I tried to sneak quietly into the practice studio but Maren spotted me immediately, her eyes wide in shock.
“Seraphina! What the fuck!” Maren broke out of the line of dancers, ran over and threw her sweaty arms around my neck.
“Maren. What are you doing? I’m fine,” I mumbled into her bony shoulder.
“Where were you?” she demanded, breaking her embrace and shoving me, hard. “We were going out of our minds! After what happened to Carlotta, and no one could find you after the show last night.” She punched my arm. “You scared me.”
Madame Giselle stalked over, her greying hair in its usual severe bun, her face pinched and angry. “We were all very worried. But now we must get back to rehearsing for the new opera.” She looked me up and down, noting that I was not remotely ready to dance, sneering at the men’s clothes that clearly did not fit me, drawing her own conclusions.
“I… I… it won’t happen again, I’m sorry,” I stammered. I hated disappointing Madame Giselle, and her wrath would be felt for the rest of the week.
“No. No, Madame Giselle, I need to speak with Seraphina. I’m sorry.” Maren held up her hand, not satisfied with letting me off the hook so easily. To my surprise, Madame Giselle noddedcurtly and allowed Maren to accompany me down the hall to the ballerinas’ dressing room. My stomach turned.
“What happened? I waited for you in the atrium for an hour and then when you didn’t come out, I checked the dressing room, and it was trashed. No sign of you. I thought you’d been attacked. We went to the gendarmes, and they said they couldn’t do anything until you’d been missing for twenty-four hours.” Maren sounded furious. She’d gone to the gendarmes. No wonder she had stood up to Madame Giselle to get an explanation out of me.
“Wait. You said ‘we’ went to the gendarmes. Who do you mean?” My stomach clenched. I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.
“Me and… uh… Seff.” Maren chewed her lip. “I panicked. When I saw the trashed dressing room, I was so worried that something terrible happened. I thought he could help.”
“It’s okay. It’s good that he knows.” I felt a pang of dread. I was going to have to explain my mysterious disappearance to Seff somehow. He would be furious, if his reaction to me meeting Ciaran on the rooftop was any indication.
I tried to explain everything that had happened, since Maren wouldn’t stop pestering me… Well… almost everything. I left out the part about the magic, and that the men who broke in were from the Church. I left out the part about the witch burnings and the extremely vulnerable conversation I had had with the person who kidnapped me. I left out the inexplicable thrall that he had over me—the pull I felt toward him—how attractive I found him…
Maren was understandably confused.
“Why would anyone want to kidnap you? Are you sure this Ciaran person wasn’t messing with you? He’s wanted for terrorism, he sounds dangerous.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He was a major pain in the ass,” I added, not ready to admit what I really felt: that Ciaran had genuinely saved me last night, and that maybe he wasn’t a villain at all. I wasn’t ready to admit that perhaps the Church of Scion were the villains… so I kept it to myself and pretended that everything was fine. That is, until I heard a scuffle of boots stalking down the hall.
“Oh my God, you’re here!” It was Seff. He stomped down the hall, his face twisted in anger. My stomach clenched again. I didn’t know how I was going to explain any of this to him.
“Seff.” My voice broke as he approached. He looked disheveled in a way that I had never seen him. He grabbed my upper arms, squeezing painfully as he looked me up and down.
“I’m fine. I’m okay,” I assured him. My voice trembled as I tried to think of the best way to tell Seff what had happened.
But before I could think of a diplomatic way to say it, Maren launched into an explanation of what had happened to me, the abridged version I had given her. She went on and on, re-telling everything I had told her, missing my pointed glares. Seff’s grip on my shoulders tightened.
“What?” He growled. “You were with Ciaran Fahy?” His face had gone from pure relief to rage in a split second.
“No. I mean, yes, I was with him but… but I’m not hurt. He saved me?—”
“And you went with him willingly?” Seff was spitting with anger. “Seraphina, do you have any idea how stupid that was? Do you have any idea what could have happened to you? What he is capable of?”
“I… he didn’t… nothing happened,” I tried to explain.
“Nothing happened? Nothing happened? A wanted criminal kidnapped you. He is a dangerous terrorist. Is there something wrong with you? Do you have a head injury? You think that’s nothing?” Seff’s pale face was millimetres from mine, his furypalpable as his chest heaved, his breaths sawing in and out rapidly.
“He didn’t exactly give me a choice in the matter. This is not my fault,” I spat back at him. I had expected him to be upset, but I was not prepared for this level of rage.
As suddenly as it had come, the rage vanished, and Seff’s face softened. He pulled me into his chest. “Of course it’s not your fault,” he murmured into my hair. “I was so worried. What could have happened to you…”
“It could have been worse. Those people trashed my dressing room. He… Ciaran… just took me with him to hide until morning. They said they were going to hurt me.” It felt so stupid, admitting all of this, in the light of day. I was here now, with my friends, with the man I loved. I didn’t have any magical powers—I couldn’t. And an evil, super powerful conglomerate of a Church was not “after me.” It was all ridiculous.
Seff insistedthat he take me home to rest after such an ordeal. He would not take no for an answer. And so, we left. Madame Giselle glared at me the whole time he explained that he would be taking me home.
Seff called a private car to drive us back to my apartment, paid for by his father no doubt. As we drove home, he interrogated me about Ciaran.
“Where did he take you?”
