Page 51 of Muse

I waited a beat to answer, lifting my head to see him, hoping to get a read on how he thought I had done. But his expression was blank, and his hand rested on his chin as he stared down at me.

“It felt…good?”

“Was that a question?”

“I don’t know how to answer.” I squirmed, growing embarrassed and certain that I’d done a terrible job. “How do you think I did?”

“Please don’t flip it back on me like that. I asked you how it felt because I want to know howyoufelt. I can’t answer that for you,” he said. “I only want your honesty.”

Something about that shattered me. There was no response I could give that would make him happy except for the truth. How could I even know what that was when I never trusted my own feelings or thoughts because they were usually wrong – according to Adora, anyway.

But knowing that anything but honesty would disappoint Soren, I could only say what I felt, whatever that may be. I closed my eyes and opened my mouth, and I truly didn’t know what I would say until the words came tumbling out.

"It felt good but rough. I stumbled through tempo changes a few times, and we need to develop a clear transition to keepmy momentum. My footwork was indelicate during the piece, but that will get better over time as long as the choreography matches the precision of the music. The crescendo will be perfect for something more complex if we go aerial so that I can incorporate more flips and rolls." I took a deep breath and opened my eyes again to see him grinning at me. "So that's what I thought. How about you?"

“I loved it!” Soren might as well have saidI love youfor how it struck me. I was suddenly lightheaded and giddy and filled with butterflies.

“And I loved your ideas even more,” he went on. “You’re right that it’s rough, but already, I can see that we can create a real showstopper here.”

"You think so?" I asked, and I didn't even mind that I had a dopey smile on my face.

"Yes, absolutely!" He was exuberant when he took my hand and pulled me to my feet. "Let's try it again, but we'll go much slower so we can label the steps and define it more clearly. But I really liked your instincts, so I'll follow that."

Within a few days, Soren and I had the choreography worked out, but we still needed to incorporate my magik elements. They were always the final addition once everything else was down.

Truthfully, I couldn't believe how quickly it was all coming together. This was my first time working with an enchanter who welcomed input from a muse, and in the beginning, it felt strange expressing my opinion to him like that. It genuinely did seem to make him happy, and it seemed to improve the performance.

I won't deny that my first instinct was to hold back and shy away from expressing myself. But even when we disagreed, Soren made it clear that he preferred that over blind subservience.

The only problem was that I was realizing that maybe I preferred it, too.

Chapter 32

Near the end of the week, Soren informed me his sister would be visiting sometime soon. He didn't give me anything more precise than that, so I wasn't prepared to see her the moment I walked into the kitchen the next morning. And not only her but also the esteemed designer Zinnia Russo.

I had only met Serena once, and Zinnia never. They were both extraordinarily beautiful and elegantly styled, and they greeted me in my robe with my long, wavy hair lying loose and wild down my back.

Soren was leaning against the counter, drinking tea the way I found him most mornings, and Serena was across from him, perched on the edge of the butcher block, munching on pomegranate seeds.

Neither of them had time to greet me before the diminutive designer rushed to me. Zinnia was hardly over four feet tall, not counting the halo of graying dark curls surrounding her head. Her skin was a medium brown, and she looked in her late sixties.She put on a monocle to inspect me closer and lifted my arm to get a better look at my body.

Fortunately, I recognized her as one of the kingdom's most glamorous and respected working muses. Otherwise, I would've found her intrusive behavior more alarming. While most muses performed conductions for at least part of their lives, many of them went on to work in other creative endeavors, like designing, cooking, and composing music.

“Don’t mind her, Isadore,” Serena said cheerily as Zinnia pulled a measuring tape out of her deep pockets. “That’s just my friend Zinnia, and she’s here to get you ready for the Samonend. My brother hasn’t left us with any time for pleasantries.”

With that last remark, Serena cast Soren a disapproving glare, and he gave a sheepish shrug.

"We cannot live in the past, so it does us no good to worry about what could have been. Instead, we shall put our energy in the here and now," Zinnia said almost absently. "We'll make do with the time we have. With that in mind, is there somewhere we can go so you can strip down?"

Soren nearly choked on his tea at that point, and hurriedly, he offered us the library so the designer could get more precise measurements of my body. He closed the curtains, then departed and closed the door behind him, leaving me in relative privacy with Serena and Zinnia.

“Do you want me to leave for this part, or would you rather I stay?” Serena asked as I started untying my robe.

"You can stay," I said because having a buffer felt better than being alone with the intense Zinnia.

Besides, I had been through dozens of fittings. Stripping down to my slip and bloomers as a stranger measured every inch of my body was a part of my life. At least I would have a stunning one-of-a-kind garment on the other end.

For her part, Serena walked around the room, pretending to admire her brother’s books so she wasn’t staring at me in a state of undress.

---