by Emma Savant
They’d heard my music. They’d understood my music. They were with me and I was in them and in this moment there was nothing between us.
The lights flashed on, I shook my hands in the air, blew a kiss, and took another bow, and then the lights went off again and the pillar began to sink slowly to the ground. Far above me, the fireworks kept going off, and the crowd kept screaming.
And screaming.
And screaming.
My heart pounded in my chest. Everything had gone off perfectly.
And yet.
I knew crowds. I’d never performed for a crowd this big before, but I knew my audiences. I felt them while I sang. Whether it was one person or ten thousand, I could feel their collective pulse better than I could feel my own.
There was something wrong with this one.
They were too excited. The lights had gone off and it was clear I wouldn’t be doing an encore, because Orbs performers never did encores. There was a strict time limit. The players had to get back to their game. There should be a vague sense of disappointment in the crowd, mingled with relief at the break in the emotional intensity of their experience. The crowd had been screaming; now it should take a moment to inhale and settle down before the game resumed. There should be a vague sense of energy shifting, of people finally remembering to drink from their water bottles and check their phones. Right about now, everyone should be remembering they were here to watch an Orbs match.
But none of that was happening. They were still screaming and cheering as if I were still up in the spotlight, giving it my all.
My skin prickled. The pillar jolted slightly as it settled onto the ground. One of the faeries rushed me off the platform so they could magic it apart, and still the audience kept cheering.
I drew back, out of the way, and reached my attention out into the crowd. They felt exactly as they had during the highest points of my song. They were excited, thrilled, electrified, and a golden haze surrounded them from the glittering clouds of smoke that had begun to settle to the ground.
No, not from the smoke.
Anger rose under my skin. I blinked, and the illusion of the golden haze disappeared, but I could still feel it, clinging to them and filling their nostrils with his poison. They weren’t excited for me; they were excited because they didn’t have any choice but to be.
I was going to cry.
But first, I was going to kill him.
My skin prickled with fury as I marched back to the green room under the bleachers. A television was there, showing the live broadcast of the Orbs match and my performance, but August was missing. I paced back and forth, my breathing erratic and my heart pounding.
My phone buzzed from my purse across the room.
Starling: You’re a star, love. <3 <3 <3
I threw the phone back into the purse.
An assistant arrived and ushered me into the dressing room, where I peeled off the white jumpsuit. It was still pristine, protected from sweat and dirt by enchantments. I handed it to the assistant, who carefully hung it up, and then I slipped into jeans and a Manticores T-shirt.
I was supposed to go meet my dad in the stands now. The stadium had arranged a seat for me with him and his friends, and I was supposed to go sit with them and drink warm fairy dust soda and cheer on our team. But now, I had to go find my worthless manipulative asshole of a manager and tear him a new one.
How dare he pull that in the middle of the Orbs halftime show? Wasn’t it enough that I was here? Wasn’t it enough that I’d given it my everything out there and come up with the best goddamn performance of my life? Why did people need to be drugged to like me?
“Are you okay?”
I jumped. The assistant was staring at me.
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah. I just need to talk to my manager.”
Her face lit up with a smile. “Oh, Mr. Rumpel is just wonderful,” she said.
“He’s really not,” I said, and she winced like I’d said something horrific about her mother. “Have you seen him?”
“Mr. Rumpel left a message that he’ll see you back at home,” she said. She stepped back, expression guarded. “He said to tell you good job on the performance, but that he had to get back to handle some business.”
“I’ll bet he did,” I said.
She stood there. I massaged the back of my neck.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “This isn’t your problem. Thanks for your help.”
I grabbed my purse and left the green room, leaving the horrified assistant behind me. I pulled my wand out of my purse and cast a quick glamour over my face, making me look like someone who wasn’t Dior Miller and wasn’t about to burst apart from rage, and went out into the stands to find my dad.
I was going to smile like everything was normal, and I was going to cheer on the Manticores and pretend I was outraged at the referee’s decisions, and then I was going to fly home and fire my manager.
Chapter 19
“It was just so stupid,” I said. I paced back and forth while Clarence watched me with his feet propped up on the coffee table. “I mean, you want to use glamours to enchant an audience? Fine. That’s a time-honored tradition. It’d be weird if you didn’t. But this was so far beyond that.”
“Aren’t there laws against magical manipulation in advertising?” Clarence said. “Couldn’t you report it to the Faerie Queen at the next Court?”
It was a brilliant idea, and hope rose in my chest for a moment.
A very brief moment.
“I’d never be able to prove it,” I said. I dropped down on the couch and let my head sink back into the upholstery. All the furniture in Clarence’s upscale hotel suite was overstuffed and excellent for collapsing on.
“Not what happened at the Orbs game, but perhaps you could get a member of magical law enforcement to patrol at your next performance.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Crap, I forgot to tell Serena. This is exactly the kind of thing she’d want to know about.” I punched a cushion. “Ugh. My head feels like it’s not even screwed on straight anymore.”
“You should probably get it on before you see August again,” Clarence said. “Come here.”
I scooted over next to him and let my head rest on his shoulder. The second our bodies shifted to fit together, the tension began to drain out of me.
After the Orbs game, he was the first person I’d wanted to talk to. I’d flown home the evening after the event, texted Bri and Sadie that I’d see them the next day, and showed up at his hotel with only twenty minutes’ notice. He’d welcomed me in and listened as I’d poured out the whole story—not just the Orbs game, but all the crazy manipulation that had been happening beforehand. Unlike my friends and family, he wasn’t invested in my career. He hadn’t been there through all the ups and downs, and he was the closest thing I had to a neutral party.
Or he had been, until I’d practically broken down his door and started ranting about what a dishonest, lying, cheating, manipulative Glimmering piece of shit my manager was.
Clarence’s arm went around me, and I felt my heartbeat instantly slow. I let out a huge sigh and cuddled up next to him.
“You’re a good friend,” I said.
His arm twitched a little. “Is that what I am?”
My heartbeat jumped back up to double speed.
Great Titania, I was reacting like a teenager to the presence of this boy.
This gorgeous, charming, silly, incredibly-good-listener, literal prince of a boy.
“Oh, god,” I said, suddenly. “I’ve never kissed a prince before.”
Clarence shifted, and I felt him looking down at me and knew I didn’t have the strength of will to look up.
“Who said anything about kissing?” he said.
I froze. He brushed a strand of hair back from my face and tilted my face toward him.
And then I was on top of him, straddling his lap and tasting his lips and feeling the heat of his breath against mine.
I kissed him, deeply,
and he kissed me back, and everything fell into place inside me.
“Where did that come from?” he said, face an inch from mine. “Not complaining.”
“You’re a really good listener,” I said. “And I’ve been wanting to do that since, um, the minute I saw you.”
“You too, huh?”
“I’ve been a paragon of restraint,” I said.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve never kissed a pop star.”
For an instant, I wanted to correct him. I wasn’t a star yet.
But I’d performed at the Orbs halftime show yesterday. It had been a fluke, and I hadn’t been the first one they’d asked—but I’d done it, and I’d ended up in the homes of millions of Glimmering families through their TVs and magic mirrors, and the crowd of paparazzi that had met me at the airport had been so thick I’d had to duck into the bathroom and glamour myself to sneak back out past them.
“I’d like to kiss her again, if you don’t mi—” he said.
I was on him before the last word was finished, and it was like the fireworks from the Orbs show went off around us every time his lips danced against mine.
He drew back and caressed my lips lightly with his thumb. “I wish I’d been able to be at the performance,” he said. “You were fantastic and I loved watching you, but I suspect it was better live.”
“I’m glad you weren’t,” I said. “I like you like this. I don’t know what August’s magic would do to you.”
“I couldn’t possibly like you more than I do now.”
It was a sweet thing to hear him say, but it wasn’t true. He could like me more—or perhaps, he could just like me differently, and more obsessively. His interest in me could take on the tone of an audience screaming its lungs out.
“I hate this!” I said. The words burst out of me, startling us both. Clarence drew back as though he’d been burned, and I quickly took his hands and drew him close to me again.
“Not you,” I said. “Not you at all. I just—I want to be here, with you, thinking about you, and instead I’m thinking about him. I’m feeling grateful that he hasn’t poisoned you yet.”
“I’m grateful, too.”
“We shouldn’t be,” I said. “My manager not controlling your mind isn’t something to be grateful for. It’s a baseline standard of human decency. It’s like we’re grateful that he hasn’t punched us, or stolen our wallets, or committed some other form of assault. And it is assault, Clarence.”
His eyebrows drew down, and his gorgeous lips took on a hardness that only made me want to kiss them more.
“You’re right,” he said. “You’re right, and it’s not something we should be taking lying down. I don’t know how your industry works, but it seems very clear that this is not normal.”
“It’s screwed up,” I assured him.
“Then I think you ought to do something about it,” he said. “More to the point, we ought to do something about it.” He took my hands in his and squeezed them. “Tell me, Dior. What do you want me to do?”
I melted. It seemed impossible that I could have so many wonderful, kind, lovely people on my side. Between Sadie and Briana’s insistence on poking through my aura, Serena’s willingness to lay everything on the table so I could be well-informed, and Starling’s coping advice, it seemed almost silly to have Clarence on my side, too.
“I could kiss you,” I said, and then did, at length, just to get the point across.
He was easy to distract. His body softened against mine, and all my anger and gratitude faded away against the overwhelming experience of him. He smelled warm and like the kind of deodorant that had pictures of forests and lumber on the packaging, and his arms around me were everything I wanted.
After a long while, but still too soon, I pulled back.
“I think I need to talk to Serena,” I said. “She’s trying to collect evidence on August, and I don’t have evidence, but at least I can put my experience on the record.”
“I’ll drive you,” he said.
Chapter 20
I’d never seen Clarence’s car before, and when the valet pulled it around, I didn’t have to remind myself that he was, in fact, a prince. He drove a gleaming silver Porsche, loaded with protection and agility spells so thick I could almost hear them humming along the body of the car.
I texted Serena on the way. She responded immediately, telling me to meet her downtown at a restaurant. She sent the address, which Clarence announced to the car. A map instantly popped up on the dashboard screen—whether through magic or Hum technology, I couldn’t tell.
He zoomed down the highway and across one of the bridges that spanned the Willamette River, then dove between two cars when it was time to change lanes. I held on tight.
“You drive like a lunatic,” I said.
“There are fourteen separate spells on this car that let me do that,” he said. “Matter of national security and all. You’re safer here than in your bed.”
“How safe am I in my bed?”
“Depends,” he said. “Am I in it with you?”
A car cut in front of us and Clarence had to swerve to avoid hitting it. I was glad. It kept him from seeing how red my face had turned.
He parked in a garage downtown and we walked a few blocks to the address Serena had given me. Most of the shops were closed, and the nightclubs spilled light and music out onto the sidewalk. The restaurant was tucked between a dark yoga studio and a strip club with flashing neon signs. A line snaked outside the club; we darted through it and into a dim Romanian restaurant with dark red curtains covering the windows.
The place was quiet, all dark wood and crimson brocade with burnished bronze lamps hanging down over each table. It wasn’t too busy; here and there, small groups sat in tables or cozy booths, eating and drinking—
“Oh,” Clarence said in an undertone. His hand flew protectively to the small of my back. “We aren’t on the menu, are we?”
I elbowed him to shut up. The host, a gorgeous man with pitch-black eyes and flowing jet hair, stalked toward us.
“Table for two?” he said.
“We’re meeting someone,” I said. “Serena?”
“Right this way.”
She was hidden inside one of the booths. We slid in across from her. She looked at Clarence and raised an eyebrow.
“Can I get you started with any drinks?” the host said.
I froze. What was on the menu at a place like this?
“Water,” I said slowly.
Serena rolled her eyes. “They have normal food,” she said.
“Water with lemon,” I said.
“Tea, please,” Clarence said.
The host nodded and slipped away. Serena leaned forward.
“Didn’t realize you were coming,” she said. “Clarence, right? Friend of Starling’s?”
“Acquaintance, more like,” Clarence said. “Friend of Dior’s.”
“Good friend,” I said.
Serena glanced between us and pursed her lips.
“He drove me,” I said. “Here for moral support.”
“You’ll want to be careful about what you get yourself mixed up with,” Serena said to him. “Better to stay away from anything Rumpel-related unless you have to.”
“I’m with Dior,” Clarence said. “Full stop.”
I squeezed his hand under the table.
She set a voice recorder on the table. “Throw up one of those faerie spells, will you?” she said. “The one that keeps our conversation private.”
I touched my wand, which was safe in its pocket in my jacket, and created a sound bubble around us. It would keep our voices down to nothing for the other people in the restaurant. As soon as it was up, Serena visibly relaxed.
She clicked the recorder on.
“What happened?” she said. “Start from the beginning, for context. You were asked to perform at the Orbs halftime show.”
“I was asked to perform at the Orbs halftime show,” I confirmed. “But
I wasn’t asked first. The original artist, Bitsy Ace, got the Jubjub flu and wasn’t able to make it.”
“Is it common for the Orbs event organizers to not have a backup performer lined up?”
I hesitated and tried to remember if I’d ever heard anything about that. Now that Serena mentioned it, not having a backup plan did seem odd.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Serena nodded, pulled a small notepad out of her black handbag, and scribbled herself a note. Our drinks arrived; when the waiter asked if we were ready to order, Serena waved him off and then turned her attention back to me.
“Go on,” she said.
“August said he’d booked me as her replacement,” I said. “It was short notice, so I had to start rehearsals immediately.”
I kept talking, telling the whole story while Clarence held my hand under the table. The warmth of his skin and the pressure of his fingers around mine steadied me.
“And then I finished, and they kept applauding,” I said.
“How do you know you didn’t just do a good job?” Serena said.
“I just knew,” I said. “When you’ve performed as much as I have, you start to get a feel for your audiences. Some are enthusiastic, some are hard to impress, but there’s always a rhythm and it’s usually predictable. I hear even Humdrum entertainers can sense their audiences; of course, as a faerie, it’s an intense connection for me. I feel what they feel. When this audience kept cheering, they felt wrong. They felt like they weren’t cheering for me; they were cheering because they had to.”
“Can anyone confirm that?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I talked to my dad and his friends afterward, just to get their impressions of how the show went. They said I’d done a great job, but, you know. It’s my dad and his buddies.”
“They’re not impartial,” Serena said.
I nodded. She gestured to the recorder, and I leaned in and said, “Yes, exactly. They always say I did a good job.”
“Did you talk to your father about your experience?” Serena said. “In more detail?”
