The next morning, Blonos's studio looks a little different.
At first, I don't take much note of it. I'm more focused on the deadening ache in my biceps. The muscles are painfully stiff, and every little movement hurts.
On the bright side, maybe if Blonos notices that my arms are no longer functional, I can get her to call Cal off. The chances are slim, though.
With my AirPods in and my eyes engrossed in the American Ballet Theatre's synopsis of Manon on my phone, I barely notice how eighty-or-so folding metal chairs are arranged in a neat oval around the hulking studio. The usual barres are gone, exiled to the room's margins, and some disgusting TikTok hit that's popular now but will be forgotten by next week plays from overhead.
There's a flurry of excitement to the room. The dancers who have already gotten to class are either hanging around in little clumps or have taken to the folding chairs. Each one has a piece of plain paper taped to its back, accompanied by a dancer's name in bold black marker. I spot my assigned chair across the room, spaced only four away from the chairs of the Calore brothers. Alphabetical order, I see.
Still not caring too much about whatever's going on, I trek halfway across the room in my navy-blue warm-up pants, black sweatshirt, and moon-boots.
Under the hood of my sweatshirt, my ballerina-tight bun pulls at my scalp, as per usual. Only once I'm fully across the way do I bother to take down my hood. I toss my bag down onto my chair, making to take out my AirPods and put them away with my phone.
But a few things seen only out of the corner of one of my eyes make me pause.
Blonos, who sits two chairs over from me, wears a look of intense displeasure. Dressed in her usual mean ballet mistress clothes, she sits with that pristine posture of hers. She would usually be ordering people around, working the Corps girls to the edge of tears with her remarks. Now she just sits quietly, staring across the room at three people who look entirely out of place for a professional ballet company.
My eyes tear to Maven next, who's already peering back at me with some degree of panic. To anybody else, it only looks like awestruck excitement.
Through the grand wall of mirrors at the front of the studio, my eyes flicker between three heads of hair, one blue, one green, and one white. Each dancers' hair is vividly neon, as though a little bit of lightning struck their scalps one day.
One of them is moving away from the doors. I completely missed him, even though he was standing right there as I passed him, greeting every new dancer with that TikTok enthusiasm of his.
My mind works faster than my eyes.
Tyton, Ella, and Rafe, the infamous TikTokers of New York City, known for starting flash mobs from the Bronx to Brooklyn and currently thirty-three-million followers strong on TikTok, are standing around Blonos's studio. Rafe is perched on a chair, shamelessly flirting with a boy in the Corps de Ballet, and Ella seems to be having a casual conversation with Carmadon, who's seated a ways down from me.
Their pathetic Gen-Z camera crew of three follows them around, bearing little vlog cameras attached to tripods. Two other teens dressed in brand-name sweatpants and oversized T-shirts loiter at the door like some sort of interns. The TikTok mix that plays begins to make sense.
Paused in place at my chair, one hand still reaching for my AirPods from my ears, the other braced against my chair back, I use every ounce of my will to paste back together a face of boredom, albeit a face of confused boredom.
I don't let myself hold onto the chair long enough for my fingers to tighten over the metal.
Because Tyton Jesper and his electric-white hair have been trailing me across the room since the moment I passed through its threshold.
He follows me with this lethal, silent grace that I can only compare to a cat. A wild cat, perhaps. It doesn't help that he's wearing these little tight shorts that some of the male dancers wear from time to time. The black fabric covers less than a pair of boxers do, but if I know anything about Tyton, he's probably wearing them "in the name of TikTok." All of his lady fans are bound to love his new look.
In the mirror, he wears a smile.
It looks friendly and easygoing. He smiles as though he's never met me and only heard stories of me, the young Principal dancer.
I turn on the ball of my foot, matching his grace. He already has a finger extended to tap me on the shoulder.
The smile remains. Tyton towers over me, only an inch or two shorter than Cal. His grin might be easygoing, but his eyes sparkle with something else.
Not missing a beat, Tyton retracts his hand, only to replace it with his other in the form of a handshake.
"Hi," he says, his tone dripping with sarcasm that only he and I can catch. "I hear that you're the queen of this place. Though you look more like a princess to me."
My heart pounds far harder than any of my fellow dancers would ever think.
Using the powers of their TikTok fame, Tyton, Ella, and Rafe managed to cut a deal with some idiot or other at the Academy that entails a day of ballet and TikTok dancing.
It's a publicity thing, I guess. But it's not for us. The Academy is hardly short on its supply of fame, riches, and praise. Besides, the Calores wouldn't deign to find their patrons in a bunch of lazy, stupid teens that spend five hours a day obsessively watching Tyton Jesper's TikTok videos. They prefer that they're only admired by people that matter: namely the rich and sophisticated.
Thus, the Academy is just indulging these three fools who want to make a vlog for YouTube that goes absolutely, ridiculously viral. The only reason that they're here at all, as I mentioned already, is that some idiot or other who has some sway around here agreed to their request.
I'm talking about Carmadon, for the record. Apparently, he has a soft spot for modern dance.
It twists something in my gut to know that the Academy is currently housing three more Scarlet Street Fighters than usual.
If only it hadn't been a secret.
If only I had had more time to brace myself and Maven.
If only they hadn't insisted to the ballet masters that they wanted this to be a surprise for the dancers. Because apparently, this is supposed to be like a fun, cool day off.
More than a few girls squealed when they laid eyes on Tyton, who's known for being a ladies' man. He's disgustingly flirtatious, charming, tall, hot—if you're into grandpa hair with an excessive dose of "Hey, Princess."
Ella and Rafe aren't quite as shameless. They're fun, cheery, peppy . . . and whatever other words go with people who are TikTok famous. Unlike Tyton, they're just wearing regular T-shirts and Nike pants.
Everyone's supposed to have fun today. We're supposed to . . . collaborate. You know, it's supposed to be that kind of thing where the tense ballerinas mix with the technique-less street dancers, and everybody leaves the studio having learned something.
But my stomach still has this dreadful, sickening feel to it. They're not here just to have some fun. Tyton, Ella, and Rafe are here for a reason. And I can only hope that it doesn't involve me.
Not to mention that it won't be long before the lid blows and Tyton finds out that I have a boyfriend named Maven Calore. Then he'll text Shade, and God knows what happens after that.
Those thoughts leave me seated in my chair with one leg crossed over the other, looking for all of the world like I'm having a decent time. I don't tap my nails against my seat as I so desperately want to, nor do I bounce my foot against the vinyl floor. Instead, I only lounge in my folding chair, trying for all the world to look like Cal when he watches me do push-ups.
Push-ups. Push-ups would be good right now. Or some ballet jumps. Maybe a 10K.
Anything to release some of the panic from my body.
On top of everything else, I think that they're going to force me to make TikToks with them.
"Alright," Rafe says, clapping his hands together from the middle of the room. "Now that you've gotten to know us, we need to get to know all of you."
Tyton, Ella, and Rafe have spent the past half-hour introducing themselves.
They grew up taking hip-hop classes and dancing in the streets together. They grew up middle class in upstate New York, but these days they're living in a fancy-ass apartment on the Upper East Side. Disgusting. They're the pioneers of dance TikTok. They all dyed their hair because they figured that it would get them more views.
And that's all I gathered.
The dancers are constantly chuckling and giggling at things that the TikTokers do and say. They have this charisma about them that makes it impossible to dislike them. Rafe's constantly cracking jokes, Tyton won't stop asking stupid questions about ballet, and Ella's just trying to keep her boys in line.
Blonos looked about ready to slap Tyton when he pulled out his own pointe shoes and asked her when he'd get to put them to use. Blonos told Tyton that not only do men not dance en pointe, but that his feet are far too weak to handle those shoes.
"We'll just start by going around the circle and saying our first name, plus something that we like that starts with the first letter of our first name. For example, my name's Tyton, and I like TikTok. Got it?" Tyton asks.
Grinning from ear to ear, Tyton's grey, clever eyes flash to mine.
Electricity crackles in the studio. I'm the only one that feels it right down to my bones.
"My name's Maven, and I like margaritas."
Cal hits Maven against the shoulder with the back of his hand, muttering something into Maven's ear. Whatever he says, Maven just laughs at Cal.
"My name's Cal, and I like chocolate."
Having worked backward through almost the entire circle, we're currently on the C's of the alphabet. And backward, Maven Calore comes before Cal Calore, even if that's not his real name.
I tune out for a moment. I picture the jubilant scene of Act One of Giselle as I wait for my turn.
"My name's Bess, and I like ballet," Blonos says rather dryly as she watches the floor.
The Gen-Z tripod-wielding crew has taken to lounging around on the balcony, finding this too boring to film. Tyton, Ella, and Rafe have retreated to their own chairs throughout the room.
The guy next to me takes his turn, saying something about Broadway.
"I'm Mare," I start, hoping and pleading that my fellow Scarlet Street Fighters will stay quiet, "and I like—"
"Mare Barrow. I know," Tyton cuts me off.
Thank God he got cold and threw on a pair of pants over his tiny shorts, because Tyton wastes no time in removing himself from his chair, picking it up, and hauling it and himself across the room.
With that lethal grace of his, Tyton saunters across the room.
His eyes are pinned on me as though he's worried that I'm about to run away from him.
"I read your article in The New York Times this weekend," Tyton tells me. He nods, apparently impressed. His eyes don't leave mine as he beelines for me.
My stomach flips yet again.
I don't know why he's here in the first place, and now he's doing this.
"You're the finest teen ballerina in Manhattan. I get the feeling, minus the ballet part. I know how hard it can be to be so talented beyond your years. You have to live up to the hype of your greatness, but underneath it all, you're just a girl. I get it, Mare."
Tyton deposits his chair not even two feet from my moon boots. He sits down backward with one leg on either side of the chair back, resting his forearms across the metal edge.
His stormy eyes soften. They no longer resemble the angry clouds of an impending thunderstorm but rather the gentle, harmless clouds that remain after a long downpour. The lines of his jaw sharpen into stone as he smiles to reveal pearly white teeth.
Too confused, I don't even register when Tyton reaches over his chair for the hand that I have resting in my lap.
I also don't register when Tyton brings up my hand to his mouth. With no hesitation, Tyton's lips, which I quickly find to be quite soft and warm, caress the skin on my knuckles. Once, twice.
With a devious smile, Tyton draws away but doesn't let go of my hand.
He peers into my eyes. Vaguely do I register that Tyton's little film crew has their cameras back on and are now halfway down the stairs.
"We're the best dancers in New York City, Mare. You're the queen of the ballet world, and I'm the king of modern dance. Together, we'd be unstoppable. We could become New York City's power couple by the end of the year if we got together. Think about it. You wouldn't have to face the struggle of being a dance goddess alone anymore. You'd be my princess, and I'd be your man. And I'd give you the world, Princess, because that's what you deserve."
What.
The
Hell.
Frozen in place, I regard Tyton with deer-in-the-highlights eyes.
This can't possibly be why he calls me "Princess" all the time. He's been mocking me. He doesn't like me. This is a prank. This is for TikTok. Not real life.
But the charming, romantic look in Tyton's eyes tells me that I might be wrong. I can only hope that Tyton is as good of an actor as I am.
"They would all be so jealous of us. They would watch us dance together and sigh in envy. You're seventeen, I'm nineteen. You're five-two, I'm six-foot. But there are a lot of tall guys out there who date petite girls. Let's go for it and see what happens."
Or maybe Shade just decided that having Tyton hit on me would be a fantastic prank.
Slowly, I draw my hand away from Tyton and return it to my lap.
Out of the corner of my eye, Maven looks ready to launch himself at Tyton from his chair.
Everybody else has their hands pressed over their mouths, knowing a secret that Tyton doesn't. With a quick survey around the room, I notice how Ptolemus, Carmadon, and Iris are all keeling over themselves in laughter, and more shake their heads and mouth silent words to each other.
I would've expected Cal to find this situation hilarious, but he only looks on silently with crossed arms. His mouth is pressed into a firm line.
Iris, seated not far from the Calores, mutters something incoherent in Maven's direction.
Whatever she says sets Maven off. He opens his mouth, forgetting the Scarlet Street Fighters.
"No, thanks, Tyton." I raise a hand in Maven's direction to call him off. "Sorry, but I'm going to have to decline your boyfriend offer."
I've been crafting my stage face for years. I thought my audition put it to the test. I thought that those final moments leading up to the attack on Calore Industries put it to the test as I forced myself to smile and pretend as though I was innocent.
But staring at Tyton, I struggle to keep on my amused smile. It threatens to break underneath his again-stormy gaze.
Shade's going to find out.
Shade's going to find out.
"Not only do I not like you," I say, eyeing his white hair and arrogant smile, "but I already have a boyfriend. I'm Mare, and I like Maven. My boyfriend."
Tyton's arrogant and haughty expression splits in half before my eyes. His own eyes go wide, and I watch as his body, one of a free and easy modern dancer, seems to contract in on itself. One of his hands that was conveniently draped across his chair goes limp, slapping against his knee. His lips part, looking for something to say.
To anybody else, Tyton only looks so horrified because he's just discovered that he's hit on a taken girl. A taken girl whose boyfriend is in the room.
Over his conversations with Shade, Tyton's probably gathered that I'm single. I really hope that my theory doesn't hold true and that Shade didn't put him up to this.
Slowly and achingly, Tyton shifts his gaze towards Maven. My boyfriend doesn't flinch, instead returning Tyton's long stare and nodding his head. It's not a greeting, but more of a threat.
"Oh," Tyton says, returning the nod as his foggy mind begins to absorb what's happening. "Sorry. My bad."
He doesn't even call me Princess.
Rafe lets out another cackle, clapping his hands together. He's about to fall out of his chair.
"And then Mare's mom straight-up slaps Maven. It's not one of those weak, 'I'm too motherly to actually slap you' slaps either. It was like, a solid six-out-of-ten slap," Ptolemus says.
Iris cuts in. "And then she's like, 'That's what you get for French-kissing my daughter in a hot tub, boy.'"
The leotard-clad ballerinas throw their posture to hell and mimic Rafe, who's curled up on himself atop his chair. Good-humored laughter spirals throughout the studio at every turn, at every comment made by another dancer as they collectively retell the story of how Maven and I got together.
The cameras are off, at least. I already told Tyton that he doesn't have my permission to put any of this trash on YouTube, nor his attempt to make me his girlfriend.
Ella barely hides her concern, listening to the story with crossed arms and a raised eyebrow. Her electric blue hair cuts into my periphery. Rafe must be a nervous laugher, considering how he rolls in laughter at every new comment from a dancer regarding the romantic relationship of Mare and Maven.
Wounded by my rejection, Tyton lounges in his chair across the room, finding good company in the two girls on either side of him. Still, he glares at me every so often, his eyes going from amused to concerned to spiteful.
You're a bad, bad girl, Princess.
No kidding. I've been kissing the son of my enemy. And then there's the other thing.
He could betray me. He could be stringing me along, manipulating me.
But he isn't. One look in his crystalline blue eyes tells me he isn't.
Tyton steals another contemptuous, warning glare across the room.
What's your brother going to say, Princess?
"Underneath the shimmering stage lights and pretty costumes, ballet is a cruel artform."
My pointe shoes pound at the vinyl as I land in fifth position, only to go flying into the air again.
The muscles in my legs cramp under my pink tights. My abs ache beneath the cover of my grey leotard and skimpy black ballet skirt. My arms throb too, feeling the exertion of last night.
The keys of the piano strike in time with my feet. I come out of my jumps, shifting my weight to arabesque and then shifting my weight again. Double piqué, double piqué, triple piqué.
Sharing time finally ended, and Blonos granted the small mercy of pulling out the ballet barres. It's good to know that she won't let three lazy hip-hop dancers completely derail her agenda. Still, as we went through our usual work, the camera crew flitted about the studio, questioning random dancers about their opinions of TikTok and what they think they'll learn today.
I, thankfully, wasn't asked. But for the record, I have no doubt that I'll learn nothing.
"You break your body every day in the hopes that you'll be good enough to become something," Elara continues, weaving between ballerinas and dancers as we dance across the floor. "And if you do indeed become something, then you'll still be happy to break your body. You'll be honored because a lifetime of that pain is worth a single breath in the spotlight of a stage."
At the barre, Blonos, Elara, and Carmadon drilled French ballet terms into the clueless minds of Tyton, Ella, and Rafe. Rafe wouldn't turn out, no matter how many times Blonos barked at him. Ella followed along as best as she could, and Tyton asked a dozen stupid questions. I lost count of how many TikToks were made by their interns in the process.
To my right, Evangeline's brother artfully turns with me before stepping out to prepare for a quadruple pirouette. Maven is somewhere behind me, Principals, Soloists, and Corp members alike between us. We'll finish across the floor, and then another group of dancers will go.
It's just another technique class.
Except Tyton, who has again stripped off his pants in favor of his little shorts, is currently turning right next to me. His tall and lean legs are always trapped in the corners of my vision, along with the obnoxious red, white, and blue-striped sweatband he has on his head. His movements are less atrocious than those of Ella and Rafe's, but they're nonetheless horrible. All I see with Tyton's dancing is bent limbs and skipped steps.
He finishes well after I have, doing more of a tree pose than a pirouette. He manages to turn around himself four times, though.
"Alright," Blonos says tightly from the corner that we've finished at. "I think that is enough of . . . that."
Blonos gives Tyton nothing less than a sneer. He grins back at her.
"You are all hopelessly bad at ballet," Blonos says, nodding at each of the TikTokers. "Nonetheless, each of you has expressed interest in the pas de deux, or dance of two. So this afternoon, you'll each pair with one of our dancers to learn a pas de deux."
I've sensed the blow coming for an hour, ever since Tyton told Blonos that he wanted to learn how to dance with a ballerina. One of the camera-kids on the balcony angles his tripod down towards me.
Tyton does a little spin around. He doesn't even look at me as he whips one arm out, his pointer finger aimed right between my eyes.
"I think that I want Mare Barrow as my ballerina."