The tavern was dim and crowded, the air thick with smoke and spice. Hanging paper lanterns flickered against the cypress beams, casting everything in gold and shadow. The tables were jammed close together, lacquer-chipped and stained from years of spilled rice wine and worse. People pressed in on every side.
But no one crossed the middle of the room, the definitive line between Silvers and Azures.
Azures, in our half-patched clothing, blue hair rippling in the glow of the firelight, stayed to this side, closer to the windows and fresh air. We were lean and fast, our bodies lithe, although I was more slightly built. Most didn’t have the ability to shift, but theanimal was always just under the skin, present in the way we moved: alert and athletic.
Silvers claimed the other side. For the most part burly and large-boned, their hair every shade of metal, from silver to gold to copper to bronze. They loomed over their tables stiff and silent, as if forged from the steel they revered. Most wore at least one piece of metal—nobles, or those close enough to pretend, with silver and gold glinting at wrists and throats.
And all of them looked at us Azures with clear disgust. The feeling was mutual.
I was surprised a fight hadn’t broken out yet.
“Have some more,” Quinn said, and I grinned, grabbing for his tall cup of amber millet ale, taking a quick swig. He snatched it back from me with a smirk. “I meant, food. Not ale, ribbon girl.”
“You didn’t specify.” I shrugged. My eyes swept over the divided room once more.
The breadth of Quinn’s shoulders kept me hidden for now, but I knew I only had mere moments before my performance was due to begin.
He pushed his slate blue hair back as he nudged another scallion pancake from his plate. I shook my head, but then slipped it into my satchel for Edith, even though I was positive his leftovers plus more would show up on our doorstep tomorrow morning.
The raucous noise in the bar lowered a fraction as the drummer took his place just offstage, his eyes scanning over the patrons anxiously. Looking for me, I knew.
I’d scrubbed clay bowls all day, climbed stairs until my calves ached, and taken no fewer than three drunken hands off my waist. By dusk, my body was frayed thin, and I was still fighting off a headache from waking to the dream this morning.
“Maybe you should take a night off.” Quinn had caught thewince as I pressed a hand to my forehead, his brow furrowing deeper with concern. “Rubi, please—”
“I’m fine.” I waved him off. “I’ll find you after.” He made another noise of protest before I gave a quick squeeze to his muscular shoulder and drifted away.
Dancing would make everything feel better. It always did.
I sent him a wink as I headed for the center platform. The second my foot touched the wood, hands gliding down for the handles of my ribbons, the musician began.
The drumbeat thudded through the floorboards, thick and heady.
Dancing was everything to me, as essential as the coin for food it would earn me. It was part of my body—something I imagined I’d done all my life, though I had no proof.
Three years ago, I escaped the crumbling Azure Dominion, part of a flood of refugees who sought asylum after the Annihilation, when our Anchor to the Demon Realm failed, overrunning us with demons and monsters alike.
I didn’t remember it.
In fact, I remembered nothing. Only waking on a rocking ship sailing to the Silver Tyger Dominion with no memories—my home, my friends, my family, if I’d ever had any, lost forever. Forgotten. That was when Edith found me, and she’d treated me like family ever since.
It should have been easier for me to start over, completely anew.
But the absence of memories didn’t rid me of the pain of loss, a deep well of feeling with no traceable source. An ache for someone or something I didn’t even know the name of. Heavy and tangled, even now.
The Dominion of the Silver Tyger took in displaced Azures,but grudgingly. We were a burden no one wanted and have been kept aware of that fact.
But I had made a life here and it was the only one I knew—andthiswas my peace. Dancing. The weight of the wand in my hand, the feel of the ribbon against my skin, the swirl of it through the smoke, displacing the air like something otherworldly. It felt divine, like a gift.
Likemagic, when I didn’t have much of my own. Dancing was healing for me, in its own way.
I hadn’t lost the knowledge of movement buried deep in my flesh. My body remembered what my mind didn’t.
When the pressure of grief, longing, and anger got so bad that I thought it might split me open, I danced. Especially after the dream, the woman whispering a song against my temple as she rocked me back and forth. On those days, the dance felt stronger. More powerful.
Dancing released some of the grief, bled it out.
And when I moved, I felt like fire. Hungry, wild, unrestrained.
