waved a hand at the theater of nobility and elites, sipping their drinks and chit-chatting and, like I was earlier, scoping out everyone’s outfits and dates. "Everyone’s seen us here together. Maybe this will help them feel like they don’t need to be pro-monarchy or pro-Aconitum with nothing in between."
A grin sprang onto my face. "That would be a relief, wouldn’t it?"
Over the next few minutes, Étienne pointed out nobility in the crowd, telling me the who’s-who of the upper class. Antoinette didn’t come back.
"M. Collins, how much time until intermission ends?" Étienne asked his butler–before I even mentioned it. Good, so he was thinking of her!
"About seven minutes, Your Highness."
"Could you find Miss Delphine? She might have gotten caught up."
Right as the servant turned to the box’s curtain, I hopped to my feet. "Wait, no. I’ll go!"
"That’s alright, Chloé."
"What if she’s causing a scene? Let’s be real, there’s a non-zero chance that she got into an argument with someone. We wouldn’t want the prince associated with that." And Antoinette would probably be humiliated by the prince’s footman (butler? Servant? IDK) tracking her down. "Maybe it’s a girl problem," I suggested, and scooped up my purse and dashed off in that split second of manly embarrassment.
So close to showtime, the washroom was empty of ladies, besides Antoinette at the sink. Even if her back was to me, I caught her dabbing her very pink eyes and nose in the mirror before she spotted me with a little gasp.
"A-are you crying?" I blurted without thinking.
"What on earth are you doing? Fetching me like you’re my maid?" She tossed the crumpled tissue into the trash with a ferocity and precision that Rémi would envy.
"The show’s about to start."
"But it hasn’t. Don’t worry so much."
"I wanted to make sure something hadn’t happened…"
"Of course nothing happened. Most of us can walk ten feet without falling headfirst into disaster."
"And most of us don’t have to make up reasons to be offended," I snapped. "Look, Antoinette, I was worried about you. I’m sorry I embarrassed you, but that’s all you’ll make me sorry for."
She stared at me, eyes as huge as Madame Saphir’s when she projected her over-acted alarm to the nosebleeds. I stared back. Had I really said all that?
I’d forced her into a corner. Keep being defensive and prove my point, or dismiss me, as good as a coward? It was a tactic I’d used so often in weird fandom arguments that I didn’t realise it had become such a natural part of my vocabulary.
In the end, Antoinette didn’t need to choose. An employee at the lavatory door announced, "The show is about to resume. Please return to your seats as quickly as possible."
I gave her an out. "Let’s get going."
She strode away quickly; I scurried behind. I dug in my purse and pressed a mascara tube into her palm–one of her old sets she donated to me when we were packing to leave. I didn’t risk another sentence.
As we hurried down the hall, Antoinette, in a show of true skill that sure increased my approval rating for her, reapplied her cried-off mascara with expert precision. By the time we slipped back into the box and took our seats on either side of Étienne, she looked like she hadn’t been crying at all.
Obviously, the prince got a private box that stared right down the center of the opulent opera stage. Étienne had only brought two sets of opera glasses, so he gave me his. As we waited for the show to start, I scanned the crowd with the magnifying glasses, inspecting all the lords and ladies.
This was Étienne’s idea of a casual not-date? All around me were the richest of the rich, draped in gold, silks, and jewels, with trailing trains, glittering makeup, and hairpieces topped by enchanted plants that blushed different colours according to the ambient pre-show music filling the hall.
Étienne was dressed to impress in a white and gold suit, adorned with swirly embroidery across his chest and tassels on his shoulders. Antoinette had donned a pine green gown with gathered shoulders and a slit up the thigh, plus delicate onyx heels that pushed her another three inches over Étienne and I (HAH! I knew Étienne gave short king energy! Take that, fandom!). As for my outfit, Antoinette had made the right call, fitting me in a long cream skirt and a semi-sheer glittery top that shrugged low on my shoulders but didn’t show off any cleavage. We fit right in, as shiny and stunning as the rest.
Why wouldn’t Antoinette have come here herself? Was the world that empty for the characters when Marie wasn’t directly interacting with them? If I walked in on Louis or Rémi unexpectedly, would they be T-posing with their faces half-loaded in?
Speaking of the game…
This was the first special solo event with a love interest. I was glad Étienne was here to keep my training wheels on. I was wary, though. Since this was a scenario meant to test the player’s interest in each of the love interests and start racking up the invisible approval points by the dozens, I was going to face lots of choices.
But maybe, judging by how Antoinette and Étienne were having a conversation, I’d changed the scenario enough that the programming wouldn’t chase me around?
Étienne was telling her, "I saw Madame Saphir perform the Empress Dionne when I was young, right here in the Rialto. I didn’t truly understand the themes or the story…but she sounded so beautiful. I asked my au pair every night to sing me World on a Canvas even once I’d well outgrown lullabies.” At this, he blushed. Yes. Yeeeessss! “Needless to say, she was much less fond of the song than I was."
Antoinette smiled. Actually smiled. I couldn’t help doing the same behind my opera glasses. That sweet story was the player’s first clue that Étienne’s route would focus on his chilly familial relationships. And yet here he was, telling Antoinette, not Marie–or, well, me, but still! Perfect. Étienne might not like her tendency to bully and had to think about the tensions between their families, but he was able to protect her from prison with merely a word in her favour, right?
I noticed that the couple I was watching pore over the playbill had gone still. Too still.
Oh no.
Even if Étienne’s back was to me, the dialogue box hung over the frozen scene.
Your…au pair sang to you? Not your mother? Oh, how I'd love to hear that song… Shh, it’s about to start.
Damn it.
Hopping into their personal conversation like an overexcited puppy wouldn’t win me any points towards my shiny new ship or my friendship with Antoinette. I tried to wait the options out, and still they hung over my head mockingly.
Gritting my teeth, I pressed 1. Surely Antoinette knew all about governesses and au pairs and whatever. Étienne speaking about it could encourage her to connect with him, right?
I butted in with those pre-written words, spice!Marie puppeteering me so I set a hand on Étienne’s armrest.
He blushed but didn’t skip a beat (wait, no! Only Antoinette should make him blush!). "My mother and father were often busy when I was younger. We were wrapped up in negotiating with…ah, it doesn’t matter. An au pair took care of me for much of my childhood; she was a formidable woman."
"We were negotiating"? I guess it was easy to start thinking of yourself as part of The Crown, capital T, capital C, when you were the only prince, even if you were barely out of diapers at the time.
Antoinette pulled the conversation back on track. I’d never been so grateful for her selfish steamrolling. "I never got to see Empress Dionne performed live, I fear. Though my mother gave me a record of the single show that was recorded live here. Perhaps that was the very same performance, Étienne?"
"Maybe! I’ll always remember it, because the au pair sang the version Madame Saphir adapted for Eavredor. Instead of the line about cherry-blossom fragrances, she wanted to make it local, so she sang–"
"Winter holly fragrances," Antoinette said. A little song in her voice twirled comfortably around the lyrics, even with its rasp. My heart fluttered.
"Yes, exactly! We did hear the same one, then!" Étienne exclaimed. "The turning heart like the turning air, winter holly fragrances, a summer’s trailing breeze–"
He froze.
No.
No, don’t you dare!
A spring-time love affair? An autumn’s harvest fair? A late-night gleaming…chair?
I groaned out loud. Whatever I chose, it would circle back, all adorable and inside-joke-y, if I romanced Étienne to the finish line.
Too bad, otome game. I would not trip face first into their moment. I’d seem rude at best, obsessive about Étienne at worst. The lyrics were crap, anyways!
I put down my opera glasses and dug in my purse (an Antoinette cast-off). I pulled out a handkerchief and buried my mouth and nose into it, pressing my lips shut tight, and pressed 1.
As Étienne speaks, a ribbon of music curls through my mind. It’s foggy, impossible to snatch with my fingers, but it brings words to me…
A spring-time love affair sounded more like a mumble fighting through a cough. Both Étienne and Antoinette stared at me in alarm.
"Oh, sorry, excuse me." I pretended to cough again.
Antoinette sighed and sat back. Étienne, to his credit, hummed the tune of the next few lines anyways as he settled into his seat, not even seeming to realise he was doing it.
My coughing fit quit right as the lights dimmed. A sea of compacts clicked shut and opera glasses clinked against rings. A man in a fine suit, the same red as the velvet curtains, came out on stage.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he announced in a booming voice and looping French accent (making me realize that I was super lucky this world wasn’t actually all in French), "welcome to the Théatre Rialto. We are beyond pleased and grateful to present The Weeping Woman to you, an opera written by the lead performer and songstress, Madame Maxime Saphir. It has been thirteen years since she performed outside of her delightful home country, and I trust that we will all make her feel welcome.
"Before we begin, I ask for your attention regarding a very important matter. The Weeping Woman discusses, in part, the loss of a family and a dear homeland. Recently, the family Gagnon from the city of Altolia suffered the tragic destruction of their estate by arson. All of the immediate family members are missing. We simply ask that if you have any information regarding this situation, please speak to the members of the garde stationed in the lobby."
Murmurs broke out. I stiffened.
Oh. Yeah.
All my worrying about Étienne and Antoinette made this reveal totally slip my mind.
That family? They were Marie’s. The news had just spread to the crown city, and would spread further, dropping clues all over the plot that seemed harmless enough with its potion-making and cute boys.
With that, the gentleman onstage bid us adieu. The stage went dark. The music began.
~*~
I was less interested in the opera than I was in Antoinette and Étienne. When we’d first entered the box, I dawdled, pretending to be enthralled by the view off the railing, so Antoinette could accept Étienne’s invitation to take her seat first like Marie did in the game. I remembered one silly detail and it paid off: the edge of the box was decorated with a mermaid statue whose tail blocked a bit of the view, forcing Antoinette to sometimes lean into Étienne to see the actors. Étienne didn’t seem to mind.
They watched the opera like cats watched birds. Fanfiction played around with Antoinette’s interest in opera, but usually it was relegated to tying her deeply into Sylvain’s backstory with his love of music. I never expected how much it would warm my heart to see it in person.
In person. The weirdness of that struck me, shocking but not exactly painful, like the little plip of a cold raindrop on my nose.
At intermission, Antoinette took her leave, citing a visit to the powder room.
She was going pretty fast. Apparently even beautiful otome game villains need to use the washroom after sitting in a theater for an hour.
Once she was gone, Étienne smiled coyly at me. "So…you invited her, is that so?"
"What? Yes, of course." Did he think she butted into my plans? I guess that would be like her… "She sounded like such a fan of Madame Saphir that I couldn’t imagine her missing the show. She’d regret it forever."
"I’m glad you two are getting along. Has there been any more trouble with the rooming arrangements?"
"Just typical girl arguments, that’s all."
I’d been sitting for way too long. I stood, stretching my legs and back, glad that Antoinette hadn’t made me wear a restrictive gown. And then I risked a hard-hitter of a topic. "Um, I hear there’s some tension between the Delphines and the Alaries." I’d heard it from playing the video game like a hundred times over and scouring Antoinette’s wiki for any crumbs of a backstory. Besides…well, myself, that was the biggest hurdle in getting these two to smooch. "What’s that about?"
Étienne adjusted the button on his glove, as if using that extra second to think of his answer. He’d need a more subtle tell if he was gonna be king. "Our fathers disagree on many things. They come from long traditions–mine from royalty, hers from merchants–and they’re very set in their ways. There was a disagreement when Antoinette and I were barely children. I honestly couldn’t tell you the details, besides how it involved patents and regulations. Georges Delphine apparently found enough loopholes in His Majesty’s laws to make his… ‘objectionable’ plan work, kicking off protests and a bit of a media frenzy, but I’ve never heard both sides of the story."
Yep, about as much as I learned from the game, once Marie tells Étienne about Antoinette’s bullying (though he was a little harsher in-game, revealing his protectiveness over Marie). Made sense. After all, Aconitum was the company whose schemy secrets landed Antoinette and all the involved Delphines in jail.
"Do your dads want you to stay away from each other?"
"Oh, I’m sure that would put them at ease." Étienne chuckled. "I refuse. I want to bury the hatchet–a hatchet neither Antoinette nor I ever wielded! When you brought Antoinette, I was surprised and, I can admit, a little uncomfortable. But I think you did me a favour." He waved a hand at the theater of nobility and elites, sipping their drinks and chit-chatting and, like I was earlier, scoping out everyone’s outfits and dates. "Everyone’s seen us here together. Maybe this will help them feel like they don’t need to be pro-monarchy or pro-Aconitum with nothing in between."
A grin sprang onto my face. "That would be a relief, wouldn’t it?"
Over the next few minutes, Étienne pointed out nobility in the crowd, telling me the who’s-who of the upper class. Antoinette didn’t come back.
"M. Collins, how much time until intermission ends?" Étienne asked his butler–before I even mentioned it. Good, so he was thinking of her!
"About seven minutes, Your Highness."
"Could you find Miss Delphine? She might have gotten caught up."
Right as the servant turned to the box’s curtain, I hopped to my feet. "Wait, no. I’ll go!"
"That’s alright, Chloé."
"What if she’s causing a scene? Let’s be real, there’s a non-zero chance that she got into an argument with someone. We wouldn’t want the prince associated with that." And Antoinette would probably be humiliated by the prince’s footman (butler? Servant? IDK) tracking her down. "Maybe it’s a girl problem," I suggested, and scooped up my purse and dashed off in that split second of manly embarrassment.
So close to showtime, the washroom was empty of ladies, besides Antoinette at the sink. Even if her back was to me, I caught her dabbing her very pink eyes and nose in the mirror before she spotted me with a little gasp.
"A-are you crying?" I blurted without thinking.
"What on earth are you doing? Fetching me like you’re my maid?" She tossed the crumpled tissue into the trash with a ferocity and precision that Rémi would envy.
"The show’s about to start."
"But it hasn’t. Don’t worry so much."
"I wanted to make sure something hadn’t happened…"
"Of course nothing happened. Most of us can walk ten feet without falling headfirst into disaster."
"And most of us don’t have to make up reasons to be offended," I snapped. "Look, Antoinette, I was worried about you. I’m sorry I embarrassed you, but that’s all you’ll make me sorry for."
She stared at me, eyes as huge as Madame Saphir’s when she projected her over-acted alarm to the nosebleeds. I stared back. Had I really said all that?
I’d forced her into a corner. Keep being defensive and prove my point, or dismiss me, as good as a coward? It was a tactic I’d used so often in weird fandom arguments that I didn’t realise it had become such a natural part of my vocabulary.
In the end, Antoinette didn’t need to choose. An employee at the lavatory door announced, "The show is about to resume. Please return to your seats as quickly as possible."
I gave her an out. "Let’s get going."
She strode away quickly; I scurried behind. I dug in my purse and pressed a mascara tube into her palm–one of her old sets she donated to me when we were packing to leave. I didn’t risk another sentence.
As we hurried down the hall, Antoinette, in a show of true skill that sure increased my approval rating for her, reapplied her cried-off mascara with expert precision. By the time we slipped back into the box and took our seats on either side of Étienne, she looked like she hadn’t been crying at all.
