“What’s the seventh invitation?” I ask. “The final one?”
Something flickers across his face. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“Because telling you would influence your choice. The contract forbids?—”
“Magical influence. You said. But just telling me?—”
“Would still be considered strategic manipulation, which the contract also prohibits.” He spreads his hands. “Believe me, I’ve spent centuries looking for loopholes. There aren’t any.”
“The Showcase,” I say, trying to ground myself in something practical. “Can we even perform that? In public?”
“Yes. Hopefully without...” He gestures vaguely at the still-tingling air. “Whatever that was.”
“But it happened because of the dance?”
“The Dance of Accord was designed to reveal truth. To strip away pretense.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I suspect it only worked so dramatically because there was truth to reveal.”
Truth. My feelings for him. His feelings for me.
“So every time we perform it...”
“We’ll be admitting something. To each other. To whoever’s watching.” He pauses. “Is that okay?”
I think about it. About standing in front of judges and competitors and an audience, dancing a routine that essentially says I trust this person. I love this person. I’m choosing to be vulnerable with them.
A month ago, the thought would have terrified me.
“It’s okay,” I say. “It’s more than okay.”
His smile is sunrise breaking through clouds.
“We still need to do the tango,” I add quickly. “But there’s a free form section as well and we could do it then.”
“We should practice again,” he says. “Make sure we can control it. The last thing we need is for the lights to start flickering during the actual showcase.”
“That would be hard to explain.”
“‘Special effects’ only goes so far.”
I laugh, and he catches my hand, and we take our positions on opposite ends of the studio once more. The music doesn’t start but I swear I can hear it anyway. A faint melody, humming in the air between us.
We circle each other slowly. We extend our hands. We dance. And somewhere in the space between one heartbeat and the next, the lights begin to flicker again.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Mr. Mal! Mr. Mal!”
Three small bodies launch themselves across the studio floor before I can even finish demonstrating the basic box step. Amelia gets there first, wrapping her arms around Mal’s leg with the fierce determination of an octopus claiming a particularly interesting rock. Behind her, Charles and Oliver skid to a halt, apparently remembering some semblance of decorum.
“You came back!” Amelia’s voice carries enough pure joy to melt glaciers.
Mal looks down at the eight-year-old attached to his leg with an expression I can only describe as delighted bewilderment. “I did come back. I do that. Coming back is something I’m known for.”
“Miss Izzie said you might not come to kids’ class again because you’re busy with grown-up dancing.”
I absolutely did not say that. I said he had other commitments, which is entirely different and also not a lie I told specifically to manage children’s expectations in case my demon dance partnerdecided that honesty hour meant disappearing from my life entirely.
