“That’s not helpful.” My hands won’t stay still, nails tapping against the cards.
“Is it helpful to know that I’m not worried?”
“No,” I say flatly. “Not even a little.”
“Then honesty it is.” He drags his hand through his hair, tugging lightly on the ends. “Normally, I’d say the queens have already made their decision. That this”—he gestures in direction of the ramp leading to the stage—“is just optics. They’re not looking to be impressed. They’re looking to feel correct, and that it’s all about confirmation bias.”
“But…?” I prompt.
He exhales. “Butthis is not a dinner meeting at Oma, and I have no fucking clue what’s about to happen out there.”
“In some weird way, that actually does make me feel better. A teensy tiny bit.” I hold up my thumb andforefinger with only a small gap between the two. “But better. Sort of.”
Declan flashes me a white-toothed smile. “Amanda Ward, are we becoming friends?”
The question makes warmth spark deep in my chest. I refuse to let it show. “Don’t ruin it,” I mutter, rolling my eyes and pulling an affirmation card from the middle of the stack. Before I can read it, the wind snatches it out of my hand and carries it into the dark.
“Ominous,” Declan says as we both watch it disappear.
I try to shrug it off, even though my nerves are eating a hole straight through my stomach. I want to concentrate on something simple, something manageable. A mantra that’ll drown out the sound of musicians tuning their instruments, the audience’s applause, the Player’s directions, and my own thoughts trying to outpace them all.
I shuffle through the stack with trembling fingers and pull another card.
I trust the winds of change to carry me where I’m meant to go.
I lift my chin, close my eyes, press the affirmation card flat against my chest, and take a deep breath, letting it out slowly, the way every audio meditation app insists I should.
I trust the winds of change to carry me where I’m meant to go. I trust the winds of change to carry me where I’m meant to go. I trust the winds of change to carry me where I’m meant to go.
The words run on a soft, rhythmic loop inside my head, smoothing the edges of everything sharp inside me. Each repetition packs another feeling away—fear, doubt, the creeping sensation that the air around me has started to shift. I keep breathing, keep reciting, tucking the mess of what I’m feeling and what’s actuallyhappening into a neat little box labeledLater.Or, ideally,Never.
“I trust the winds of change to carry me where I’m meant to go.”
Tent flaps rustle. Torches hiss. Sand whips around my ankles.
A smoke-filled gust slams into my chest and knocks me back a step.
I open my eyes in time to see Declan push off the screen post. His brow is furrowed, mouth parted like he’s halfway through a thought. His eyes track me slowly, head tilted the smallest fraction, dark hair falling across his brow.
More smoke barrels toward me. It rips the cards from my hands, yanking them skyward in a shiny cyclone of neon confetti.
I shriek as they whip around me, catching in my hair, smacking my cheeks, laminated points biting my skin.
The ash-thick wind howls, wrapping around me in a twisting column of pressure and movement—tugging, yanking,lifting.
My feet hover off the ground, and suddenly, I’m airborne.
The cyclone whirls around me in a cloud of smoke and sparks. I flail, limbs flapping. My skirt whips my thighs as the tunnel of firelit haze drags me through the backstage maze and up the ramp. The roar of wind fills my ears, and hot air claws down my throat as I’m spat forward, flung through the curtain with zero regard for my dignity.
I slam down flat on my ass in the center of the stage, the impact rattling my spine hard enough to make my teeth clack.
Coughing, eyes streaming, I paw at the top of my dress to make sure my nipples aren’t peeking out at the crowd. My fingers snag on sweat and static cling as I rake them through my hair and plaster on a smile even though I’m sure it looks like I’ve been licked by Clifford the Big Red Dog.
Torchlight halos the crowd, every expression wide-eyed, stunned. I wheeze and scramble to my feet, legs shaking. Somewhere in the audience, a child starts to cry.
Declan’s boots pound the ramp, his stride just shy of a run as if he’s desperate to reach me but hell-bent on not looking like it. His brows lift enough to crease the space between them, lips pressed into a tight line, jaw tense and twitching like he’s biting back ten different versions ofwhat the fuck happened?!
From the center of the windswept stage, I give him a tight, frantic smile and a helpless shrug that says,I don’t fucking know!
