Page 34 of Encore
“Is it even worth it?” Bevan asked. “What makes you think this time is different?”
“I can answer that if everyone will just calm down and let me speak. I know it’s different this time because of Beyla.”
What did I have anything to do with this? I wasn’t a seasoned agent, and Marsden only just now started telling us the truth.
“You’d better explain, or I’m going to punch you again.”
“I was determined to break the curse this time. No one was going to die this time. I cast my runes and drank tea to force visions. They all led me to a sixteen-year-old dancer who was already interested inThe P.You had the talent to get in and rise through the ranks to a star. I could tell that even in your audition to the residential school.
“I was expecting my runes and vision to give me clarity on how to break the curse this time. I wasn’t expecting a teenager. I stayed and watched you in the shadows trying to figure out why you were important. Then, I looked away to take a phone call. By the time I hung up, that boy you were dating had crushed your feet and left you in that park. I called for help and waited for it to get there. I didn’t want to scare you after another man had hurt you.”
What the actual fuck? Derek had knocked my phone out of my hand when he broke my feet. I was in too much pain to reach it. We had been alone in the park after dark. I always thought Derek felt terrible about what he did and called for help. So, it was Marsden this entire time?
“I was planning on going back to New York, but I had a bad feeling. So, I drove back to your house and saw through your bedroom window you had taken those pills. Your parents may have kept being a witch a secret from you, but they had a magical security system at your house. There was no way to get inside, but I called for help again. I knew damned well what would happen when you woke up, so I made sure you got to a supernatural hospital. I just lucked out that your parents had a dragon instead of a human as your emergency contact if they weren’t available. That could have gone horribly wrong.”
Yeah, it definitely could have. A human hospital would have medicated me within an inch of my life and thrown me in a psych ward. I wouldn’t have known what was happening to me and probably demanded to stay there. Marsden had been looking out for me since I was a teenager?
“I had hoped your feet weren’t damaged in a way that would prevent you from dancing again. I kept up with you through ballet channels and saw you were dancing with a supernatural ballet school. I honestly expected you to audition for our residential school again, but you didn’t. You shocked the hell out of me when you enrolled in the academy at the bureau instead of auditioning for ballet companies.
“I didn’t know how at first, but I knew you were vital to breaking this curse. Ineededyou here, and there was no other way to do it. So, I bided my time until you were about to graduate. Then, I called someone high up at the bureau and promised them a whole bevy of secrets about the Unseelie Court if they could get me someone undercover. Of course, I was gambling on them sending you. There’s always someone willing to break the rules for Unseelie secrets, and after what they did to me, I have no problem using their secrets when it suits my need.”
“I didn’t know you helped me when I was a teenager, but I already knew the reason I’m here is that the bureau wants to take down the Unseelie, and they are willing to put me in situations I’m not ready for to get them. That doesn’t answer why you are totally sure the curse is broken with me here.”
“I’ll have to start from the beginning. I thought I needed to create the original environment but reverse the roles. I felt I needed a succubus dancing the lead and a witch as the understudy. I thought if I pit the two of you against each other and you stole the part, it would break the curse because a witch stole the role this time.
“You refused to play that game and didn’t want the part. I didn’t understand it. Bellatrix was being terrible in rehearsal. I thought you would try to take her role because of what she was doing to Bevan. I cast Bevan because he was perfect for the part. I wasn’t expecting her to try to hurt him. I also wasn’t expecting Arden to react the way he did and nip that in the bud.
“The more I watched rehearsals, the more I realized you were the one that should have been dancing Damita, but no matter what Bellatrix did, you wouldn’t fight for the part.
“So, I started thinking my theory about you stealing the part was wrong. If it were right, it would have been in your nature, and you’d be doing it. So, I started digging into your background. I was waiting for a document that unfortunately didn’t come in time to save Bellatrix’s life. I would have just given you the lead if I had seen it before Bellatrix brought the gun to rehearsal. Bella would have been furious, but she would have calmed down when she admitted to herself that she hated the part and didn’t want to dance it.”
This was getting crazier and crazier. What document could have possibly saved Bellatrix and given him the answer to breaking this curse?
“Selena and I never had children. We didn’t want to retire, and we were both too selfish. Before I met Selena, a choreographer in residence raped her when she was fourteen. She was sent away to have the baby in secret, and she was given up for adoption. Selena dove straight back into ballet and made sure she got her revenge on that choreographer. She always wondered about her daughter.
“I did some digging. The family that adopted her gave her daughter the name Morgana Youngblood, and she’s—”
“My great, great grandmother,” I whispered.
“Exactly. When I attempted this ballet again, the first thing I did was give Damita to a witch and have her understudy a witch just in case. Of course, it didn’t work. I loved Selena dearly, but she was a powerful witch well-versed in dark magic.
“She reserved her curses for those she felt truly wronged her. There was always a way to break them built-in, but the answer was never obvious. She’d never tell you either. I visited her in prison and groveled. I apologized and told her I still loved her. She would have been released from jail early instead of dying there if she had told me. Unfortunately, Selena was stubborn and would rather live out her days in a concrete cell than give me the answer.
“Thishasto be it. It can’t just be any witch dancing Damita. They have to share Selena’s blood. When Selena wondered about what he daughter was up to, she liked to think she was in the ballet world. Selena hated her daughter’s father for what he did to her, but she’d say her child had dance in their blood on both sides.”
“She didn’t. My parents wouldn’t have known about Selena since Morgana was adopted, but they would have told me if someone in our family was a ballet dancer.”
“It skipped a few generations, but I choreographed that part specifically to highlight Selena’s strengths as a dancer. I always meant for a witch to dance. I’ve cast other witches in that role when I attempted the ballet before, but they never did that part like I envisioned when I set it on Selena. You do it perfectly, just how I saw in my head. We haven’t gotten to the point in the ballet where the curse is triggered, but Iknowit’s going to be different this time.”
So, he wasn’t just kissing my ass at the gala when he said I was born to dance Damita. Maybe I was. Curses on people were generally tricky, especially when they couldn’t be removed with a potion. If Selena thought her daughter was a ballerina, it made sense that her curse would require a dancer of her bloodline to break it.
It was fucked up, and I was already under way too much pressure. I’d danced plenty of leads at my ballet school back home. This was totally different. This wasn’t a ballet academy where my friends and family were coming to watch me perform. This was the biggest ballet company in the United States, and there would be critics in the audience.
I didn’t just have to keep up with four amazing dancers who had been doing this professionally while I had been dancing in Kaine’s garage. I had to break this curse just for being born.
How was this my life right now?
Chapter33
