Page 32 of Encore
“I getyoudidn’t do anything directly, but you haven’t been here that long. Two of the Terrible Trio are in jail paying for their crimes against humanity, and Marsden finally gave me a solo. Arden is dating a ballerina now. That’s a special kind of magic. Girl, you’re going to break this curse. That’s all the niceness I’m capable of after that gala. I’m going to bed to recharge my batteries,” Nyx said.
Bevan yawned and stretched.
“Fate brought you here for a reason, Beyla. You’re going to be on stage with us opening night.”
They all seemed so sure. Marsden was the one with inside information, and he was so confident he threw a fucking gala and announced me as his star. All of this had fate written all over it.
But all of my bureau training told me to operate on facts and never come to any conclusion until I had all of them. All I really had at this moment was a lot of guesses and one Unseelie keeping a lot of secrets.
Chapter30
Bevan
We might not have all the facts, and I knew that stressed Beyla out. I understood they had trained her a certain way at the bureau, but this was some next-level fate shit. Still, this was her case, and if she needed cold, hard facts, we were going to make damned sure she got them, even if Marsden was being stupid.
It was the weekend, and we were back in Beyla’s apartment doing research. Everyone was digging through photos again except Nyx and me. Nyx wanted to help, but it was against her religion to do anything she found boring. She was helping me dig through the history of the company.
Ihighlydoubted the previous times someone attempted this ballet, they threw a gala like Marsden just did and announced it. The only timeThe Pnever had a last show of the year was the first time they canceled this ballet. It was hastily replaced with something, and it would have involved guest artists if that many leads had been murdered.Somewherein this history of shows, this company had done was a clue.
Nyx and I were digging in mostly silence. Mostly. Nyx was making little grumpy noises when she didn’t find what she needed.
“Hold the fuck up,” Nicolai said. “These pictures weren’t put in any sort of order, so we can use this to find Santiago, but I found another one of Selena from a different angle. This one is of her straight on and not laughing like the one with Tabitha we found. It’s subtle, but she looks a little like Beyla.”
“Let me see that,” Beyla said, snatching it away. “I don’t see it. We look nothing alike.”
Merlin peered over her shoulder.
“From the eye up, you do. The rest of your features look nothing alike.”
“You’re all reaching,” Nyx said. “If Beyla looked anything like Santiago’s dead wife, we’d be beating him off with a stick. He’d either be throwing some completely misplaced revenge at Beyla for the curse, or he’s still in love with her, and he’d be trying to join this group thing you have going on.”
Arden grabbed the picture and stared at it.
“Nyx is right. Their features are too different. Santiago strikes me as a really obsessive dude if he’s willing to keep trying this, knowing people will die. He would have made himself known to Beyla if they looked alike.”
Nicolai just shrugged.
“I still see it.”
“So do I,” Merlin said. “And it’s in my DNA to recognize that sort of thing.”
“Merlin, sometimes you do beautiful things like suggest platonic cuddle piles and befriend lonely widows, and sometimes you open your mouth and sound like a total pig,” Nyx said.
“I didn’t mean it like that. And my race gets enough shit without judgment for things that just happen naturally. We look for similar features when seeking mates, so we don’t have a whole relative thing going on. I can’t tell between Beyla and this photo, but their eye shape is similar.”
“We aren’t related. My parents might have lied to me about being a witch, but they’ve always been very supportive of my ballet dancing. There were plenty of times I wanted to give up because it was hard and painful. They would have told me if one of my ancestors was a famous ballerina and left the whole jail thing out.”
I hadn’t seen the photo because I was glued to my laptop. I got what Merlin was saying because I’d seen him on the hunt at bars. Women flocked to him and men, too, because that was his nature. He’d be chatting someone up and step away to get a drink, and someone else would approach him. He stopped talking to both, and when asked, he’d just say he had a sister radar and didn’t do that kind of drama.
I also understood where Beyla was coming from. I didn’t know why her parents lied about her birthright, but witches took their ancestors seriously. We’d been tracing our lines long before humans started taking DNA tests online. As far as I knew, no one had done it, but everyone was trying to trace their family line back to the original witches Lilith created.
“If you were related to Selena, your parents would have known about the drama atThe P.My parents still use drama from some far-removed uncle from four hundred years ago as a warning lesson against love spells. Sending your kid to residential ballet school is stressful for parents. If Beyla’s parents kept being a witch from her, they wouldn’t have sent her alone to study at the same school where her ancestor went a bit crazy.”
“I think I figured out something while all of you were comparing Beyla’s eyes to the crusty-ass photo of a dead witch,” Nyx said.
“Do tell because we could go through these photos forever,” Beyla said.
“Okay, so there were two times since the ballet was canceled the first time that some sort of best hits was done as the final show.The Pnever does that. It’s like a dance recital for kids. There were no guest artists, just a lot of people promoted from the corps to dance duets and trios.”
