"That's so wonderful to hear," I say, shaking yet another woman's hand. An obnoxious number of jewels click together at her wrist with the motion, and her rings cut into my palm. She's older, and other than her precious gemstones, she wears an exquisite salmon gown and too much makeup that fails to mask her age.
The socialite just purchased balcony tickets to the opening night of Giselle. She and her family are regular patrons of the Manhattan Dance Academy's ballets, and apparently, they've become beyond-intrigued with the two seventeen-year-olds who have risen to such prominence at the company. For minutes, the woman's gushed about how proud we must be, how excited we must be to dance at the Met when we're only teenagers.
"Congratulations again," she says for what isn't the first time. "I have no doubt that the two of you will live up to everything that Tiberias Calore has claimed of you."
I only smile, feeling that it would stupid to tell her that I hope the same.
I wonder what Tiberias Calore has claimed of me tonight, as he's talked to his guests. When he hasn't seen me dance in the flesh in so long, I hope that somebody's kept him up to speed and he isn't just spouting out random, nonsensical things.
The socialite promenades away, and I loosen a silent breath.
Maven, Cal, and I continue our walk along the bridge that Anabel and the Calores stood on earlier. Wishing for another glass to hold, I tuck my hands behind me as we cross the long span of marble, a floor flooded with meandering guests and wine below. It seems that at galas—or at this gala anyway—there isn't much to do other than talk to members of high-society, drink, and spend money on ballet tickets.
"You seem to be having fun," Cal remarks, and I know without glancing that he wears his usual smile. He must think it's hilarious to see me saying things like that's so wonderful to hear and smiling and shaking hands when I'm nothing like this anywhere else. I'm certainly nothing like this around him.
"Seem," I echo. "Yeah, I seem to be having fun. Believe it or not, Cal, but I'd rather be dancing with you right now."
That earns a humorless chuckle from Cal. "Wow. You must be absolutely miserable, then."
Yes. Considering that these socialites are stressing me out and considering that the Scarlet Street Fighters are attacking this place in a matter of an hour and some odd minutes, I'm absolutely miserable.
I chuckle a little too. "But to look is to be, right?" I add.
"Maybe in ballet and maybe here, Mare."
It's enough for me to look at him, and I can't help the glower that pops up on my face.
"But your stage faces aren't going to fly with me."
Though I sensed his retort was coming and though I brought up our lessons at all, I still roll my eyes. "Ah, yes. Because contemporary dancing's all about feeling and emotions," I simper the words, shaking my head in disapproval. "And throwing yourself on the floor. Gross."
To my other side, Maven's half-cringing, half-smiling. He loves seeing somebody other than himself at odds with his brother.
Cal opens his mouth.
"Some refreshments?" A server asks from nearby, coming from the other side of the bridge. At first, I just notice the white button-up shirt and black vest, along with a platter of glasses. But from my hour-and-a-half of experience with gala servers, they don't usually speak to guests first.
An actual glance reveals sea-green eyes, sandy hair, and a lanky frame. His voice, initially something that I didn't think much of, is familiar and friendly.
Kilorn Warren, my other best friend, stands in front of Maven, Cal, and I, essentially blocking us from our path.
Shit.
He holds the platter out, filled to the brim with glasses of pale pink rosé. It's unlike Kilorn to keep his face so neutral and bored, to not let his emotions show, but he only glances between the three of us.
That is until he takes a look at me.
There's nothing normal or server-like in the way that he studies my diamonds, my braided hair, the dress that slopes down my body to reveal one shin. For me, Kilorn forgets the role that he's supposed to be playing as he looks at the girl that he grew up with.
Again: shit.
Though he was there that night Maven followed me to Shade's apartment, I didn't actually have the chance to talk to my friend. I haven't had a real conversation with Kilorn since the day he stormed down the apartment stairs, me yelling after him that he was going to get himself killed if he joined the Scarlet Street Fighters. Since then, he's joined, and now they've chosen to send him into Calore Industries in servant's garb.
I force myself to raise an eyebrow at Kilorn, as if to ask him, what are you staring at? What I actually mean to say is more along the lines of, stop staring, dumbass, before somebody asks if we know each other.
"Unfortunately, we'll have to decline," Maven says, giving Kilorn a tight smile. I think that the two of them met at the apartment while Shade and I were out on the fire escape, but I never heard what came of that conversation. "If my brother weren't here monitoring me, I would say that I'd love a glass of rosé, though."
And then Maven's hand is at the small of my back, maneuvering me past Kilorn before my face might break or I might say something unnecessary.
Why he bothered seeking me out, I don't know. Maybe he saw me and his whim couldn't resist saying hello—or doing whatever that was. Maybe he wants me to know that he's here, that he'll be part of what happens tonight. Even if he knows that presenting himself the way that he just did terrifies the crap out of me. Or maybe Kilorn's simply being good old Kilorn, and in spite of everything, he couldn't help pulling a stunt like that. He's done stupider things.
Cal moves back to his place at my side, his mouth drawn into a frown. He saw the way that Kilorn looked at me as well as Maven did.
"Mare's told me about your lessons, Cal," Maven starts, unapologetically trying to change the subject back to what it was.
"Oh? And what did she say about them?" Cal asks. An edge of a smile returns in an instant.
The topic's enough for what just occurred to slip my mind. I give Maven a look.
"She mentioned that you do lifts and you threaten to kick her in the shins, and then you do some more lifts." My partner tilts his head to Cal. "No offense, brother, but your lessons sound boring to me."
My contemporary teacher glares at his brother. "They're not boring. And you wouldn't be a Principal without them, you know."
In a not-so-distant way, the lessons aren't only for my benefit, but my partner's too. Maven might know every lift in the book, but I certainly don't, and it takes two to tango. Or in this case, pas de deux. It kills me to admit it, but to be Giselle, I need Cal, and without Giselle, there's no Albrecht.
"At the end of our lessons, Mare even gives me this little curtsey and says 'thanks, Cal.'" He says the last part in a ridiculously high voice. "She might never admit it out loud, but Mare knows that she needs me. You should too."
To avoid a nasty retort, I bite one of my incisors down on my tongue. Maven just snickers.
"Really, Cal? Because when I asked her what her honest rating of you was, she said seven out of ten. Is a seventy-percent need? But think what you want, I suppose."
Maven and Cal's back-and-forth reaches a climax.
When Maven and I went out Thursday night and I told him more about my lessons with his brother, he asked me what score teacher Cal deserved for how well he's taught me. I said seven, fully expecting for my evaluation to get back to Cal. It's the perfect number to get to him, not unrealistically low nor a score that's unjustifiable.
"A seven?" Cal echoes, indignant, after a moment of his silence. "I'm more than a seven."
I twist my lips. "A seven and a half? I was considering it, but I'm not sure."
When I look at him, his head's tilted down toward me, and his lips are parted in chagrin. His brows raise, and his forehead creases. He's pissed, but more than that, insulted that I think he's earned no more than a C-minus.
Good. I've been waiting to get under his skin since the night I met him.
Nine o'clock ticks around, and when the grand clock mounted to one of the marble pillars sings its song, two dozen men and women dressed in black cargo pants and black shirts emerge from the elevators at the far side of Calore Industries.
My heart pumps at the sight of them, but if they were Street Fighters, they'd be an hour early, not emerging from the stairs, and horribly disguised. The women of the group have their hair sprayed and pulled back into buns at the napes of their neck, and I notice soon enough that they all wear plain black socks.
The fact that they're not wearing shoes dashes my fears into embers, and I return my focus to the table that I sit at with Iris and two other Corps girls. Talking to her sister, Iris is half-twisted out of her chair to face Tiora Cygnet, and the other two chat about Corps choreography, something that has long since left my mind.
With my back to a majority of tonight's guests, I've found a rare moment of reprieve at the shelter of this table, along the man-made river and foolishly shadowed by a pointless umbrella.
I've listened to more speeches from famous ex-dancers—Anabel included, and yeah, she sounds impressive—and socialites who haven't danced a day in their lives but are devout patrons of the ballet. Between the ballroom and the various balconies and bridges I've walked along, I've talked to at least one-hundred guests and dodged a dozen reporters, declined five photographers. I've watched auctions for season tickets take place at the bar, and I've seen a drunken member of high society nearly lose his footing and fall into the river I sit near.
After my encounter with Kilorn, I began watching, but my friend vanished like a ghost and I haven't spotted him or anybody else that I might know since.
I don't want him in danger. I've never wanted him in danger. It's why I pulled that beyond-stupid stunt at Wall Street and then continued my stupidity in East Harlem with Cal.
And yet he's on the front lines of whatever happens tonight. Whatever attack or whatever warning.
In useless hopes to find him, I swivel around in my chair again, bracing my arms against its back.
Instead, I find an entirely different scene.
The floor's begun to clear, the usual dresses and tuxes relocating to the margins of Calore Industries, towards the bar, river, and limestone walls, at the behest of various security guards positioned on the ground. Above, people walking along the balconies and bridges slow down and then halt altogether at the sight of the emptying ballroom, and the buzz and echoes of conversations become sporadic murmurs.
For the first time tonight, the lights fade. The sconces at the walls dim to a romantic shade, and the chandeliers overhead darken to pinpricks, something like stars in a black night sky. People become shadows, and those above disappear altogether. Tiny flames burst up randomly throughout the ballroom, the product of what I assume are the candles I've noticed at the edges of servers' platters. Shallow lines of fire appear atop balcony railings, bizarre, elongated fireplaces that I don't understand.
The two-dozen men and women have woven their way to the ballroom's center, where enough sconces shine to illuminate the warm marble floor. The attendees all around quiet themselves further as they split into pairs and spread out across the space.
Ah. The black socks, loose pants, and buns tell me what I should've known in the first place: this is the live performance that I heard about, and it's not ballet.
But something, perhaps, more contemporary.
The pairs of dancers end up in three lines and four columns. They face the bridges, where the onlookers have doubled. Each man stands behind his woman partner, stomachs to backs and holding hands. When the light hits them right, their clothes turn golden, like glistening oil.
The view down here might not be great for most, but I've accidentally found a good place to watch from. As the last of the guests trickle away from where lights shine, slithering into shadows, nobody tries to stand in front of the tables, leaving me with an unobstructed scene of the performance that's about to happen.
My eyes take in everything about the dancers. Their faces have an intensity to them, something between an angry passion and a cool bitterness. They stand tall, and yet they seem heavy, as though they're falling in place. It seems so contradictory.
In the matter of a minute, the guests have silenced altogether, the news that a dance is about to begin having reached every pair of ears inside of Calore Industries.
From invisible speakers, starts a track of music. It's dark and haunting, strikes of piano keys and trills of violin strings sounding like a soundtrack out of film or a revival of a song.
The women twist, sinking down, and their partners let go of their hands to dip them in a beautiful arch. In the next moment, the men have one arm wrapped around the women's backs, the other extended to the air as the women kick a leg upwards. They don't leave that split at first, held perfectly in place by their partners.
Bass enters the fray of notes that play, and the women come down after a silent beat. They spread out, turning before dropping to the floor, rolling before being pulled right back up again by their partners.
They cling to one another as they pas de deux, the women half-thrown into a not-so-elegant but ruggedly gorgeous lift that is the exact opposite of falling. Their motions are silken, no different than ballet in that sense. It can't be easy to dance in socks on marble, but the contemporary dancers manage it just fine, drifting and pushing and pulling against gravity.
The men drag the women across the floor, who then break away to fling themselves into leaps. But they always come back to each other.
They might be at a black-tie gala that honors ballet dancers, surrounded by the highest class of society, but I can't bring myself to say that this performance is out of place.
When they do that classic, terrifying lift from Dirty Dancing, the women don't flinch, instead melting into their partners as they descend.
I can't explain how they dance. The music is no ballad and neither is the choreography, performed in sync between twelve different pairs, yet there's an intimacy to it. Each set of partners has a chemistry that goes deeper than their bodies, still moving with the hot-blooded instrumentals. It's as though they're one person, blending and ebbing. Hands come apart and bodies collide together in the midst of unfamiliar turns and leaps. Feet aren't always pointed, and legs are bent when they should be straight. Gold shimmers with the candlelight as the dancers move, a cross of shadow and flame.
In the shadows myself, I let my stage face go, infatuated with the way that these people can move. They lunge, throw themselves across the floor, end up tangled together before doing it again. The music that fills the air intensifies, stirs my gut with the rich sound of a heavy, drawn-out violin solo.
And I remember the real reason that I hate contemporary.
I don't hate the lack of technique, as much as it's like a different language. I don't hate the emotions attached to every movement, however much they scare me.
But really, the only thing that I hate about contemporary dancing is how little I understand it.
At nine-twenty-five, I begin to notice how relaxed everybody is.
There's no shortage of free alcohol at Calore Industries, and two-and-a-half hours into the gala, most people have had something to drink, if not a lot of things to drink. Others are happy to have gotten their ballet tickets, and I imagine a few have overcome any nerves they had in attending the gala tonight and settled into the flow of talking and smiling.
Such as myself.
I say my hellos as I ascend the steps once again, giving a few of the guests that I pass choreographed little waves and head nods. Though I don't have a drop of alcohol in my veins, I know how to perform. And I know now that I was right: this is just another kind of performance.
For now, anyway. This is the First Act, and while I might know all of the moves, I won't when the curtains draw and it comes time for the Second Act.
But for now, I live in the moment.
I come to the top of the steps at the fourth floor of the ballroom, and I search for my partner. In an expanse of tuxedos and gelled hair, Maven isn't the easiest person to find, but I spot him soon enough, arms braced on the railing at the center of this story's bridge. It takes him only a moment before he looks up, and his bored face turns into a grin at the sight of me.
Dancing starts at nine-thirty, and as my partner, Maven's supposed to be my first, so we agreed to meet up here five minutes beforehand. I start towards him, a real, genuine smile blooming on my face with each step.
I have no training in ballroom dancing, but it's hardly something I'd need lessons for. I'm a ballerina, and the stuff I do every day puts this stuff to shame. So even in these heels, I think that I can handle a box step and some twirls.
And not having danced since this morning, my legs ache for some semblance of ballet. I have to stop myself from starting into a little skip to get to Maven, who begins his trek from the marble suspended in midair.
Yet before I'm halfway across the balcony leading to the bridge, a strong hand's intertwining with mine, unyielding and telling me that I'm not about to slip through his grip.
After three contemporary lessons, I know Cal's hands well enough.
I whirl on him, but he's already tugging me back towards the stairs, and I know better than to start something with him in front of all these socialites. It wouldn't end well in any context, though, considering my heels and the hundred pounds he has over me. So I let him hold my hand, steer me away from the bridge, even as I try to turn around to find Maven.
But we're already through the threshold to the stairwell, and Maven's out of sight. An exasperated sound comes from my throat. "Cal—"
"You promised you'd save me a dance, Mare," Cal says, stepping down the first of the stairs. He moves fast, probably aware that Maven's somewhere behind us, and it doesn't take long for us to clear the first flight. "I just so happen to want the first one."
"How can I be better?" Cal asks as we emerge onto the ballroom floor from the stairs, still tugging me along. His hand is steadfast against mine, and I've given in to tightening mine against his.
"What?" I ask. An actual ballad, piano and some strings and no bass, floats through the air like thunder, consuming conversations and laughter. Unlike the instrumentals that accompanied the contemporary performance, the strains are lovely and romantic, but push and pull like the dancers did, rising and falling.
The lights never fully returned, and the ballroom is gilded instead of fiery. Jewelry twinkles in the candlelight, and skin is cast in gold. The people here look like something out of a Victorian-era painting.
Enough light remains so that heads turn towards me and Cal as we approach the sea of twirling dresses and waltzing tuxes where the contemporary performers danced. They take up a good part of the floor, drifting past the bar and river and cutting off shortly before the marble pillars begin. There's an order to it that makes me think that the people dancing have a notion of what they're doing, though most of the steps are simple enough. They likely learned when they were young during private lessons or from training in etiquette. I take one look at the traveling feet and I figure out what I'm about to do.
"A seven," Cal says again. We advance towards the host of dancers. "I've taught plenty before, you know. I taught Julian's contemporary class half the time last spring when he was busy at NYU. Half of the choreography that he uses is mine. That contemporary dance that you just saw? That was my choreography, you know. Not to mention that I'm a Principal dancer with the Manhattan Dance Academy, have been dancing contemporary since I was twelve, and am more than qualified to teach you how to dance with a partner."
He pauses for only a second to take a breath. "What am I doing wrong? Are we going too fast? Too slow? I told you that you're supposed to ask questions, you know. But you don't ever seem to be confused, and you don't get frustrated with me. Blonos, Elara, and Carmadon have already told me that you're doing amazing with Maven, and—"
"You're a nine, Cal," I snap at him when I realize that he's not going to stop talking or saying you know at the end of half his sentences.
Of course Cal's more than a seven. He's the best damn dancer I've ever met and a fine teacher too. I didn't know that my grade of him would cut so deep, and now he won't shut up about it.
"I knew that when Maven asked, whatever I said would get back to you. I just said it to get under your skin."
Silenced, Cal stares at me.
He was genuinely concerned that I thought he could be better.
"I couldn't resist doing something like that," I tell him, smiling a little. "But to be honest, I didn't think it would bother you so much."
It takes Cal a minute, but in time, his face relaxes back to its usual state. His smile has an edge of danger. "You and I are going to have to have a talk about how you treat your instructors, Mare."
Still, his free hand finds a place at the top of my back, where no fabric graces my skin. My hand ends up at his shoulder, firm even under his shirt and jacket. Our other hands stay tucked together.
Cal and I are at the very edge of the dancing. I try to ignore the multiplying guests that pause to watch us from what begins to seem like everywhere, even from above in the half-light. Some of those on the ballroom floor themselves falter or turn their heads to gaze upon me and Cal, though we're only standing in place, waiting to find a place to step in as the couples waltz across the floor.
"He never dances at these sorts of things," somebody murmurs from nearby. I don't know their voice any better than the voices of the other hundred people I've met tonight.
"That's only because the ladies would never let him leave the dance floor. They'd dance him to death like the Wilis nearly do to Albrecht in Giselle," another returns.
"But that is Giselle," the first somebody replies, and I realize they're talking about me and Cal.
And Albrecht would happily dance to his death for Giselle. Even if Giselle's with the wrong Albrecht—or Albrecht's older brother, actually.
Over the continued strains of violin, I don't think that Cal hears the muttered conversation that I pick up on. When I look at him again, his bronze eyes are turned a molten gold by the light. They might as well burn me.
It's one thing to have diamonds on my neck and Maven Calore at my side.
But it's an entirely other for Cal, the eldest son of Tiberias Calore and heir to a dynasty, to want the first dance of the night with me.
He's doing this on purpose. He knows that people will watch. He knows the implications of what he's doing. If Cal wants to dance with me, then I must be everything I've ever been cracked up to be.
A spot on the floor opens, and Cal's leading me forward, deftly maneuvering me towards it. As if we've done this before, I follow him with ease, hardly needing to see how his feet or anybody else's move to understand how to do this. I carry myself tall like a ballerina would, my arms strong but graceful and my chin tilted up towards Cal. His hand at my back is a gentle, warm pressure.
"If I'm a nine, then who's a ten?"
We enter the fray of sweeping dresses, but Cal's not satisfied with being at the fringes of things, and he manages to take me deeper into what becomes a torrent of dancing.
Piano keys strike from somewhere unseen, and the solemn, zealous sound of violin and harp presses on.
"I've only ever known one ten," I tell Cal. "And you don't know her."
The farther we go, the warmer it gets in the presence of too many moving bodies. Socialites glide past me, the hems of their dresses whipping to make little currents of air. As always, outrageously-sized jewels sparkle in the light of the sconces. The scent of perfume and wine-stained mouths thickens. I lose track of anything not in my immediate line of sight, and my eyes struggle to track the people surrounding us. I lose track of the balconies and bridges and stairs when Cal's still moving me forward, navigating through this strange hurricane as though he's backing up a car.
We turn as we move, revolving around one another even as we dance in a circle pattern. It's like one of those rides at Coney Island, though I haven't been in years. I give up in searching for Maven. I focus on Cal instead, worried, that in spite of the ballet dancer I am, I might get dizzy should I look around too long.
"One of your old teachers?" Cal asks.
"Yeah. She was great," I say.
We make a final move towards the ballroom's center, at last slowing down. Still, I stay alert as I move my feet, realizing that like ballet, these steps are easier said than done.
"She must have been," he agrees. "Considering what you are."
Cal keeps an easy smile on his face, and I remember that from the higher levels of the building, people can see the two of us with no trouble, but I can't help a scoff. What I am.
"You never told me much about your studio. And I couldn't find it on Google when I looked it up the day you auditioned," Cal continues. His grip on my hand relaxes, as if up until now, he was still worried about his brother coming after him.
That's not entirely true. The July night that we met in East Harlem, I told him that I danced classical ballet in a small local studio a few blocks over. I told him that I had started dancing there when I was a toddler. I told him that I danced for hours a day, went through a number of pointe shoes that my mom nearly passed out over. I told him that dance was my only passion, something that burned so heavy that it felt like I was dying when I stopped.
"But I suppose you're going to tell me that you've told me enough," he finishes. Bingo.
My ballet education was nothing like the girls' that I dance with now. They went to ballet schools, not studios in the rough part of Manhattan. Their parents paid exorbitant amounts of money to put them through a second school up until they graduated, if not after that. Mine couldn't even manage a studio, inside of a ramshackle East Harlem building owned by a woman named—
Nevermind.
I've told most of the story to Maven, as I've told him about most parts of my life as I've come to trust him. But I don't trust Cal like that, even when he's seen my other life firsthand.
Maybe that's why I don't want to go there with him again.
"I've told you enough about a lot of things," I say, my voice laced with something a little sharp. "I don't see why you need to know more about any of that."
"Fair enough," he says, but his words rival my sharpness. He means to tell me that, one day, he'll know the whole story. That he intends on prying it out of me.
His eyes still blaze with fire, and it's that, I think, that pisses me off the most. That no matter how prickly I am to him, no matter how many times I roll my eyes . . . he's unaffected by it.
We stay close together as the waltz rides its course. Cal leads, and I mirror his footsteps, chasing him as we advance around the ballroom. My forearm stays settled across his upper arm, and his hand is strong at my back. But the dancing becomes a gradual, intoxicating blur. Potent scents of high society and the wild scenery of opulence and the fast pace of dancing overwhelm me, along with the striking chords of music that won't stop. I hate to say it, but I'm glad that Cal, of all people, guides me. I trust him on that front.
"You really believed Maven when he told you what I said, didn't you?"
The fire in his eyes flicker, and I don't miss it.
In the midst of all of this, I can't get the question off my mind. The more that I think about it, the more silly it seems that it riled him up so bad.
"Why wouldn't I? You said it yourself: you've had great teachers." He attempts to play it off as something trivial, but his voice isn't quite there. If anything, it sounds strained.
Yes. But he's Cal, Principal dancer and all of the other things that he said about himself. One girl's opinion shouldn't mean much to him. Yet it does.
"I really got under your skin for a minute there, didn't I?" I continue, taking the offensive for what is probably the first time ever.
His lip twitches, drawing away from his smile.
"Yeah. And I wouldn't do it again, if I were you."
I know that I'm walking a dangerous line. I can only push Cal so far before he pushes back or walks away from this altogether.
I still give him an awful, nefarious smile in return.
The melody reaches its final refrain, sounds of violin and cello irresistible to my ears. The musicians that I haven't managed to spot all night play with great abandon from their hiding place, their music piped through to every corner and shadow of Calore Industries. Sensing that this beautiful, somehow chaotic dance is coming to close already, the dancers around me move faster yet, dancing and dancing.
But Cal, on the other hand, has other ideas.
He takes us back through the storm of the gala's most light-footed guests, masterfully weaving between them as nobody should be able to do. Though he's breaking all the rules of ballroom dancing, he does it in such a graceful way that I doubt anybody cares.
My skirts hit those of other women, and it takes all my effort to keep up with Cal.
As the music crescendos, we emerge from the rest of the dancers, on the fringes again at the marble pillars where plenty stand by to watch.
"Trust me," Cal murmurs in my ear, not a question, but an order. We go further, until we're thoroughly outside of the massive ring of dancing and apart from everybody else by two-dozen feet.
I don't trust him. Not with whatever he's about to do. But I have no choice but to follow him.
We turn around in tight circles, still moving with the last notes.
I take in the blurred faces watching us. My eyes snag on an exceptionally familiar head of curly black hair. The music ends with a halt, and the guests who had been dancing fall into dips. Camera flashes interrupt the warm light, all aimed towards me and Cal.
He cuts off our turns, and then both of his hands are around me, at my back. Instinctively, my other hand goes to his shoulder for something to hold on to.
My feet slide out from under me as Cal dips me, low and halfway to the ground.
We stop there, his arms wrapped around my waist, my back against his thigh. I don't forget my grace, forcing myself to be what Cal expects me to be. He might hold me, but I still hold every inch of my body strong myself.
I stare up at him, somehow maintaining a calm, good-humored face in the face of what he's done. His eyes glimmer as the camera flashes continue, even worse than they were outside.
Everybody stares at the son of Tiberias Calore and the mysterious seventeen-year-old Principal dancer. The eyes watch us from the balconies, the shadows, from everywhere else.
There might as well be a spotlight on us. Hell, the pearly-white flashes are practically a spotlight.
"You'll thank me later," Cal says, close to my ear.
"Will I?" I breathe back in return.
He smirks as he holds me in place, waiting for the same thing that I'm waiting for.
Without another second's delay, the people around us begin to applaud.
My heart beats.
No.
It pounds in my chest.
"Right now?" I ask.
But it's too late.
"Yeah. Anabel Lerolan wants to meet you right now," Lucas replies.
The security guard came out of nowhere, took me by the elbow when Maven was caught up in a conversation with a particularly aggressive socialite, who snapped at him that he could leave me alone for one minute while he finished explaining the differences between Russian ballet and French ballet to her.
As Lucas pulled me away, I told Maven that it was fine. Even though it wasn't. Isn't.
The ascent of the elevator sets my stomach turning in more ways than one.
At nine-fifty-eight and some odd seconds in the evening, it's terrible timing that Anabel Lerolan has a sudden need to exchange greetings with me.
These last minutes have been bad enough.
After the applause and white flashes stopped, Cal lifted me back to my feet, and with a sweeping bow from him and a curtsy from me, we departed ways. Cal dodged several swipes, attempts, and words made by the ladies of the gala in hopes to dance with him, sidestepping them as he dissolved into the crowd and beelined for the stairs.
Maven and I danced a few rounds, and though he didn't say anything, I know that he's angry with Cal for what he did. But considering the circumstances, he was hardly about to rail on about it.
After that, the two of us situated ourselves at the balcony on the second floor, on the side plenty far from the stairs.
Only for Lucas to come along.
I had no defense for why I wouldn't want to go upstairs and meet Cal and Maven's grandmother,
I could hardly say no to a woman who married a Calore.
I couldn't act as though I didn't want to move from the safety of where I was.
I ignore the gold-paneled elevator as I stand inside of it, having to bunch my fists. Nobody else waits in it with us, having gotten off on the lower floors.
The elevator bell rings, and Lucas and I step out onto the fifth and final floor, same as all the others with its balconies and the marble and glass bridge that spans the air to connect one side of Calore Industries to the other.
The ceiling isn't so high above anymore. Plenty of guests have congregated up here with their glasses and loud conversations, courtesy of the wine. They line the balconies, some of the guests simply looking over them at the stunning panorama of architecture and people below. It's louder than it was downstairs. I find the musicians, situated in black chairs along the balcony on the bridge's other side. Near the stairs. They're mic'd up, their music still flowing throughout the building.
It's only so busy up here because of the people on the bridge.
Tiberias Calore, Anabel Lerolan, and Cal stand at the center, waiting for me.
I force myself out of the elevator.
Tiberias Calore stares at me like I'm something to be studied. I still wear his diamonds.
From halfway across the building, I see how Anabel regards me. She looks proud, eyes wide and intrigued. Her red and orange pantsuit stands out like a beacon.
And Cal just smiles at me. It's nothing new, and for once, I wish it would last.
I wish that I had somebody to pull me back as Cal did when I was heading for Maven.
Lucas walks by my side.
I can't decide if I want Maven to show up or not.
Seconds tick by.
The clock strikes ten, its sing-song echoing throughout this palace of a building.
The sconces that line the limestone and the chandeliers that hang so close to me burst with light before dying altogether.
The fire, the gilt of Calore Industries plunges into utter night as a single shot rings out.