Chaos Choreography by Seanan McGuire

Author:Seanan McGuire
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2016-02-13T11:26:39+00:00

Twelve

“The world is going to get in the way sometimes. That’s what the world does. What you have to do, what you have to be prepared to do, is plant your feet and tell the world that you’re not going to be the one who gives ground.”

—Enid Healy

The Crier Theater, four days later

WE HAD LEFT THE FLEA MARKET—collecting Malena from a stall that sold live birds, where she’d purchased a box of pigeons which she had proceeded to suck dry in the car—and returned to the apartments with our newly-acquired weapons and our newly-heightened sense of urgency. Explaining what we’d learned about the situation to Malena while she picked feathers out of her teeth had been odd, but not odd enough to make me stop.

In the end, we were better armed and better informed, but no more aware of who was behind the situation. Dominic had dropped us off with a dire warning to be careful, and we’d slipped back into our rooms without attracting too much attention. It helped that Sunday was everybody’s free day; no one was looking for anything out of the ordinary. No one but us—and even we couldn’t find it. Even Artie hadn’t been able to work his particular brand of incredibly nerdy magic. Oh, the theater had cloud storage, but it was used solely for rehearsal footage and show recordings, not for the security in the halls.

(One good, if largely irrelevant, thing had come of his trawling through the systems: we knew for sure now that it had been Jessica, and not Reggie, who’d been in the wrong when she got dropped. It was basically useless information, but Pax had passed it on to Reggie without letting on how he knew. Reggie had been a lot more careful around Jessica since then, which was all to the good. She wasn’t quite sabotaging the other contestants. She was still enough of a snake that she should have been attracting a cult of her own.)

The days had fallen back into the same pattern of rehearsals, costume fittings, and frantic searches of the theater. Having Malena on our side meant she and Pax could constantly sniff around for signs of blood or ritual herbs. Sadly, that didn’t mean they’d been able to find anything, and by the time the night of the show arrived, we were all consumed by nerves.

Anders picked up on my anxiety—it would have been hard for him not to. He stepped up behind me while I was checking my makeup before the opening jazz number. Sasha had bent us into the shapes she wanted, and all that remained was getting through the next five minutes without breaking an ankle. Or a neck. To be honest, I was more worried about the latter.

“You okay?” he asked, looming in my mirror. He focused on my reflection with an intensity that made me borderline uncomfortable.

I didn’t let it show. He’d always been attracted to me, and he’d always taken “no” for an answer. I just had to act oblivious and things would be okay.

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