“I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone,” I said.
“I won’t be alone. I’ll have the mice, and they are a formidable force for good, when not attempting to convince me to portray the entire Covenant in their recreation of your Grandfather’s final meeting with the elders.” Dominic raised our joined hands to his mouth, pressing a kiss against the back of my knuckles. “Go. Rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“You’re both way too calm about the talking mice,” said Malena.
I had to laugh at that. It was a small, anxious sound, but it was a laugh, and I felt better afterward. “You have no idea,” I said. Leaning forward, I kissed Dominic quickly and properly, savoring the feeling of his lips on mine. Then I stepped away, pulling my hand from his. “Come on. Let’s get some sleep. It’s going to be a big day tomorrow.”
Sixteen
“Your real friends will love you for who you are, no matter how many heads or limbs or ovipositors you have.”
—Evelyn Baker
The Crier Apartments, nowhere near enough hours later
“WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU LAST NIGHT?”
Lyra’s voice cut through the fog of sleep like a knife through a swamp bromeliad. My eyes snapped open a split second before I sat bolt upright in bed, turning to stare at her.
She was standing next to my bed, arms crossed, and a deeply irritated look on her face. “Oh, good, you’re awake. Because I was awake until almost midnight waiting for you to come the hell home so I could yell at you. What the hell, Valerie?”
That was enough to bring me the rest of the way from disoriented grogginess into full wakefulness. “Lyra, please, stop shouting. What time is it?”
“It’s good that we’re both talking about time, since you don’t seem to have any for me these days,” she snapped. “I knew things would be different with your boyfriend and sister hanging around—and don’t think I haven’t been tempted to report them both to Adrian, with the way you’ve been letting yourself get distracted—but I didn’t expect you to go and replace me with a newer model. What’s Malena got that I don’t have, huh?”
Scales and the ability to walk on walls. I blinked. “Are you jealous?”
“Uh, yeah, I am, bitch,” she said, without unfolding her arms. “You’re supposed to be my best friend. Do you know how few really good friends I have? I’m always dancing, or rehearsing, or auditioning. I don’t have time to make friends. I came back to this show partially because it would mean seeing you again, and here you are constantly running off with other people.” Her face fell. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No! Lyra, honey, no!” I jumped out of the bed and hurried to put my arms around her. “I’ve just been . . . it’s all hard on me. I’d stopped dancing.”
Her eyes went wide. “What?”
There it was: the words were out. I took a deep breath, and repeated, “I’d stopped dancing. When I couldn’t get work after the show, I decided to do something else with my life. I hadn’t danced in months when Adrian contacted me.”
“But . . .”
“I came back because I still love it, but I’ll be honest, I feel like an alcoholic who took a job at a bar. This isn’t my world anymore. Unless I win, I can’t let it be my world anymore. I’m trying not to fall so much in love that I can’t walk away when it’s all over.” Every word I said was true, and I hadn’t been expecting to say any of them.
“Oh, Val,” she said again. “I didn’t know.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t tell you.”
“How about this Sunday, we have a girls’ day, just you and me? We can get pedicures and talk about how much our legs ache.”
“I’d like that,” I said. “Thanks. What time is it?”
“Oh!” Lyra winced. “I was so surprised, I just forgot! You slept through the alarm, the cars are leaving for the theater in ten minutes. I came to wake you up.”
“What?!” I let her go, grabbing my makeup kit as I launched myself for the bedroom door. There was no one between me and the bathroom, and I was able to lock myself inside, beginning the quick and dirty process of putting my Valerie-face on.
Ten minutes later, I was standing on the sidewalk with the rest of my season, a fresh wig pinned to my head and just enough makeup on that I wouldn’t look dead when the cameras came into the rehearsal room. Pax glanced at me, eyebrows raising as he took in my black yoga pants and loose gray tank top. They were audition clothes, “don’t stand out too much” clothes, not “go to the rehearsal and keep the camera locked on you the whole time” clothes.
“You okay?” he asked. The real question—“How much sleep did you get?”—went unasked, but it hung between us, fat and ripe and poisonous.
“I’m good,” I said, mustering a smile. “I was just more stressed out about last night’s competition than I expected, and I guess I slept doubly hard because of it. I’m totally fine.”
“You never oversleep,” said Anders, pushing himself into the conversation without a trace of shame. “Remember how you used to wake me up by crouching at the foot of my bed like some sort of freaky gargoyle? You never missed a morning.”
“Everybody has a bad day,” I said.
Anders slipped his arm through mine, pulling me close. It was a fraternal gesture; there was nothing romantic or inappropriate about it. It still felt unearned. “Like last night?” he asked, voice going sharp and low.
“Like last night,” I agreed. I was having trouble finding my inner Valerie today, and without her, I was an interloper in this place. All around me were dancers laughing, gossiping, totally ready for the cars to come and sweep them off to the waiting theater. Even Jessica was smiling as she chatted with Lo. It was like everyone else had fallen into some weird parallel dimension where people weren’t dying and everything wasn’t awful.
No, wait. I was the one in the weird parallel dimension. I was the one in the dimension where I had no choice but to know how terrible things really were.
Malena sidled up to me as the cars pulled up to the curb. She was wearing more makeup than I was, and her lips were painted a bright, bloody red that lent her the air of a ticked-off warrior goddess, ready to bite the heads off anyone who annoyed her. She pushed herself between me and Anders, forcing him to let me go. I decided she was my favorite.
“I hate everyone,” she announced, sans preamble. “Can I ride with you? If I have to listen to Emily and Troy handicapping the remaining dancers for one more minute, I’m going to get myself disqualified.”
“There are only three people in your car now,” said Lyra, with all the tact and delicacy of a charging rhino. It made sense, after this morning. It was still a complication I didn’t need. “Why do you need to cram yourself into ours?”
“Because I asked nicely, and because I’d rather ride with my friends than with a bunch of jerks who insist on plotting out how, exactly, they can win their way to the finals,” Malena said. “It doesn’t help that Troy’s my partner, but cares more about exploring the magical promised land of Emily’s pants than about noticing when he’s making me uncomfortable. I’m riding with you guys.”
Lyra looked like she was going to protest again. All that was going to do was slow us down, and so I made an executive decision, stepping forward, pulling open the car door, and gesturing for Malena to get inside.
“I’ll ride in the middle,” I said, with more perkiness than I actually felt. “I needed a nap anyway, and I always fall asleep when I’m squished between two people in the backseat.”
“Middle child syndrome,” said Malena, and winked as she scooted into the car.
Lyra frowned. I grimaced apologetically and got in. Maybe this wasn’t the safest thing I could have done when she was already jealous of how much time I was spending with Malena, but I didn’t have time to screw around. I needed to get to the theater.
The theater. The more I woke
up, the more I understood that Dominic and the mice had been there alone, all night long. There were no texts on my phone, and there had been no calls; they were probably fine. They were probably fine.
Maybe if I told myself that a sufficiently large number of times, I’d start believing it.
Lyra sulked for the whole drive, while Anders chattered at Pax about the surfing in Hawaii and whether or not Pax was hoping to be home in time for the big waves. Pax gave mild, noncommittal answers. I wondered whether either of them realized the other had effectively no interest in surfing. I didn’t feel like pointing it out. I was too busy resting my head on Malena’s shoulder—something she endured with stoic amusement—closing my eyes, and trying not to dwell on the worst-case scenarios at hand. There were so many ways things could have gone wrong once Dominic and the mice were alone. Maybe he hadn’t texted because he wasn’t there anymore. Maybe he and my grandmother had found the same shallow grave. Maybe—
“Val, I’m sorry to interrupt you while you’re drooling on my shoulder, but we’re here.” Malena’s words were accompanied by a hard poke in the arm before she brought her lips close to my ear and hissed, “Open your eyes, there’s something you need to see.”
I opened my eyes.
We’d pulled up to the back door of the theater, which was open and clogged with bodies as the remaining dancers forced their way inside. Pax was already out of the car, with Anders and Lyra close behind him. Apparently, remaining crammed in the car was not on their agenda for the day. I barely registered their absence. All my attention was on the dark-haired, exhausted-looking man standing off to one side and trying to look unobtrusive.
Dominic had acquired a clipboard and badge somewhere, which made my heart leap with something between pride and delight. He’d been paying attention when I talked about the way to integrate yourself into a setting. He looked like a stagehand, and unless he was giving orders or handing out coffee, none of the dancers were going to look at him twice.
“Don’t dawdle,” said Malena, holding the door for me as I got out of the car. “I can’t stop the assignments for you, and you know Adrian will notice if you’re late.”
“I got it,” I said, and launched myself at Dominic, wrapping my arms around him and hugging him as hard as I could. I didn’t care who saw us. Dancers loved to gossip, and if they wanted to add “is sleeping with a stagehand” to their collection of rumors about me, I had dealt with worse. Sometimes the worse had even been true.
Dominic waited until I let him go and pushed myself back before he said, in a soft voice, “We found many things, but nothing which will lead us immediately to our goal. The map is behind the wardrobe rack in the women’s dressing room. I’ve annotated it as best I could. The mice can tell you what was found in each area. They’re still searching, and may need you to help them update the map. There is one mouse in your makeup drawer. It has promised not to jump out and frighten anyone who doesn’t really, really deserve it.”
I did a quick review of the dancers remaining on the show. “Please tell me you didn’t show it a picture of Jessica.”
“I didn’t, but I was tempted.” He deposited a quick kiss on my temple, leaving his lips there for a moment after the pressure of the gesture had faded. “Did you sleep?”
“Not enough.”
“Will you be able to get through this day?”
“When you met me I was working as a cocktail waitress, acting as a social worker to half of New York, and still managing to keep fit for competitions and classes,” I said, taking a step backward and giving him my best coquettish smile. It lacked a certain sincerity and sparkle, but it was close enough to what I needed it to be. “I’ll be fine. You go rest up, and then get back over here. We may be able to finish searching the place after rehearsal is finished.”
Dominic’s expression was solemn. “Just because we didn’t find her, that doesn’t mean it’s time to assume the worst. She is a brilliantly dangerous woman.”
“All the more reason to kill her quickly,” I said. “I have to go. I love you.”
“I love you as well,” he said. “Stay safe.” He turned and walked away. He didn’t look back before he went around a corner, and was gone.
I was the last one to the stage. Adrian looked up when I entered, and scowled.
“So, the fabulous Valerie Pryor is finally deigning to grace us with her presence,” he said. “This is no time to get a swelled head, sweetheart. I don’t know if you were paying attention last night, but if you’re not in the bottom three this coming week, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”
Some of the dancers tittered, Jessica among them. I ducked my head, trying to look humble and chastened.
“I know, I’m sorry,” I said. “I haven’t been feeling well. I had to stop by the bathroom for some cold water.”
As I’d hoped, Adrian’s expression shifted, becoming concerned. It was nothing to do with me: even if I hadn’t been one of his specific favorites, the show’s insurance insisted all medical issues be taken with the utmost seriousness. “Are you well enough to dance today, darling? We can provide a fill-in for your partner, if you’re not.”
The responsible thing to do would have been to say that no, I wasn’t well: I needed to go back to the apartments and sleep off whatever virus I’d managed to pick up. Sadly, it wouldn’t have been that simple. The show’s medics would have been required to get involved, and by the time they finished filling me with fluids and lecturing me on nutrition—two things that seemed to happen for everything from food poisoning to broken toes and concussions—I would have lost even more time than I was going to waste dealing with the choreographers. I shook my head.
“I think I’m all right. I promise to say something the second I feel otherwise, but after last night, I don’t think I can afford to miss the first day of choreography.” I didn’t have to fake the crack in my voice. Let them assume I was worried about my place on the show, and not about the life of my grandmother and my friends. The best lies were always built on a foundation of truth.
“All right, dear, all right,” said Adrian. He waved me to my place on the stage, and didn’t say another word about my tardiness.
The drawing of our dance styles from the hat went quickly after that. Anders and I got the Argentine tango, to my immense relief. I—or rather, Valerie—had been nationally ranked in that style more than once, and I could handle the rehearsal in my sleep, no matter how difficult our choreographer tried to make it. Pax and Lyra got hip-hop, while Malena and Troy pulled contemporary. Malena looked unhappy about that, but there wasn’t time to reassure her before we were all being hustled off to our individual rooms to get to work.
It was more than an hour before I could duck away, making a vague excuse about needing to go to the bathroom. We were with Marisol Bustos again, the show’s go-to for the Argentine tango, and she seemed relieved to have me stepping out of the room for a few minutes. It would give her time to focus her attentions on Anders, who frankly needed them much more than I did.
(Which wasn’t to say that she was going to go easy on me in the days ahead. I knew Marisol, and worse, Marisol knew what I was capable of. I could underperform today, since I had the whole “I don’t feel well” excuse going for me, but come tomorrow, I’d either need to step up my game or see the show’s medics. That meant I needed to take care of this today.)
I hurried down the hall, bypassing the restrooms on my way to the dressing room. Luck was with me, maybe for the first time since I’d decided to come back on the show: there was no one else there. Quickly, I made my way to the main wardrobe rack, crouched down, and whispered, “I seek audience.”
“HAIL!” The cry was muted—the mice were making an effort—but loud enough that I glanced over my shoulder, waiting for a PA or stagehand to stick their head in and ask what I was shouting about. When no one appeared I relaxed, marginally, and turned back to the wardrobe rack. r />
The mice were starting to appear, lining themselves up neatly as they bristled their whiskers and waved their paws in the air, jubilant over my appearance. Only about half the colony was present; the rest must have been running around in the basements, looking for signs of Alice. They’d been making the most of their time in the theater: fully half of them had strings of beads or sequins wrapped around their necks, and one was clutching a bag made from an ankle sock, stuffed to its absolute limit with feathers.
“Have you been chewing on costumes?” I asked.
“No, Priestess,” said the mouse at the front of the group. “All we have Taken, we have Found, for did not the Well-Groomed Priestess say unto us, What Has Been Discarded, You May Have, But Don’t You Little Monsters Nip My Embroidery?”
“I’ll believe it,” I said. “I’ll try to find you a shoebox to put everything in. I can sneak it back to the apartment, no problem.”
The mice cheered again. Then they sobered, and the lead mouse said, “We have not found the Noisy Priestess. We have failed you.”
“Woe,” moaned the mice, in unnerving unison.
The last thing I needed to deal with was a crisis of faith on the part of my Aeslin mice. “You haven’t failed me,” I said hurriedly. “Anything worth doing is worth working for, right? We’re being challenged right now. That means we have to stick with it, and we’ll find her.” Whether or not we’d find her alive . . .
No. I couldn’t dwell on that, or on the fact that maintaining my cover meant I was dancing while my grandmother was missing and potentially dead somewhere underneath the theater. For the sake of the mice, I had to remain positive.