Just like old times, my hands are steady.

Clothed in a pair of thin black leather gloves, my fingers shimmy the two warped bobby pins. The thin wires poke at the lock mechanisms, pushing and prodding.

Lockpicking is just another thing that I learned in East Harlem. I never put it to use, but Will Whistle did teach me how to pick a lock when I was eleven years old.

I don't know why he bothered. Maybe he wanted to impart some of his thug knowledge to me. One day, he hauled me upstairs to one of the vacant apartment units in our building and plucked two bobby pins from my hair. I had just come from ballet.

Mom and Dad wouldn't have been happy had I told them what their landlord taught me.

But all good thieves should know how to pick a lock.

Leaning against the white wooden door, Tyton watches me from an arm's length, his phone flashlight pointed at the lock. His steady breaths in my ear are the only sounds in the whole damn building.

I've settled into this calm, out-of-my-body feeling. It's the same sensation I've gotten every time I've ever reached into somebody's jeans pocket.

It's like I know that I'm doing something wrong but can't feel it.

Rafe's meandered down the hallway to wait at the steps. Ella's on the other side of me, ready to stand guard should somebody come wandering down here and we have to hide.

Ada Wallace managed to hack into the Academy's security cameras some odd minutes ago. They're currently looping over themselves in pitch-blackness.

Just as I'm about to let out a growl of frustration, I hit the last key pin in the lock. A satisfying little click echoes down the corridor.

"About time," Tyton mutters in my ear. "Good job, Mare."

He's mocking me. We're breaking into the office of the richest man in Manhattan, and he's mocking me.

"It only took me two minutes," I hiss back, glaring at Tyton. I have to crane my neck to look him in the eye. "I'm out of practice, okay?"

Tyton offers me a smirk as he wraps his own gloved hand around the silver door knob and gives it a twist. He flings Tiberias Calore's office door open, and then I'm staring at a familiar scene of wood floorboards, plush leather furniture, cascading curtains, and a hulking black desk.

The blinding flashlight throws the office into pale white light. Shadows shift as Tyton waves around his phone, assessing the sprawling space.

His hand is at the small of my back, nudging me into the office. My socks lightly slap at the wood, and Tyton slips in behind me, the door closing silently on us.

My eyes narrow in on the scene to my left. I take in the onyx desk and the guest chairs before it. The gorgeous accent rug, mahogany-colored and the same as always, patiently waits before Mister Calore's desk. Massive bookshelves still border the wall behind the desk, orderly lined with a thousand texts on business. In the shadows that I can't see, a chandelier dances above my head. On the other side of the room, the leather couches bleed back into darkness as Tyton shifts his flashlight away.

"So."

Tyton dares further into the room, wandering in the direction of the desk. His flashlight illuminates its computer and desk light and file folders. Mister Calore has a couple of knick-knacks between a Mets bobblehead, a golden songbird figurine, and three wooden photo frames. His papers and pens are arranged in a perfectly neat manner. It's much easier to look at than Julian's desk.

"Maven. Your boyfriend."

I swallow, trailing Tyton.

He rounds the desk, kneeling down before it. I crouch down at his side, finding more black carved wood. Drawers with intricate handles and swing-out cabinets grace its design, and I find no room in myself to be surprised when Tyton's gloved hand graces over the cabinet with the little lock at its top.

Without saying anything, Tyton hands me his phone. The light shifts for a moment, painting his face in rough angles. The white light makes him look a little extraterrestrial.

Dutifully, I aim the flashlight at the veneered cabinet.

"You heard the story," I whisper into the darkness. I feel like a Catholic schoolgirl giving a confessional in one of those booths. "He started holding my hand, and then we had to kiss for Giselle. And we were just really great friends before that. I like to think that it's simple."

Tyton clicks his tongue.

He already has a paperclip in one hand. It came out of the same sweatshirt pocket that the bobby pins did. With keen fingers, Tyton starts warping it out of its curled position. His quicksilver eyes flicker between the cheap piece of metal and me.

"It's not that simple, Mare. And you know that."

I almost wish that he'd call me Princess. It would make what he says less real, less damning.

The faint buzz of Mister Calore's desktop drones on in the background. The distant sounds of taxi horns echo through the heavy curtains.

I don't bother asking what Tyton's looking for in the locked filing cabinet that he's taken to poking his paperclip at. I just hold his phone steadily. It, too, stays silent. He must not get notifications.

"You don't know him like I do," I tell Tyton, swallowing.

It feels silly to tell him that I trust Maven.

Some of that adrenaline starts wearing off, and I feel like I'm back in my own body. The floor pulls at me, and the silence pushes in on my skin, my head, my lungs. I feel impossibly heavy as I crouch atop the floor of Mister Calore's office.

Tyton pauses. I almost flinch when I see the look in his eyes.

"I've been watching you two all day," he starts quietly.

As though we have all of the time in the world, Tyton lowers his other knee to the ground and slouches into himself.

"He had this boyish grin on his face when all you guys were telling us how Mare and Maven got together. He looked embarrassed and proud to have a girlfriend at the same time. Later, when you and Maven were showing me the pas de deux, I watched him smile every time you smiled or every time he got to put his hand on your waist. He looked ready to burst at the seams and attack me when I was dancing with you."

As Maven should've.

"And then," Tyton drawls, looking at me with those cold, analytical eyes, "I watched how you turned him into a little puppy dog when you kissed him in the lobby."

I don't let Tyton see my surprise. He's just talking about how we said goodbye earlier. I walked with Maven down to the lobby, we gave each other a few worried looks, and shared a kiss. It was hardly a big deal.

Tyton was probably following me, lurking in the shadows like he is right now.

'Oh, yeah. He looked ready to run around himself in circles. I mean, I would be too if you kissed me, but we don't all get what we want, and . . . sorry, Princess. I'm getting off track."

I roll my eyes, ignoring Tyton.

Iris, Ptolemus, and Cal were right. Tyton likes me. I feel it in his softening stare.

Tyton huffs, his minty breath mingling with mine. He leans forward so that I have no choice but to return his gaze. I notice how his black beanie packs down the ends of his silver strands and how his body feels warm near mine. Not as warm as Cal's, but still, he radiates heat. Or maybe it's electricity.

"I worry about you, Princess. For the record, I don't have to tell you that you don't tell him about what we're doing right now. You don't tell him anything. Not when you're meeting us, not what our plans are. Because while you might, we don't trust him. We only use him when we have to. We tell him what we have to. And just because he's sticking his tongue down your throat doesn't mean that he isn't playing you."

Tyton's words glue my tongue to the roof of my mouth. He continues.

"I know it doesn't feel like it, but he could very well double-cross you. You look into those eyes and all you see is the guy that you like kissing. The guy that you've become best friends with. Friends who kiss," Tyton echos. "And I worry that not only is your little fling going to jeopardize our plans, but it's also going to break your heart."

The idea of not telling Maven everything kills me. I never told him about my trip to the Scarlet Street Fighters' lair, nor was I planning on telling him about this.

But Tyton's right. I know that.

Even if I can't see past his pretty blue eyes, I know that I can't tell Maven certain things.

Maven knows it too. He's already told me that he understands why they don't trust him. It doesn't change what he's doing, he told me. He'll do what the Scarlet Street Fighters ask without question, without answers.

I'm sure Tyton can tell how stiff my body is beside his.

"I'll give you a week to tell Shade," Tyton mutters. His focus returns to his paperclip. "You don't tell him by then, and I will. And I won't leave out the details about the hot tub. But the Scarlet Street Fighters need to know that their spy is in bed with a Calore."

Spy.

I blink at Tyton. Is that what I am?

Still, I find nothing useful to say to that.

"I'm not in anyone's bed," I mutter, again shifting Tyton's flashlight towards the cabinet.

With Tyton now rummaging through Mister Calore's cabinet, I take to shining my own phone flashlight around.

I find myself staring back at the three photo frames arranged across the desk. The Mets bobblehead rests between two of them, and a stack of manila files lays before all three. The polished black wood reflects the glare of my flashlight.

The first photo, complete with one of those old yellow timestamps in the bottom right, is adorable. It's from the summer of 2007.

The Calore brothers are holding hands in front of Cinderella's Castle in Disney World. The sky is crystalline blue, and the castle's baby-blue spires, power-pink walls, and golden accents shimmer in the summer heat.

Maven, in his scrawny, five-year-old glory, has on a pair of Mickey Mouse ears and a tank top with Woody from Toy Story on it. Sandwiched under his armpit, he has a giant stuffed animal version of Stitch from Lilo and Stitch. Maven grins in that way kids do when they don't know how to smile for the camera.

At his side, Cal wears a matching pair of ears. His tank top, printed with a picture of that little green, spherical guy from Monsters Inc, reveals arms that are still tiny. He probably didn't start his push-up regiment until he turned eight. Cal has a Simba stuffed animal dangling from one hand by the tail. He has a goofy, wide-eyed expression on his face, looking either like somebody just tased him or gave him a sip of a margarita.

Cal has eight inches over his little brother. Still, they hold hands, framing Cinderella's Castle. The brothers are nothing more than little boys who are having the best day of their lives with glutinous amounts of ice cream, theme park rides, and pictures with Mickey Mouse.

It's nice that they got that, considering that Cal is set to inherit a Wall Street dynasty and that Maven has to balance his physics homework, a career as a ballet dancer, and a life in his brother's shadow.

My smile broadens with the next photo frame, where I find a picture of Cal and his dad somewhere in Central Park. They stand on a bridge together, green and pink spring foliage at their backs. Cal wears a royal blue graduation robe with a tasseled cap pressing down on his black hair. He holds a high school diploma trimmed in red with fancy font, his other arm wrapped around his dad's back. Mister Calore, clad in a plain black suit with his own hand clapped on his son's shoulder, grins with white teeth like the proudest man in the entire world.

It was only a year and a half ago, but Cal looks younger in some way. He's still tall and muscular beneath his robe, but in his face, he looks different. I couldn't say how.

The last photo is of Cal and Coriane. It's nothing spectacular. She's sitting on a bed, holding her big newborn swaddled up in a blanket. Cal already has a decent amount of hair. His mom wears her hair in a tired knot and a baggy flannel shirt. The circles under her eyes are there, but she has this smile on that indeed lights up a room. Just like Julian said. Coriane looks down at Cal, watching her baby with all of the love in the world.

There's only one picture of Maven on the desk, and he's sharing the frame with Cal.

I see that Mister Calore is making no attempt to hide his favoritism here.

It's not right. Maven deserves better. I swallow, hand fighting my urge to brush my gloved fingers across the photo frame. But after everything that Julian said about Coriane, it starts to make sense.

In Mister Calore's perfect world, Maven never existed. Maven never existed because Coriane never died. Mister Calore, Coriane, and Cal were a family. That's what he wanted.

Not whatever political arrangement he has with Elara.

Tyton grunts softly. He's stuck his head into the cabinet. It's deeper than it looks.

My eyes skim the rest of the desk. I doubt that Mister Calore keeps anything of real interest here. Aside from whatever he has hiding in his cabinet, all of the papers and files on the desk should be strictly dance-related and—

A single manila folder lies out, resting on top of Mister Calore's keyboard. The tab reads Barrow, Mare in stocky handwriting that I recognize as Cal's. I noticed it before, but I didn't see my name.

Tyton never said that I couldn't touch anything.

I reach past the cushy desk chair and take the folder between my gloved hands.

All of the dancers must have files tucked away somewhere. For whatever reason, mine happens to be out.

An orange sticky note is attached to the front of the file. The writing is Cal's.

Invite to brunch on Saturday.

Considering that it's technically Friday morning, the date matches tomorrow.

Brunch?

What the hell?

I would appreciate a little more heads up than one day, Cal. But I suppose that we don't have class tomorrow morning and that the Calores want to make it into a casual affair. I suppose that they want to discuss my contract too.

I swallow, tucking that little bit of information in the back of my mind as I sit down on the wooden floor with my file. As though it's made of glass, I open it gingerly.

If Tyton isn't letting me do anything but wants me here anyway, I might as well get something out of this. For the first time since Tyton handed me those bobby pins, my heart begins to pound.

I find my two contracts first. One is for the Corps, and the other is for a Principal. They're each a dozen pages long full of technicalities that I took great pain in reading. Next comes the contract that the Calores want me to sign. Its stapled pages make for a thicker, more daunting read.

I move it to the other side of the folder along with the other contracts. Their black ink fades away.

I find the other papers that I filed when I first came here. They're all for administrative purposes, and most have my mother's forged signature on them. God, I can't wait until I'm not a minor anymore.

The leather on my fingers skims what's left of the folder. It's almost disappointing how thin it is.

I find Elara's lethal-neat handwriting scrawled across the next page.

It's just a piece of notebook paper. It looks like the Academy ran out of judging sheets.

I remember how the euphoria of dancing wiped away any fear I had. The blinding stage lights and the silent, held breaths of the audience made dancing too intoxicating to possibly be afraid.

Mister Calore, Elara, and Cal were out there in the audience.

I might've forgotten that they were there with their eyes and pens, but they were.

I stare back at Elara's piece of notebook paper. I stare back at my judging critiques. From my audition. Back when I was nobody except for the girl who fell from the Calore's stage rafters.

A little too eagerly, I lean forward with my flashlight. The shadows pulse at the edges of my vision. Elara's handwriting turns oily in the odd light.

Are we not concerned that this girl is auditioning a mere hour after she nearly died?

Ask Tiberias to have a new rafter installed.

Go to Harry Winston to pick up new ring collection.

It appears that Elara started off writing her to-do-list on my critique sheet. I skim through the rest of those comments. She finishes her evening by watching a re-run of How to Get Away with Murder.

Oh . . . beautiful arabesque.

Control. Excellent.

Perfect ballet body. A little short, but still.

Fouettés . . . stunning. Better than Evangeline's. Stronger. More refined. Good.

Make her Maven's partner.

I blink at Elara's notes. Mutely, I flip the paper over to find Mister Calore's paper.

He barely wrote anything. He just has my name jotted down.

Good job, Miss Barrow.

I turn to the last sheet.

Cal.

He has his name written in handwriting to match the sticky note. My eyes scan the paper, feeling like I'm somehow staring at a secret as I take in the black ink. I no longer feel like I was ever on the stage. I feel like I was watching my own audition from the row behind Cal, leaning over his seat as I watched him write.

I brace one hand against the floor. I bring my flashlight closer to the flimsy piece of notebook paper. For all I know, he tore these sheets right out of that blue notebook of his.

The strange thing about Cal's paper is that there's hardly anything on it.

In one corner, he has a tic-tac-toe grid with M's and C's written in between the lines. I see what Maven and Cal were doing in the moments before I auditioned.

Otherwise, he has some stick figure art going in the middle of the paper. It's enough to tell me that Cal has zero artistic ability when it comes to drawing. Stick figure Cal stands tall with a curved smile, gazing at stick figure Mare. Stick figure Mare wears a sharply drawn tutu and has her leg up in an arabesque. Cal got the height difference about right, considering that stick figure Mare's head comes up to stick figure Cal's shoulders. I smile back at him, and our stick arms touch as though we're holding hands.

I want her as my partner.

Beg Dad to make her my partner.

I nearly flinch at the words, the only words in fact on Cal's paper.

The letters are written in finite, certain handwriting with a bold period at their end.

"Hey."

I actually flinch at Tyton's sudden words, echoing through the quiet.

He wears an inquisitive expression as he regards me with my file folder. Mister Calore's cabinet is locked again, and Tyton has nothing new in his hands. But I heard the sounds of a shuttering camera.

"Let's go, Princess."

I take one last look at the stick people and Cal's words, swallowing as I reason with myself.

Beg. Is that what happened in the minutes between my audition and my trip to Mister Calore's office? Was Cal so interested in me from our conversation the night before that he wanted to dance with me?

Maven must've seen what Cal wrote. He would've been there too, had Cal begged their father. And somehow, in those moments, the Calore family decided that I would be Maven's partner.

But no. Cal couldn't have actually wanted me as his partner. More than likely, it was just some desperate attempt to get away from Evangeline. It's not like Cal knew me. Evangeline was always going to be Cal's partner.

Because at the end of the day, Evangeline's the better dancer. Fouettés be damned.

When Evangeline returns, I'll be cast to the shadows again.

I rearrange the contents of the folder as I found them, depositing it back on Mister Calore's keyboard.

Fouettés be damned.

"Tonight, Princess, was your initiation."

I blink at Tyton. He has one gloved hand on the door that will let us out of Mister Calore's office. It hasn't been more than ten minutes.

"I didn't do anything," I return. I feel the need to scrub my skin clean. I'll probably take another shower before I go to bed.

"No." I might not be able to see him, but I sense that Tyton sticks his hands into his pockets. "But you were ready to. And give yourself credit for picking the lock."

I swallow again.

Our breaths mingle in between us. Tyton towers over me, making me feel the slightest bit uncomfortable. My skin prickles, static electricity raising the hairs of my arms.

"I wouldn't get too attached, if I were you."

My brows raise out of instinct. "It's a little too late for that, Tyton."

He laughs quietly, grey eyes piercing my skin. "I'm not talking about Maven, Mare. I'm talking about this place." Tyton flings out an arm into the shadows of the office.

Already wishing that I could shrink in on myself, I cross my sweatshirted arms.

"What do you mean?"

"This place." Tyton shrugs. "Like I said, I've been watching. You love it here. They love you. All of the ballerinas love you. They think of you like a queen. And not just of the Monopoly variety. This place . . . it's like the home that you've never had.

"I just worry that one day, you're going to wake up and you're not going to remember why you're doing this. The glitter, the praise, the sense of belonging . . . it'll be worth more to you than righting one big wrong. You'll forget who Tiberias Calore is. You decide that he seems nice enough. The handsome salary that he pays you won't help. So yeah. One day, I worry that you'll wake up and decide that what you have at the Calore Dance Academy is worth more than what the Scarlet Street Fighters are doing for this city."

"That's not—"

"And as for Maven, you have one week. After that, I drop the bomb."

The door opens silently. Tyton slips out very much like a cat, and I follow.

"But honestly, I don't see it."

Ella is just outside. Distant, blurred lights from Times Square shine down the hallway, and the sounds of the city grow a little louder.

"What don't you see?"

Tyton grins lazily at me.

"You and Maven."

I crinkle my nose. "Well obviously. Since you're so intent on being my boyfriend."

He shakes his head. "No. What I mean is that I don't see anything more friends who kiss. I think that you think of him as your best friend who you trust more than anyone in the world. He's cute, and you like the newness of kissing a boy. But honestly, Mare, I don't see a spark. Not on your end, anyway."

I have to stop myself from slapping Tyton across the face. He's shameless and jealous.

"When the time comes and he tells you that he loves you, you won't be able to say it back." He raises his hands in self-defense. "Don't think that I'm saying this out of spite. I"m just making an observation, Mare. I get it. You prefer the boys with the luscious black hair over the silver foxes."

My head shakes back and forth on its own accord. What, Tyton gleaned all of this insight into my love life from one day at the Academy? He's just trying to mess with me and get in my head.

Maven and I have only been dating for two weeks, not even.

I couldn't say it now. But someday, I'll be able to say it.

"Bye, Tyton," I tell him, trying to contain my growl. I offer Ella a nod.

"Bye Princess," he purrs. "I'll lock up. Go to bed, now. You'll need the sleep for the shit that we're pulling next week."