Mal came over to talk to Elena and me after we finished dancing the piece one last time. “You must be the ballerina. Elena told me she’d be bringing you to a class.” She smiled warmly, which seemed at odds with her intense teaching style.
“Is it that obvious?” I huffed out a laugh. I was sure my dancing had been stiff and uptight compared to the others in the class who were more used to the sensual style.
“I know it’s hard to switch to this style after ballet—it’s very different. I did the same. But if you keep coming to class, I think you’ll find you like it. You’re already a natural.” Mal smiled again and touched Elena’s arm—a familiar and intimate gesture. “Elena, always a pleasure.” Mal winked.
A blush spread over Elena’s face. I made a mental note to ask Elena aboutthatonce we were out of the class.
Dancing with Elenahad wrung out every ounce of strength I had left. I wasn’t sure if I was even going to make the walk back to Ciaran’s. All I wanted to do was flop down on the couch, put my feet up and read until it was time for bed. I was towelling off the copious amounts of sweat that had accumulated on my brow when Elena hissed.
“Shit! We’ve got to go! Come on!” She grabbed my arm and led me back into the labyrinthine catacombs. So, not going back to Ciaran’s, then.
“Where are we going?” I demanded, clopping after her, still in my heels, every step awkward and flailing. My dress hitched up even higher as we ran.
“Just follow me. Can’t miss this. Hurry.” Elena was breathless. We ran for what felt like at least half a kilometre at a full-out sprint. We arrived at a nondescript black door, north and east of the Room of Cubes, gasping for breath and laughing. The man standing out front just nodded at Elena in recognition and let us in.
I hadn’t been here before—it wasn’t one of the places Ciaran had shown me when he first took me around the catacombs. It was unbelievable. The entire place was carved into the underground cavern like a bowl. The ceiling was raw, bare rock, illuminated by hovering, twinkly lights.
In the centre of the bowl against the raw stone back wall was a circular stage set with drums, a piano and a few guitars.
There was a microphone stand but no wires in sight. They must have been powered by the magic of the place.
Rising from the stage, carved into the rock, were seven levels, each set with wrought-iron bistro tables. You could see the stage perfectly from any level, but the bottom of the bowl would be the best seat in the house. People milled about on each level, some finding their spots at the tables, others standing talking to friends. Everyone seemed to know each other or at least be familiar with one another. Electricity crackled in the air—the familiar energy of a show about to start. The people were all ages and ethnicities. All were bound together by the fact that they possessed magic. All bound together by the fact that they did not belong in the city above. That they would be persecuted there but could live freely here. My heart squeezed as I watched them all, just living life.
I wondered what, and who, would be performing. Would this be like Carol Ruby’s show, or something else entirely? On the seventh level, to the left of the entrance, was a large oak bar. Behind it, bartenders poured pints of ale and smoky glasses of whiskey. The patrons were dressed casually, as if this were a place they came often, but there was a sense of reverence too, as if this was an important event.
Elena led me to the bar and held up two fingers to the female bartender. She didn’t even have to say a word as the woman poured two frothy pints of amber ale and handed them to us. “Come on. It’s about to start.” Elena led me down the levelsof the bowl, to the very bottom, where we somehow managed to find a table that was free. I had my suspicion that this was Elena’s usual table.
“What is this place?” My eyes were wide, trying to drink it all in.
“We call it the Bowl.” Elena drank deeply from her frothy ale. “It’s where our people perform. Like your opera, I suppose, only wilder, more raw and untamed. You’ll see.” She gave me a half-smile. The bobbing lights dimmed and the crowd around us quieted. Two men came out onto the stage, one sitting behind the enormous drum set and the other picking up one of the guitars. It took me a few seconds to recognize who they were: Fionn on the drums and Rory with the guitar. I hadn’t known they were musicians.
And then they began to play. The song was in three-four time, and the drums hit on every beat like a tattoo. Rory on guitar was playing a complicated rhythm the likes of which I had never heard before. Together the sound was intoxicating—wild and raw like Elena had said. I closed my eyes to feel the beat more clearly in my chest, inhaling the earthen scent of this underground cathedral. One two three, one two three, BOOM BOOM. The drums accented the off beats at the end of each frame, and I felt it in my soul. And then it started. The singing.
My eyes popped open. He must have walked out onto the stage while I had them closed, because he appeared as if out of nowhere. His voice was an impossibly deep baritone, and he gripped the microphone with two strong hands. All this time, I had not known he was a singer. I had not known that any human voice could make sounds like this. Ciaran.
He wore a simple white dress shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, showing off his swirling scars. His eyes were closed as he caressed the microphone, as close as a lover, as if he were whispering in their ear.
“Honey,” he sang, and his voice sounded like honey being poured from a jar. It was sweet, sensual and so very deep.
He was singing to someone—this was a conversation that should have been private. He sang about a stuck-up club and someone with mischievous thoughts; he sang that he’d suffer hell if they told him what they would do to him tonight. Here we all were, privy to his most personal thoughts. Singing about the kind of love he’d been dreaming of. Heat flooded my face as he finally opened his eyes and sang those words directly to me. The amount of passion and sensuality in that voice was more than I could handle, and I was the one who looked away first. He gave a “Ha” that fit perfectly into the song. It felt like watching someone bare their soul in front of a crowd. Like he was bleeding out at each word bellowed in perfect pitch, in perfect time to that rhythmic drum that now had my mind wandering to other rhythmic activities.
This wasn’t the perfectly choreographed and synchronized music of the opera. There was something primal in it. It was simpler, of course—just guitar, drums and vocals—but it had a power behind it that the symphony couldn’t replicate, even with so many instruments. I was in awe as Ciaran crooned, hummed, breathy and soft at times and strong and powerful at others. The song was a prayer, a devotion, an exaltation. Ciaran’s voice reached for the divine, and the divine reached back. Nothing like the harsh and brutal god of Scion, but a deity found in the very act of creation itself.
As Ciaran sang the final words of the song, Rory and Fionn stopped playing for a few beats to let his power emanate into the space. I could have sworn the stone walls shook, and the lights hovering in the top of the cavern grew impossibly bright. The people in the audience around me were whooping, clapping, stomping, swaying and dancing along to the music. But I wasfrozen, impossibly still. Something in that song had changed me on an infinitesimal level.
I think my mouth must have been hanging half open when that song ended, because Elena gave a little snort.
“Yeah. They’re pretty good.”
“I had no idea.” My eyes were still wide with shock. “He never said anything. Why wouldn’t he say anything? He knows I sing!”
“He asked me to bring you here tonight. His music means so much to him, I think it was hard for him to be vulnerable about it.”
And I could relate, if I was honest. How long had I kept my own secret dreams from everyone I knew and loved?
“Who writes the lyrics?” I whispered, though I knew the answer. Of course I knew the answer. The stacks of poetry books beside the bed I was sleeping in told me the answer. And no wonder he’d been nervous to tell me. Singing was one of the most raw and vulnerable things a person could do. Singing words you wrote yourself? I think I would have died of an overdose of vulnerability.
“Ciaran,” Elena responded. I gulped. The line about the club. My mouth went dry.
