Page 48 of Encore
I struck my pose as the lights dimmed. I could hear the chatter in the audience die down as someone came over the loudspeaker, told everyone to silence their phones, and reminded them not to take any photos of the show.
The overture swelled, and the curtain came up. The stage lighting hit me, and we all started dancing. Kaine and my friends used to always sit front and center back home. Sometimes, if I was stage front and the light wasn’t too blinding, I could see their faces while I was dancing, and it was always so comforting.
I knew they wouldn’t be in the front row tonight. Those tickets were probably expensive as fuck and sold to season ticket holders. I didn’t know where they were sitting, but I couldfeelthem in the audience rooting me on.
Right now, I was just a nameless villager miming with the rest of the cast. Maybe someone in the audience had looked at my headshot in the program and matched it to me on stage, so they were watching me. Most likely, though, the only people paying attention to me were the people who got on a plane to watch me dance.
My guys finally joined us on stage. Since they weren’t warriors from this village, no one trusted them and shied away from them. I didn’t. I stepped away from the corps and offered them water and food.
The scene changed after we mimed eating and drinking. The corps left the stage, and it was just the five of us doing the dance we rarely got past in rehearsal because Bellatrix was trying to take Bevan out.
It was never like that with us. The choreography was complicated, and some of the lifts could be dangerous with the wrong partner. I’d never had a dance partner things were this easy with. And it wasn’t just one. It was all four of them.
I forgot all about the curse or looking over my shoulder and just danced. I let myself get swept up in the music, the audience, and my coven. I wove enchantments while I was dancing with my guys or doing solos.
Damita’s death was the trigger for this curse. It always had been. That scene was the end of the first act. If this curse were going to pop up and take this company and all of us down with it, it would be then.
The fight broke out like it was supposed to. Marsden’s fight choreography was exciting and thrilling. Sometimes, I was tempted to just watch the guys instead of doing my part, but I never did.
I acted my part precisely like I was supposed to. At this point in the ballet, I was sure the audience was fully expecting Damita to end up with just one of these warriors and were already deciding on a favorite warrior.
They weren’t expecting me to jump between Arden and Bevan and get stabbed in the stomach. There was an audible gasp from the audience when I died in Bevan’s arms. Ballet audiences could be forgiving about star-crossed lovers who both died at the end. They loved a good tragic love story.
They were completelynotused to the prima ballerina dying in the first act, but no one walked out. Instead, I could hear the sniffles of audience members as the curtain went down on Bevan holding me while I pretended to be dead and the rest of the warriors looking on in horror.
Everything went off without a hitch, but intermission wasn’t exactly a break for me. As soon as the curtain was fully down, I bolted to my dressing room. I had a pretty elaborate costume change to handle while the audience took a bathroom break and checked their cellphones.
I had to transform myself from a simple village girl to a sugar skull that brought a girl back to life. The tutu I was supposed to wear was utterly gorgeous, and if I could have stolen it, I would have. I also had to change my face makeup completely. Marsden had designed that, too, and it was insanely difficult to apply.
There was a knock on my dressing room door. Bevan was already changed, so he answered.
“Is everyone decent?” Marsden asked.
Marsden would have been out in the audience in the best seats in the house, sitting next to the board ofThe Plike every performance. I would have thought he would still be out there trying to explain why he chose to perform a ballet where his prima ballerina got murdered before the second act. But then again, this was Marsden, and I doubted he gave a shit.
“Beautiful. Everything was perfect and just like I imagined. Would you like help with your makeup?”
Now that Marsden was opening up, he was a little more tolerable, but he could be super weird sometimes. Bevan and I had saged the entire theatre before the dancers got here. Still, Marsden also insisted on bringing religious leaders from every supernatural group and a human Catholic priest to bless the theatre and this show.
But fuck, yes. I wanted him to do my makeup. He could do it quicker than I could. I could take five minutes to compose myself before the even more complex second act. It wasn’t just that the choreography was much harder. We had to sell this relationship.
Arden wasn’t the only one who had to redeem his character. It wouldn’t be believable unless I sold it, too. We could do this. I just needed to check something first.
“You aren’t feeling like you’re going to murder anyone, are you?” I asked as Marsden painted my face.
Marsden grinned at me.
“No, I don’t. So, get out there and dance your asses off.”
Chapter43
Bevan
Icould have picked a dressing room with the guys, but I wanted to lose my shit with Beyla. Plus, I knew Arden and Beyla were worried about redeeming his character, but that job wasn’t just on them. It was onallof us. So just in case there was any lingering shit between those three, I left them alone to bond over stage makeup. That, and I just wanted to be with Beyla.
Marsden had finished with Beyla’s makeup and turned her into a masterpiece. He was back in the audience, and we were all on stage waiting for the curtain to come back up. Everyone was on stage, but Beyla was hiding behind a giant prop.
Marsden had really gone out with the sets and props. He hadn’t forgotten that a long time ago, Mexico gave him a home when plenty of other countries wouldn’t because they were afraid of the Unseelie. He’d gone on more than a few rants about how some Americans treated them now.
