“Just one?” I gesture at the carnage around me. “Pick a number and get in line.”
“The printer is possessed.”
I look up. “What?”
“The printer.” Bianca’s usually perfect hair is escaping its bun, and there’s a wild look in her eyes that I’ve only seen once before—the Great Recital Costume Crisis of 2019. “It won’t stop printing. It’s been going for twenty minutes straight. I’ve unplugged it three times. It’s not plugged in anymore, Izzie, and it’s still printing.”
She thrusts a handful of papers at me.
I take them with numb fingers.
The pages are covered in the same phrase, repeated over and over in increasingly erratic fonts:
TIME IS RUNNING OUT
TIME IS RUNNING OUT
TIME IS RUNNING OUT
My blood goes cold.
“Where’s the printer now?”
“I threw it in the dumpster.” Bianca’s voice is shaking. “It was still printing when I closed the lid.”
I should probably be concerned about environmental responsibility or the cost of replacing office equipment. Instead, all I can think is: Azrael.
He said the contract was impossible. He warned Mal that completing it would never work. And now, with three days left until the showcase—three days until our best chance at triggering the seventh invitation—things are mysteriously falling apart.
Coincidence?
I’ve stopped believing in coincidences.
“Call the parents,” I say, standing up and brushing tulle fluff off my knees. “Let them know we might have some schedule adjustments today while we sort out technical difficulties. Don’t mention the possessed printer.”
“What should I mention?”
“Power surge. Computer glitch. Mercury in retrograde. Whatever sounds most plausible.” I’m already moving toward Studio B, where I can hear the junior ballerinas chattering. “I need to get through this class, and then we’ll figure out what’s actually happening.”
The class goes... poorly.
Not because of the children—they’re as enthusiastic as ever, tiny bodies bouncing with barely contained energy as they practice their positions. The problem is everything else.
The portable speaker keeps switching tracks mid-song. The rosin I put on the floor this morning has somehow become slippery instead of grippy. Two of the fluorescent lights start flickering in a pattern that I could swear spells out something in Morse code, though I don’t know Morse code, so maybe that’s just paranoia.
And then there’s the temperature.
It starts subtle—a slight chill that I attribute to the air conditioning. But over the course of the hour, the temperature drops steadily until I can see my breath and the children are shivering in their leotards.
“Miss Izzie?” Little Sophie tugs at my hand, teeth chattering. “Why is it so cold?”
“I don’t know, honey.” I keep my voice calm despite the ice forming on the inside of the windows. “Let’s take a break and warm up in the lobby, okay? We can do jumping jacks.”
I herd them out of the studio, casting one last glance at the thermometer on the wall.
Thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit.
Inside.
