by Emma Savant
“I don’t know,” she said.
She closed her eyes, and I felt the heat of her hand as it glided through the air around my body. Briana was the most erratic, easily distracted person I’d ever met, but she had a knack for this kind of stuff. When she was poking and prodding into someone’s aura, no one could match her for concentration.
“There’s definitely something going on here, but I haven’t run into anything like this before.”
“Can you do anything about it?” Sadie said.
“I think so.”
I closed my eyes and let her work. Having a faerie I trusted work on my aura was even better than a massage. I felt her fingertips gently press into the heat that surrounded my body, and then I felt a stretching sensation as though she were pulling my energy like taffy.
“Mm,” she said. I felt a slight plucking sensation across my skin. It was as if she was pulling weeds. With each jerk, I felt myself relax a little, and the air in the room seemed to grow a degree colder, taking away the oppressive heat of the golden haze.
“Mother of pearl,” Sadie muttered.
“There’s a lot,” Briana agreed. I felt her hands sift through my aura as she plucked out a few more… whatever they were.
I knew she was done when a tingle rushed down my skin and suddenly I could hear the small noises in the room clearly—the brush of fabric as Sadie rearranged herself on the sofa, the ticking of the clock on the wall. I stretched, slowly, and opened my eyes.
“That was nice,” I said.
I looked around the room.
Damn, it was gold. Everything—the walls, the edging on the glass coffee and end tables, the sleek frame of the clock—was either covered in gold or trimmed with it.
Why?
And why, for that matter, was I living here?
I looked at my friends, and they studied my face for clues that I’d come to my senses.
“Crap,” I said.
“No shit,” Briana said.
“How long?” I said. “Have I been like this, I mean?”
“It’s been a while,” Sadie said. “We didn’t really notice at first, but um, you’ve been behaving unusually.”
“You’ve been hella creepy,” Briana translated. “Not all the time, or with everything, but—dude, you’re not writing your own music.”
I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten. How had I forgotten that?
August would have hell to pay.
I stood up, so quickly I bumped the table and almost sent my leftovers flying. Sadie stabilized them with a quick spell.
“Don’t rush off,” she said quickly. She tugged my shirt and I dropped back down onto the couch.
“You need a battle plan,” Briana said.
“First off, what has he been doing to you?”
I explained, as clearly as I could: August had some sort of innate ability to manipulate people. He’d agreed to not use it on me. He’d lied.
“You need some actual shielding before you go deal with this,” Sadie said.
“You need a frigging bazooka gun,” Briana muttered.
Sadie started to roll her eyes, then shrugged. “Something,” she said. She glanced at Briana. “But first, I think you need to take a few days to just settle back down. Your aura’s fritzing.”
She held a hand a few inches from my body. I could feel it, too; a sort of static charge in the air around me that occasionally spiked or popped enough to make the hair on my arms stand on end.
“You need to take a nap and let your aura settle.”
“You need to write some music,” Briana said.
“You need food,” Sadie said. “With actual nutrients. Nothing deep-fried.”
“You need to text Clarence,” Briana said.
Shit. Clarence.
Exhaustion overtook me in a wave.
I pushed the food away; anything I’d eaten yesterday didn’t feel like something I should bring into today.
“Nap first,” I said. “You guys eat. I’m going to go back to sleep, and then when I wake up, we’re going to figure out how to solve this mess. All of it.”
I curled up on the couch. Briana used my butt as an armrest, and I drifted off. Just before I fell into sleep, a melody began to play in my head.
Chapter 13
“Now march, march, slam, and pop!” Starling called. I threw my chest up and head back, and the music came to a stop. I held the position for a couple of seconds before letting myself collapse to the floor.
The polished wood was cool against my bare shoulder blades. My lungs burned, and I felt my chest rise and fall as I tried to remember the normal rhythm of breathing.
“Please tell me we’re done,” I said.
“One more,” Starling said.
I moaned, loudly enough that he’d get the point, then closed my eyes and felt my heart racing.
We’d been working on this dance for hours. I had the steps down, but they weren’t solid in my bones yet, and I hadn’t even started layering on the glamours that would turn a song and dance into a performance.
“Just one more, and then you can go home.”
I lifted my head. “I gotta breathe,” I complained, then let my head drop back to the floor.
I heard Starling’s footsteps as he crossed the room, and then he sat down cross-legged next to me and held out a bottle of water. I pulled myself up to sit and took it from him.
“You’re looking good,” he said. “You’ve got to keep working it—don’t get lazy—but you’re fierce.”
Starling liked fierce. I liked Starling. It worked out. I took a long drink and stretched out my neck.
“It’ll be cool when it comes together,” I said. “These are good moves.”
“All my moves are good moves.”
“That’s probably why August hired you,” I said.
“And why you kept me,” he said. “You’re the artist here, don’t forget that.”
I leaned back on my elbows and looked at him. “Do a lot of August’s artists forget that?”
Starling cut his eyes at me, sizing me up. “I’m not here to talk about that,” he said. “I’m here to make you look like a goddess.”
“I already look like a goddess,” I said.
He suppressed his laugh, which was almost nice of him. I’d caught a glimpse of myself in the studio mirror a few minutes ago. While I was dancing, I might look powerful and radiant. The second I stopped, though, I was nothing but a tomato-red face topped with limp, sweaty hair.
“I’m serious, though,” I said. “I want to talk about August.”
He sat up straighter and glanced at the door.
“What, does he have this place bugged?”
“I doubt it,” Starling said. “I do a sweep for eavesdropping spells and electronics every week.”
“It’s not just me being paranoid, then,” I said.
I knew it wasn’t. The golden haze was gone, and everything looked different without it. Starling pursed his lips and studied me, then wagged a finger in my face.
“You do your dance one more time—and you don’t half-ass it, ma’am—and we’ll talk. We’ll get coffee and we’ll talk.”
I sprang to my feet. “Deal,” I said.
He rolled his eyes at me, betraying himself with a small smile, and took my water bottle. He waved a hand, and the music started back up.
“And five, six, seven, and eight!”
Within half an hour, I’d performed my heart out, showered, and met him at a Humdrum café around the corner. The gentle murmur of conversation and hissing appliances ran like a steady bass line under our conversation. Starling provided the tenor, his voice musical and soft.
“What I want to know is how you got out from under him,” he said. “I wasn’t sure about you at first. It doesn’t happen with all his clients. Some of them are happy to take his advice on everything and don’t give him any trouble. You feisty ones, though…” He trailed off and swirled designs into the layer of frothed milk that floated on top of
his coffee.
“He wasn’t like this at the beginning,” I said. “After the ‘Wild’ video, though?”
“I could tell after that,” Starling said. “You went from tiger to cub a little too quickly.”
“But he doesn’t control everyone?” I said. “He doesn’t control you?”
“No,” Starling said. His eyebrow quirked. He had a small silver stud in that eyebrow today, and it gave him a slightly off-balance look that, coupled with his fluid grace, was charming. “Thing about me is, I’m nimble. I dance my way out of every spell anyone tries to put on me. He didn’t like that, at first—not that he’d say anything; Titania forbid we talk about it—but August and I have reached a silent, sneaky little truce. I don’t interfere with his management, he doesn’t interfere with my choreography, and together we turn little raw-talent lumps like you into diamonds.”
“So you know, and you still work with him?”
I couldn’t keep the accusation totally out of my voice. Why hadn’t he warned me?
Starling pulled his head back and gave me an equally accusing stare.
“So do you, girl,” he said. “We’re all in this for our careers. Don’t get up on your high horse.”
I understood. We were all hypocrites. It was impossible to resist the lure of fame—not just of attention and praise, but of that tantalizing, satisfying, primal thrill that came from creating something and actually having it reach inside someone else. I could create something that moved people on my own, but August could book me into venues that would let me transport thousands. It was a drug, and I understood why Starling couldn’t turn it down.
“I made him stop the first time,” I said. “He wasn’t totally controlling me then, and I got angry with him. He backed off for a while, but then—I don’t know what happened—I just sort of went into this zone.”
“That’ll happen,” Starling said.
“My friends got me out of it.”
“You’ve got nice friends,” Starling said. “A word of advice? No need to let August know you’re sane again. He’ll figure it out sooner or later—you’re an independent character—but you’ll buy yourself some time if you give the impression you’re going along with things. August isn’t a poster child for ethics, but he’ll do things for your career you never thought were possible.”
“That’s exactly the problem,” I said. I took a long sip of my mint tea and tried to wrap my head around the thought of playing along. It’d be easy, except that the things I was supposed to play along with were things like wearing cheetah-print minidresses and throwing myself at any stranger that happened to be adequately famous.
Clarence still hadn’t texted me back. I’d messaged him, asking if he wanted to hang out, and then messaged again apologizing for how awkward I’d been at the party. He hadn’t responded, and I couldn’t really blame him. I’d be turned off, too, if he’d switched from flirting with me to flirting with some gorgeous actress within the space of thirty seconds. It wasn’t a good look on anybody.
“You ought to talk to Serena,” Starling said. “She doesn’t work with August and she doesn’t play nicely with… well, with anybody, but especially him.”
“Serena?”
“You met her,” Starling said. “At my party. Tall, pale, probably stared at your chest a lot.”
“The vampire,” I said.
He blinked slowly at me, as if I’d just totally betrayed my lack of class.
“Yes,” he said. “The vampire. She might not be able to keep August from influencing you again, but she’s a good person and you could stand to have another friend watching out for you in case you get, you know.” He wiggled his fingers at me. “Weird.”
“You’re not going to tell me?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you,” he said. “Serena just might tell you… louder.”
Dad changed the channel. A woman in a white dress seductively shaved her already-bald leg. He changed it again. A pickup truck splashed through a mud puddle while a booming voice announced that driving it equated to “feeling like a man.” He changed it again, and the screen fizzed sparkly purple for a second before resolving into the latest Orbs match.
I reached out a hand for the bag of barbecue chips, which he was hogging, but his attention was already glued to the screen.
I nudged him with my foot, and he absently handed the bag over without taking his eyes from the game.
He would be gone until the next commercial. I wouldn’t get a chance until then to tell him about all the craziness that had been going on with August. This was the first time I’d seen him since the fog had lifted, and I almost didn’t want to ruin the awesome normality of this lazy Sunday night.
I pulled out my phone and scrolled through Briana’s latest group text to Sadie and me, ranting about her older brother and how he kept borrowing her magic carpet without permission and then returning it with snags and booze stains. I thought about texting Clarence, but three times in a row with no reply would just be sad.
A commercial kicked on, and Dad’s trance broke. He rubbed his knees excitedly and looked over at me.
“Did you see that?” he said. “Did you see that play?”
“I wasn’t watching,” I said.
Undaunted, he launched into a blow-by-blow description of whatever had just happened. I barely remembered the rules for Orbs games and had never managed to watch a whole match without zoning out, but it was important to Dad to feel like I was listening, so I tried to put on a good show. It was enough, the same way his bad pretending was enough for me whenever I tried to talk to him about choreography.
It was nice to be home. The apartment at August’s building was beautiful and luxurious, but Dad’s apartment felt like a little nest. I would move back here as soon as I could. All I had to do was figure out how to break the news to my manager without getting myself brainwashed.
I’d expected to have to learn new skills as my career advanced. Mind control avoidance hadn’t been one of them.
Dad’s phone buzzed. He paused midway through a sentence to check it, then pumped his fist in the air.
“Yes!” he said. “Rodney got championship tickets.” He held out the phone, and I quickly read the message which said, indeed, Dude, got championship tix 4 the whole crew. U there, bro? Manticores r gonna kick some Yeti ass!!
“Where’s the game?” I said.
“Orlando this year,” Dad said. He took back the phone and began typing furiously. “Five games over the course of a week. I’ve got to book a hotel. They’re probably already sold out.”
“When?” I said.
“Early next month,” Dad said. “Man, I didn’t think he was going to be able to get tickets this late, but Rodney knows a guy through work who hooked him up. He was going to try to snag enough for me, Damon, Glenn, everyone. Looks like he got them. I don’t want to know how much I owe him. Whatever. It’ll be worth it.”
“You’re going to have a great time,” I said.
He looked up from the phone. “I’m glad you’re doing better, kid. You’ve seemed a little out of it lately. I wouldn’t go if I didn’t think you were okay. You know that, right?”
Maybe we wouldn’t have the August conversation today, after all. I couldn’t stand to wipe that dopey grin off his face.
“Yeah, I know,” I said.
Someone knocked on the door, and I jumped up to answer it. Serena stood in the apartment hallway, looking way too sophisticated against the hallway’s chipped eggshell paint. She wore a black wraparound shirt with a low V-neck and black leather leggings, managing to appear both casual and glamorous with no effort at all.
I tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear and tightened my ponytail.
“Come on in,” I said. “Glad you could make it. You look nice.”
“What can I say?” she said, sweeping in. “I woke up like this.”
“Literally, I take it.”
“Like forty-five minutes ago,” she said. “Oh, hey, there’s a person here
.” She turned to look at me, eyebrows raised.
“This is my dad, Neil,” I said. “Dad, this is Serena. We’ve got some work stuff to talk about.”
“Oh, sure,” Dad said. He was already back in his phone, looking up hotels and exchanging virtual high-fives with his buddies. “Don’t mind me.”
“My room’s this way,” I said.
Serena followed me down the hall, her dark eyes taking in the colorful scarves hung in the windows in place of curtains and the worn furniture.
“Your place is cute,” she said.
“You mean poor?” I said.
“I don’t do passive-aggressive bullshit,” she said. “Not unless you annoy me. You don’t annoy me. I just didn’t expect one of August’s to be living somewhere so normal.”
“Well, this isn’t where I live,” I said, pushing open the door to my room. “This is my dad’s place. August has me locked up in a tidy gold box, which I intend to leave as soon as possible.”
She stood in the middle of the room until I waved her to take a seat on my bed.
“Most girls make me wait until after the first date,” she said.
There was no other furniture in the room aside from my nightstand and a dresser. I laughed and sat down on the other end of the bed.
“So what’s the deal?” she said, looking at me directly. “You wanted to talk to me about something?”
Right to the chase, then.
“Starling said you don’t like August,” I said. “I’m not sure I do anymore, either. I’m hoping you might be able to help.”
“Help do what?” she said. “Kill him?”
Her eyes flashed, and when she grinned, her canines seemed just a little sharper than mine.
“I’m not quite there yet,” I said.
“Keep me posted,” she said. “What do you want, then?”
“Information,” I said. “Ideas on how to deal with him without destroying my career. I’ve got to break it off, but I don’t know how to do that without screwing myself over. He’s just going to try to control me again.”
“So don’t let him,” she said, like this was obvious.
