The stairwell was tucked into the far corner of the lobby, next to the gunmetal-gray elevator doors. I took the stairs. The Be-Well elevator was about as new as the carpet, which looked like it dated from the early seventies, and while I enjoyed falling, I wasn’t a big fan of the uncontrolled plummet that I was sure was coming eventually.
Despite being wedged into a narrow space between two other buildings, the Be-Well had a decent number of rooms, largely due to it having a decent number of floors. We’d been there long enough to change rooms several times, finally winding up with the one we wanted: the rear corner of the fifth floor, looking out on the backside of a billboard, two convenience stores, and a gas station that had been closed for three years, but hadn’t yet been sold.
The thin carpet on the stairs provided no padding. I only passed two people on the way up, a woman in a red dress who had her eyes glued to the screen of her smartphone, and a man who seemed more interested in talking to himself than he was in noticing me. We had found the perfect base of operations, seedy enough to be off most people’s radar, but safe enough for me to not feel bad about leaving Dominic here while I spent my time on the show.
I had a key to the door of our supposedly shared room. I knocked anyway. The sound of a chain being undone followed, and Dominic opened the door. He smiled when he saw me.
“I know you selected red because it’s an eye-catching color, but I’ve always preferred you blonde,” he said, and leaned in, and kissed me.
I’ve always felt that the way a man kisses says a lot about him. Dominic kissed me like he hadn’t seen me in a decade, instead of just an afternoon: hungry and hopeful and hard enough that I could feel it all the way down to my toes. He lifted his hands like he wanted to hold me, but didn’t want to pin me in place, in case I wanted to pull away. So I kissed him even harder, looping my arms around his neck. He took it as the invitation that it was and put his hands on my waist, boosting me up until my feet left the floor and he could carry me into the motel room.
I kicked the door shut behind me as Dominic carried me inside. The slam was deeply satisfying, as was the way Dominic was still kissing me, eager and present in a manner that very few of the men I’d kissed had been able to manage. I was about to pull back and propose we continue in this vein for a while when another sound intruded: cheering.
I pulled away from Dominic and twisted to see a cluster of mice standing on the room’s single low dresser, waving banners made from scrap paper and cheering their tiny hearts out.
“HAIL!” they cried. “HAIL THE RETURN OF THE ARBOREAL PRIESTESS!”
. . . and that, right there, was why his kisses were so passionate after being apart for only a few hours. We’d been sharing a tiny motel room with a splinter colony of Aeslin mice for weeks, and while it hadn’t managed to completely eliminate our sex life, twenty-three talking rodents had definitely been enough to put some limits on what we did.
(I’d complained to my mother, during one of my weekly calls home. Her response had been laughter, and the most chilling thing she’d ever said to me: “Well, at least this way, you’ll be ready when you have kids of your own.”)
“Hi, guys,” I said, unwinding my arms from Dominic’s neck and allowing my feet to drop back down to the floor. “Did you pick who’s going back to the studio with me?”
“We did, Priestess!” proclaimed a mouse, puffing out its tiny chest with pride. “Three Travelers in the Mysteries have been chosen, and will walk with you in Glory!”
“Cool,” I said, glancing back at Dominic. He was looking tired but amused. Somewhere between Manhattan and home, he’d learned to live with the mice. “So how about you guys go down and raid the kitchen trash one last time before I have to get going? Give us, say, an hour?”
“Are you invoking the Sacred Law of Food for Privacy?” asked the mouse.
“If I say yes, will you leave?” I asked.
“It is most irregular to send us away, rather than giving the food to us directly,” said the mouse. “But the Thoughtful Priestess did say, lo, Go Easy On Her, She Is Going To Be Under A Lot of Stress, and I believe that this is Going Easy.”
“Thank you, Mom,” I murmured, before saying more loudly, “Yes, it is. Thank you. Have fun in the kitchen.”
“HAIL!” cried the mice, and dispersed, vanishing behind the dresser.
I turned back to Dominic. “Now, where were we?” I asked.
“You were telling me about the show,” he said, taking a seat at the edge of the bed.
I blinked. “Actually, I was thinking make-outs, but okay. Um . . . I’m sharing an apartment with the other three dancers from my season. Anders, Pax, and Lyra. We started with same-sex rooming arrangements, but people were allowed to trade, so I figure most folks will have stayed with who they knew.”
“This is good?” asked Dominic.
“Means my roommate is already used to the idea that sometimes I’ll sneak out the window and go for a run in the middle of the night,” I said. “She isn’t going to get on my case about it, since I made it to the finale last time.”
He smiled. “Ah,” he said. “This is good. Are you enjoying the company of your peers?”
“Yes. No. Maybe. It’s weird being Valerie again, and it’s not like they’re planning to ease us into things. We already have our choreography assignments for week one. We’ll be heading to the theater tomorrow to get started.”
Dominic raised an eyebrow. “What will they have you doing?”
“For week one, a group number—jazz with other elements—and then they’ve broken us down by style. I’m going to be part of a three-way Argentine tango.”
His expression softened. “I remember dancing the tango with you. It was . . . bracing.”
“Bracing? That’s all you can say about dancing with me? That it was bracing? Oh, no.” I held out my hand. “Get up.”
Dominic raised an eyebrow. “Why? Where are we going?”
“The roof.”
“You know, there was a point in my training where I should have learned not to go to rooftops with Price girls.” He slid his hand into mine. I pulled him to his feet.
“I’m glad you were such a lousy student,” I said, grabbing my backpack from the floor before I tugged him over to the window. “I think it’s time you learn just how bracing I can be.”
Dominic came without resistance or complaint. His teachers would have been very disappointed in him. I, on the other hand, was thrilled.
Six
“I’ve found that the difference between an opportunity and an obstacle often comes down to how many knives you have hidden in your clothing.”
—Alice Healy
The roof of the Be-Well Motel
WE HAD CHOSEN THIS MOTEL partially because it was cheap and partially because it had a large, flat roof that was accessible from the upper rooms, if you didn’t mind climbing straight up the side of the building. (Technically, that meant the roof wasn’t accessible, since most people don’t view “climbing straight up the side of the building” as an option. Most people are silly.)
The roof was wide, flat, empty, and surprisingly free of broken glass and other debris, again because most people don’t want to climb up the side of the building. I beat Dominic there by an easy eight feet, and was sitting down with my forehead pressed against my knees by the time I heard him climb over the edge.
There was a pause before Dominic asked, “Is there a reason you’re demonstrating your flexibility right now?”
“Yup,” I said, climbing to my feet and smiling at him. “If I’m going to brace you, I want you to know you’ve been braced.”
“I have danced with you before,” he protested.
“Oh, believe me, I remember.” He’d followed me to one of my last ballroom competitions, knocked my partner unconscious, stuffed him into a closet, and joined me on the floor, resulting in my
faking an injury and getting myself disqualified. Good times.
But the past was past, and these were good times. I dug my iPod out of my bag, attached the speakers, and hit “play.” Jesca Hoop began to play. Dominic looked at me. I raised a hand and beckoned him forward.
“C’mere, Batman,” I said. “Let me show you how bracing I can be.”
He laughed nervously as he walked over and put one hand on my hip, pulling me into an amateur’s idea of a proper frame. “I assure you, I don’t need a demonstration.”
“Oh, but you do.” I moved his hand until he was cupping the top of my ass, pulling myself so close to him that there wasn’t room for air between us. “The Argentine tango is about connection. Intimacy. It’s a seduction.”
“You’ve already seduced me,” he protested.
“Not like this,” I said, and began to move.
Dominic’s Covenant training had included basic ballroom dance for some reason: probably because they had weird ideas about fitting into European high society when necessary. He knew the steps of the tango. He could even execute them, in a boring, workmanlike way. I twisted my hips, our proximity forcing his to move in tandem with mine.
“Feel the music, feel your partner,” I said. “I am the only thing that matters.”
He looked at me, eyes dark and heavy-lidded, and I shivered. “I’ve known that for a long time.”
The urge to stop dancing, shove him to the rooftop, and get naked was strong. Only the knowledge that even without broken glass, the roof would be filthy, stopped me. I kicked to one side, then the other, before raising my right leg and bracing it against his shoulder, essentially doing a split while still on my feet.
Startled, Dominic took a step backward, dragging me with him. I grinned.
“See? We’re one creature with two bodies, and it’s your job to make sure the connection doesn’t break. Hold me up. Support me. Feel the tension in my muscles, and use it to follow.”
We danced silently for a few minutes, Dominic trying to match me. The song changed, but I’d chosen Jesca because her beats were usually regular without being overwhelming. There was nothing on the album I couldn’t tango to, and Dominic could at least hear the rhythm.
His cheeks were red when I spun out and back, pressing myself against his chest. “I feel oddly inappropriate doing this,” he said.
“I’m your wife.”
“Valerie Pryor isn’t married,” he said. “The way you hold yourself, the way you move . . . I know I’m dancing with you. I feel like I’m also dancing with her.”
“Just hold on to that feeling,” I said, running my foot up the length of his leg. “When you watch the show, remember that it’s not your wife dancing like this with other men. It’s Valerie.”
“As long as you’ll remember that when the show ends, you’re coming home to me.” He pulled me abruptly closer and kissed me.
The song changed. I barely noticed.
When we finally pulled back from each other, we didn’t resume our dance. Instead, we stood there, cheeks red, and looked at each other. Dominic spoke first.
“Tell me something vital that requires there to be blood in my brain, or we risk the mice turning another sexual encounter into religious rite,” he said, in a low voice that sent shivers down my spine.
I took a breath. “Um. Okay. You remember I told you Brenna Kelly was a dragon? Well, she wants us to go back to Manhattan with her.” Dominic raised an eyebrow. I quickly outlined Brenna’s proposal: the purchase-slash-adoption, the money, the idea of raising a husband with love.
“Ah,” he said, when I finished. “The Covenant does something similar.”
“Still not comfortable with that.” I didn’t like the fact that the Covenant ran what was essentially a monster-hunter breeding program. Knowing that my family had belonged to it until just a few generations ago didn’t help.
Dominic took my hand and led me to the edge of the roof. He sat down. I sat beside him. Looking at me gravely, he said, “Do you remember when I asked if we were dating?”
“You mean when we were both naked, and you were like, ‘hey, girl I’ve been sleeping with for months, are we a thing?’” I asked. “Yeah, I remember.”
“I told you most of the knights of my generation would take lovers for the sake of the flesh, and then return home to suitable marriages,” said Dominic. “I didn’t want to do that, because I only wanted you.”
“Yes, this rings a lot of ‘wow that was an uncomfortable, horrible day’ bells,” I said. “What’s your point?”
“My point is if you hadn’t come crashing into my snare and my life, and if I’d remained the good Covenant soldier I was raised to be, I would have returned home to that marriage by now. I would have been lucky to meet the girl before I took her to the altar. Everything in our lives is curated. That includes our bloodlines. It’s necessary, when the same families have been fighting together for so many years.” Dominic looked at me solemnly. “I prefer how things happened with us—I’m delighted to have had the chance to fall in love—but arranged marriages haven’t destroyed the Covenant. For the dragons, they may be the only way.”
I blinked. “Okay, wow. This is the second conversation I didn’t expect to have tonight. You think I should do it?”
“I think you’ve already decided to do it,” he said. “I’m simply trying to make you feel better about the idea.”
“I love you.”
Dominic smiled. “I’m aware.”
Between dancing and talking, it had been over an hour, and the mice hadn’t appeared. That was a little odd: I assumed they had pilfered a lot of goodies from the motel kitchen and wanted to divvy them up before they went back to interacting with humans. The mice are loyal and dedicated to documenting as much of the family’s history as they can, but they have their own lives, and those lives are not lived according to human rules.
“I won’t be able to come tomorrow night,” I said, leaning my head against his shoulder. “The first day of rehearsals is always a killer. I’ve done it before, though. I’ll bounce back fast.”
“I’ll continue to do as I have done: hole up here, and watch the surrounding area for signs of danger or of Covenant presence. I’ve found plenty of danger so far, but nothing worth worrying about, and no traces of either Covenant monitoring or field teams. I suspect they’re still hung up on the East Coast.”
“Thank God for small favors,” I said. The idea of meeting another Covenant field team was enough to turn my stomach. Dominic had been working alone when I met him: he’d been willing to listen to reason. When the field team had shown up, it had been a lot less pliable and a lot more dangerous. “You’re sure you don’t mind?”
Dominic smiled. It was one of the sweetest sights I’d ever seen. “If I minded being here for you, I would never have followed you to Oregon. I’ll be fine. I’ll watch you dance on the television, and be gloriously glad to have met you on that rooftop in Manhattan, since it means I can be here now to see you moving. It will be fine.”
“You are the best.” I glanced at the display on my iPod. “But I don’t have time to show my gratitude right now. I gotta get back and go to bed if I’m going to survive the first day. Mice who are coming with me, front and center!”
“Are you sure they—”
“Have you met the mice?”
Sure enough, three Aeslin mice popped into view. One was carrying a Barbie-sized bag made from patches of cloth stitched together with dental floss. It bulged suspiciously at the seams, making me suspect the motel kitchen was missing more cheese than previously thought. Ah, well. It wasn’t like it was the good stuff.
“All right: these are the rules,” I said, sitting up straighter. “Rule one: no one sees you. Adrian will have the place tented and fumigated if someone says there are mice, and I refuse to explain that to my parents. Rule two: I know unquestioning obe
dience isn’t your thing, but I need it. If I say hide, you hide. If I say run, you run. Understand?”
“We understand!” squeaked the mice in unison.
“Good.” Now for the hard one. I took a breath. “There can be no cheering, no chanting, and no audible celebration of any kind.”
The mice looked appalled. “But . . . but Priestess,” protested the mouse with the bag. “How are we to keep the catechism, if we cannot cheer for you?”
“Find a way,” I said. “If you get caught, I won’t be able to protect you. Especially not when we’re at the theater.”
Dominic gave me a curious look. “How did you manage the first time?”
“I took one mouse, because no one knew what sort of situation I was walking into, which meant I needed to have my ‘black box,’ but I wasn’t trusted to take even a splinter colony,” I said. “She’s older now. She’s one of the heads of my priesthood, and she was very sorry when she wasn’t able to come with us.” She was also one of the only mice I recognized on sight, thanks to the amount of time we’d spent together. Brave and foolish and funny. I missed her.
One of the tragedies of the Aeslin is that while their lives are much longer than the lives of ordinary mice, they’re still so short. The mouse that was young and vital only three years ago was now solidly middle-aged, and no longer as eager to risk herself in the big, bad world outside the temple. Besides, she had a congregation to run, and dance classes to teach, since dancing was a large part of the rituals inspired by my time on Dance or Die. Watching Aeslin mice do the cha-cha was definitely an experience.