Page 10 of Encore
And it did. Dancing would make me feel better, but so would hanging out with Nyx. My roommate situation could have gone very differently. Ballet wasn’t a competitive sport, but we were all competitive. We competed against ourselves every class to do better, and we competed against each other, even if we would never admit it.
Nyx was never like that with me, even though she was stuck in the corps. She only ever got mad at me when she thought I had sex with Marsden for a role. Bellatrix and her crew were toxic as hell. I’m sure the other dancers in the company were perfectly lovely, but they avoided me like the plague when I became Bellatrix’s target. Of course, Nyx had always had my back, and I appreciated that.
We sat down on the floor with all our tools and massive amounts of pointe shoes. Every dancer had a type of pointe shoes that were perfect for their feet. Some people had long toes, others short. Some people had tapered toes and others went in a straight line. You had to have the right pointe shoes for your feet. You couldn’t just sew the ribbons and elastics on and wear them to class. Well, you could, but that was how you ended up with your feet bleeding or hurting yourself slipping.
Nyx did a lot of things I did with mine. Most dancers did this. We cut the satin off the toe and burned the edges with a lighter. We roughed up the bottom of our shoes with a box cutter. Dancers knew how to fall, but sometimes there wasn’t much you could do when your feet were flying over your head but pray to the God who created you.
“Nyx, I need to tell you something, and I’m not sure how you’re going to react.”
“Best just rip it off like toe tape when you’ve got an asshole blister. You know it’s going to take your skin with it, but your toe isn’t going to heal until you let the blister breathe.”
“It was something Marsden said about you the first time I went to his apartment.”
“You really want to give me another reason to shriek at him until he dies?”
“He demanded I eat breakfast with him, and I remembered what you said about his food offers. He tried to clear the air with me and tell me it was just breakfast and not an offer for sex. He told me therealreason he keeps you in the corps isn’t because you told him no. He said you single-handedly keep the entire corps together.”
“Okay, first of all, I was a soloist at the last company I left. I didn’t immigrate here and audition for this company to wave a wreath in the back just to make other people look good. I might not have gone to the academy attached toThe P,but I went to the best residential school in Canada. I’m not Bellatrix and Ivory and think I deserve lead roles because I’m better than everyone else, but IknowI’m talented enough not to be stuck in the corps this long.”
“I know. I’ve seen you in class. Your jumps are higher than mine, and I hate you for it,” I said.
“It’s because my tits are smaller than yours. They aren’t weighing me down.”
I threw one of my pointe shoes at her head.
“My boobs are barely there, Nyx!”
“Mine never got the memo puberty was happening, and they needed to make an appearance. At the time, my rival was this vampire bitch who wasn’t Bellatrix-level terrible but had psychological torture down to an art. Puberty hit her hard, throwing off her entire center of balance. Instead of just working harder and figuring it out, she just up and quit a promising ballet career. She didn’t even try to stay in the dance world like ballet meant something to her.”
“I couldn’t do that. When both my feet were in casts, and the doctors didn’t know if I was going to dance again, I was plotting ways to do it, anyway.”
“Howareyou dancing, anyway? I’m not too much of a bitch to admit you’re talented, and it doesn’t look like you’re in pain. Careers have ended over one broken foot.”
“Kaine worked with the God of Chaos on a case. He healed my feet like they had never been broken.”
“You know him? I love his cooking videos. He’s got some damned good recipes.”
“His wife and her twin sister tutored me on magic since mine woke up early.”
Reyson wasn’t the only god I’d met, but I felt weird bringing that up to people because it felt like I was bragging. Nyx was about to say something when my phone started blowing up. It was like someone included me in the group text from Hell.
“What the shit?” I said, picking up my phone.
“That’ll be your boys’ plot coming to fruition.”
Merlin, Nicolai, Bevan, and Arden had all tagged me in a video that had only been live five minutes, but they had enough social media followers between the four of them it had already blown up. My social media accounts were small and mostly private, but my phone kept dinging with new followers. What the hell did they do?
I pulled up the video. It was all four of them shirtless in the studio. All they were wearing was tight black shorts and black socks for their feet. The camera zeroed in on Merlin, and he started mugging.
“So, there’s going to be a new ballet announced for the company in a few days. We can’t talk about it yet, but wecantalk about the new dancer who is performing the lead. She’s special, and we’re all smitten.”
The camera cut to Nicolai, who gave the same smile he gave when he was winning the princess on stage.
“She needs a little cheering up right now, so we are all stepping in. And believe me, you wouldn’t be getting a video with all four of us if it weren’t for her.”
Bevan looked almost Fae with his white hair when he got in front of the camera.
“Some of you don’t know me as well as you know these three, but who youneedto know is Beyla Moonfall. She did the impossible and brought all my favorite people together. So, we need to all come together and give her a proper welcome toThe Pbecause it’s been a rough start.”
