Allen really wished they'd come up with a remover for his make-up that didn't sting. Sod's Law said that he was most likely to cut himself shaving the day of a performance, and the alcohol-based make-up was guaranteed punishment, both going on and coming off.

He was also hungry. The energy required for competitive performance left him craving liquids, protein and sweets, of which only two were easily satisfied with the sort of food one could eat right out of the package. Dr. Miranda assured him that his iron levels were fine and that most teenaged boys went after calories the way aardvarks went after termites, but Allen missed Jerry's restaurant. He consoled himself with the idea that it might be easier to get good mitarashi dango in China than in Europe, if he could talk Lenalee into helping him find a decent place.

Once he was clean, changed and temporarily fed, Allen went into the green room to find Lavi and Lenalee squabbling on the couch, while on the monitors, Tyki danced to something Spanish.

"No," Lavi said, trying to cover her eyes. "You can't watch. It's not good for you."

"Lavi, you're messing up my hair!"

"You're messing up your expectations about men. That's a lot more important than hair."

"Lavi!"

"Isn't that what porn does? Messes up your expectations about the opposite sex?"

"Oh, for God's sake!" Lenalee said, shaking free of her partner. "Grow the heck up."

"What's going on?" Allen asked, grinning. He was still a little high from dancing, which made Lavi's antics even funnier than usual.

"She said Tyki's dancing is porn, so I'm trying to stop her from watching it," Lavi said. "Porn's not good for you."

Allen looked at the monitor. Tyki's feet picked up flutter and flow of the lyrics and his body followed along, moving with a freedom so well-practiced that it looked unrehearsed, a natural overflow of his joy in the music itself. His smile definitely looked unrehearsed, filling his dark face with pleasure and promise.

"His clothes are on," Allen said. "I don't think it counts."

"She says that doesn't matter."

"Lavi, honestly, what's wrong with you?" Lenalee asked. "He's almost done anyway, so if it's going to hurt me, the damage is done."

"She'll never be the same again," Lavi said, rolling his eyes melodramatically.

"Shut up, Lavi!" Lenalee said.

Allen just watched as Tyki finished, holding out his hands as if inviting someone special to leave the party with him.

"Glad that's over! Oy!" Lavi said to Allen. "You kicked arse out there, mate. Where did you learn to dance like that?"

"All over the place," Allen said, sitting on the arm of the couch beside Lenalee. "I had a dozen different teachers between Turkey and India."

"I thought Cross was your teacher," Lenalee said.

"When he was sober," Allen said, "or there at all. The rest of the time, I studied with whoever would give us a discount."

"No matter what style?" Lavi asked.

"He didn't care about style, he just wanted me to keep moving." Like Mana, now that he thought about it. Mana had always told him to keep moving.

"So what did you do when you got to India?" Lenalee asked.

"Some traditional dance and some Bollywood."

"Bollywood? Are you serious?" Lavi asked.

"Yeah," Allen said. "I look like a prat doing it, but that's what I was studying until I came here."

"Damn!" Lavi said. "My training's been really, really boring. Speaking of Cross, is it really him?"

"I don't know," Allen said. "No one's seen the bloke, so…" He was trying hard to brace himself for the possibility that it really was his teacher, but he wasn't sure he could.

"Hey," Lenalee said. "Kanda's up."

"What took them so long?" Lavi asked. "It's not like he ever uses props."

He wasn't using them this time, either. The stage was bare, and even the lighting was minimal, just a bluish glow on the floor and an overly-bright follow spot trained on a figure dressed in dull, flat gray: jeans, a button-down shirt, and matching cowboy boots that were so unexpected that the opening banjo barely registered.

"The hell?" Lavi said.

"Oh, no!" Lenalee said.

The song was such a contrast to what Kanda had danced to in Barcelona that Allen didn't recognize it at first, but when he did, he began to understand. Shawn Colvin's revenge song was lighter on the surface than In Extremo, but the idea was much the same, and it was an idea Kanda could dance at any speed. He brought a loose-limbed comfort to the song that Allen didn't even know he had, no less precise, but less controlled than usual, even as the choreography was more difficult.

Then Kanda moved slightly out of range of the spot. It looked at first like a lighting mistake, but his sleeve, boot and pants leg lit up in fluorescent flames.

So that was why the changeover had taken so long! They had to set up the black lights. The costume was painted with UV dyes that were invisible in normal light, something that would be gimmicky on most people, but on Kanda it was simply the fate the song guaranteed. Anyone who pushed him too far would burn.

"No!" Lenalee said again.

Lavi reached for her, and she cringed into the circle of his arm.

When the song mentioned fire, Kanda's hands filled with it for a moment, and Lenalee cried out in distress. "I can't watch this! I can't."

Lavi held her, but he remained riveted to the screen, where Kanda was dancing an agonizing death.

Allen's phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket, not surprised to find that it was Road.

Are you watching Kanda?

Yes.

Her next communication was a link.

Allen followed it to a translation of an old Chinese news article about an orphanage that had burned to the ground nine years before.

Nine years. That was how long Kanda had been dancing with the Order. Allen looked again at the monitor, then at the picture of the blackened structure. Twenty children had been trapped inside.

Not Kanda, surely. He had no scars, none that Allen had seen anyway.

But he had a friend, one who was critically ill.

Allen felt suddenly sick.

He looked again at the article. Road had run it through a machine translation, so it was barely coherent, but it was enough. Only two children survived, and a handful of adults lost their lives trying to get them out.

Allen looked at the monitor. Kanda wasn't just dancing revenge. He was dancing the night he nearly died.

Did the link work?

Yes. Fuck. He didn't care how old she was or that she was a girl. It was how he felt.

The doors to the dormitories were locked from the outside, and there were bars on the windows. The children who sleepwalked were chained to their beds.

Allen would have wondered what kind of monster would do that, but he'd traveled enough so that such an arrangement wasn't new to him. How do you know?

My mum grew up there. She wasn't there that night, but she knew how the Chans ran it.

The Chans, one of the four families Lavi had mentioned. Allen checked the article, and sure enough, the place was owned by a family called Chan. How did Kanda get out? he asked.

He didn't. His best friend was chained to the bed, so the two of them pulled the bed into the corner, turned it on its side so they could hide behind it, and covered their faces with blankets. It saved Kanda, but his friend was burned everywhere he was touched by metal, like the chain and the bed frame. He should have died in the hospital, but the Rouvelliers are keeping him alive to make Kanda dance.

Allen gaped at his phone in horror. How??? Is that even legal????

It is if you have enough money. The Rouvelliers literally bought Kanda and his friend from the Chans. If Kanda stops dancing, they pull the plug on his friend.

Allen looked at the monitors, where Kanda's spotlight had grown smaller, leaving more of him exposed to the UV light. Johnny's exquisitely painted flames danced as Kanda did, a light, easy sway to match the song, a slow death, not a merciful one.

Allen?

Yeah.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you sad, I just thought you should know.

Don't be sorry. I'm glad you told me. Thank you. On the screen, the spotlight was shrinking further, leaving Kanda with no place to escape the fire. As the music faded out, the spot went out, revealing the phosphorescent death's head that had been concealed in Kanda's make-up. He stood there for a moment, then his hands filled with fire one last time, and every light on the stage went out.

Lenalee was sobbing into a handful of tissues. Lavi was pale, but he was the first to pull himself together. "Hey," he said gently to his partner. "You should wash your face."

"In a minute," she said. "I'm not done crying yet. Oh my God, why? Why did he do that?"

"He's talking about it," Lavi said, gently. "Kind of. That's something, right?"

"But why like this?"

"I don't know. But maybe it's a step, you know? In the right direction?"

Allen didn't believe him, and Lenalee probably didn't, either, but she wiped her face, took a few deep breaths, and laughed a little. "Maybe he's ready to talk about it, but it looks like I'm not. Jeeze! Wonder what his score will be?"

Allen didn't know, but that performance was so good that he was starting to wonder if Kanda had been holding back in Barcelona, staying a few points behind Tyki on purpose. Kanda had pulled out a lot of stops on this one, but he had to counterbalance the theatrics with the UV, which the judges would probably mark him down for. That kind of thing only worked when it was done perfectly, although if Kanda's performance wasn't perfect, Allen wasn't sure what was.

"I don't think this one was really about his score," Lavi said, "not for him, anyway."

"Oh, God, I just want to go backstage and hug him, but he'd hate me for it," Lenalee said, sniffling and daubing at her eyes. "Sorry, Allen. You must think we're insane."

"No," Allen said, unsure about what to say. He could hardly tell them that Road had just explained the whole thing.

"Kanda was trapped in an orphanage fire when he was ten," Lavi said. "If you know that about him, that was a hard thing to watch."

So once again, Road was telling the truth. "Yeah," Allen said, rubbing Lenalee's upper back, being careful of her hair. She was dancing soon, and needed to pull herself together.

Over the speakers came an indistinct murmur of voices, a familiar sound to Allen, and he looked at the monitor in shock. Dancing onstage was a man in his thirties dressed from the waist up in ruffles and velvet that evoked the 18th century, and from the waist down in very modern jeans and boots. His red hair fell nearly to his waist, partially obscuring the porcelain mask that covered the right side of his face. He had an unlit cigarette in his hand that he carried so casually that Allen wasn't sure if it was a prop or if he'd just forgotten he had it. He was dancing like he was drunk, as if the perfect match between his feet and the drums was pure serendipity.

As the bass came in, he put the cigarette to his mouth and sobered up, spelling out the naked desire in the song. He wasn't trying to dance like a young man because he didn't need to. Youth was selfish and callow, more interested in its own prowess than the satisfaction of a partner. This man offered pleasure as a threat, not a promise, a body kept in peak condition and an understanding of its capabilities honed over many years and many lovers, combined with a flagrant disregard for convention and propriety. No one who went into a room alone with him would walk out of it the same.

Allen felt dizzy, as if all the blood was rushing from his head. Then two things happened simultaneously, his phone vibrated and a small, soft hand took his. "Allen?"

The hand belonged to Lenalee, and Allen looked around to find himself surrounded by Order dancers in various states of disturbance.

"It's him, isn't it," Lenalee said.

"Yes," Allen said, looking at the monitor again, where his teacher, guardian and personal nightmare for the last three years was meeting Tyki Mikk on his own ground and pulverizing it under his heel. "It's him." Then he pulled away from her and left the green room at a dead run.

Tyki dances to Pan y Mantequilla by Efecto Pasillo, Kanda dances to Sunny Came Home by Shawn Colvin, and Cross dances to Tusk by Fleetwood Mac.