It would have been torturous, but the worst part was when the music began. It was beautiful, wild, raw, more Vashni than Soremni, but nothing I’d ever heard before. And I knew Gerveeg’s work. He’d composed something new, something for this occasion, our mother’s meeting, a rivalry that must be put aside to let love flourish. It was beautiful in absolutely every way. The singer they got made me look like a kazoo player. So exquisite and beautiful, every note blended brilliantly with the hundred musicians spread throughout the dome.
And I wasn’t allowed to feel anything.
It lasted an eternity, the most exquisite concert I could ever imagine, with sound assaulting me from every possibly heard range, and some unheard that I could only feel in my chest. Finally, we stood to applaud the master conductor, composer, musician.
He floated there until the applause died down. I was ready to go. To swim away as fast as possible until I stopped feeling so much.
“Madames and Monseiurs, thank you for coming to this special event. I would like to thank her majesty, Queen of the Vashni as well as Morganagh, the legend. I would be honored to have you join me for a small reception in the atrium.” He bowed his head and turned. Well that sounded like a fun party.
I started for the door, but Sean gripped my arm and my mother blocked my way.
“It would be an insult to not attend the reception,” she said in that horrible voice that belonged to my mother, not a monster.
“I wasn’t invited. Clearly, you were.”
“We were invited earlier,” Sean said in a low voice behind me. “He sent special invitations to us. The invitation to the Queen and Morganagh was made as a challenge. He’s a complete moron. Probably trying to get a fight going between them to inspire his muse.”
I glanced past him at the Vashni queen.
She lifted a perfectly groomed eyebrow and stared at me in return. And I was shaking apart from the sound, but whatever. If I was supposed to float there and look all Vashni, that’s what I’d do.
I let Sean lead me through the crowds towards the atrium, or a lobby that wasn’t the one we came in through. It had tables and waiters flitting here and there, some tables low, some tables high. Gerveeg floated in the center of the crystal clear water, smiling smugly while those around him told him how ingenious he was.
When he glanced at us, he stared at me. Why was he staring at me? He pushed through the sycophants and came directly towards me. He held out his hand. I hesitated. He didn’t want papers, did he? I slowly let him take my hand hoping that he wouldn’t notice the trembling.
He kissed it as though Sean weren’t right there grinding his teeth. Gerveeg’s eyes were a startling violet, striking against his pale skin, his face surrounded by dark hair. Dark hair. Oliver.
Keep it together, Gen.
“You’re trembling,” he murmured in Vashni, low so only Sean and I could hear.
I glanced around. “Please don’t mention it. Music isn’t supposed to affect me. It’s a curse of mine.”
“To feel deeply is a curse we share. I’m beyond honored to have you with us, princess.”
Princess? What the crap? I glanced at Sean and he gave me absolutely no help.
“On the contrary. I’ve been drowning in your albums for years. The honor is completely mine. Your singer was perfect.”
“Diane does well when properly motivated. Ah, here she comes. The diva!” He turned and gestured her over to us without letting go of my hand. Could I dig my nails into him or punch his face? He was Gerveeg. Part of me wanted to stare at him in blind adoration. Okay, lots of me, but most of me needed to leave before I destroyed the beautiful dome and everyone in it. I would not hurt Sean. Never.
I dug my fingers into him and he gripped my hand back like he was aware of my pain. Such a stupid pain.
“Takeo, it’s such a pleasure to meet you,” Diane purred, gripping his arm and staring up at him. Um. Excuse me? What was her nationality, because a Soremni female should not hang on a man who didn’t own her, and a Vashni female never looked at a married Vashni male.
“She’s a half-breed, like me,” Gerveeg whispered, his violet eyes dancing. “I do like how prominent we’re becoming. It’s such a pleasure to stir the waters, don’t you agree?”
“Gerveeg, your concert was brilliant, as always. And Genevieve, it’s always a pleasure.”
No. No. NO!!!! Oliver. I turned to give him a demure smile. My throat ached and my lips throbbed, but he didn’t gaze at me like he was in love with me, not even slightly. He held out his hand and Gerveeg finally dropped mine. Oliver took my now surrendered hand and kissed it quickly, before releasing me. He then turned back to Gerveeg to talk about the arrangement of instrumentation or something that I couldn’t follow with the way my lips throbbed and my heart pounded. Oliver. So close. My hand burned where his lips had almost brushed it. He hadn’t actually kissed my hand.
Sean gripped my other hand painfully, making me remember him. I turned to look up at him and saw the girl still clinging to his arm. Suddenly the obsession didn’t seem nearly as gripping.
I slipped around Sean and was in her face.
“Your performance was spectacular. Please get away from my husband before I’m forced to damage something irrevocably.”
She blinked at me but released him and floated back with her hands up in surrender. She laughed the most well-studied and perfectly musical laugh I’d ever heard. I hated her. So much. She was like Brenda. And my mother. And the Queen. And…
“We’re leaving now,” Sean announced. He turned and took me away, more quickly than was probably socially acceptable, but getting me out of there was more important than that.
Once we were in the ship, Sean turned and pulled me into his arms. He sang, low and soft, my mother’s lullaby. His voice, his arms, his heart beating steady just for me. The birds fly, the pretty fish swim. I held him tight and didn’t need anything else.
Chapter 23
Spyguy shot me a dirty look as he smeared more makeup under my eyes. When we’d gotten back from the concert, we’d passed out on the enormous black bed without getting undressed or worse, washing off my makeup.
“I didn’t kill millions of people. You should congratulate me,” I said airily. To be honest, it was terrifying to think how much I’d felt, how much I might have done if the water had been attuned to me. No singing. No humming.
“Congratulations.”
I wrinkled my nose at his flat voice. “Also, when are you going to stop being blond? You look terrible.”
“You’ve mentioned it. I’m going to be blond as long as we’re in Cierdeep. How close were you to doing something stupid?”
I sighed and frowned at my reflection in the mirror. I was getting pastier and uglier by the second. “Between the slutty singer and my mother, the Queen and Oliver? It was pretty much the perfect storm. It’s almost like Sean wanted to see how far he could push me.”
“He likes to test things to make certain they work properly. That’s what makes him such a good mechanic. I have to leave now for my shift in the dome. Don’t be late. Don’t be too early or eager. Blend in.”
He tugged on my messy bun and then headed out wearing basic black, not quite assault suit, but definitely more ready than me in my pastel orange jumper. I was back in my room, the one I shared with Junie. I didn’t have any Cleaver Queen today, just my first day interning and then after ten hours of that, whatever homework my double had for me from the first day of college. Yep. Why not, right?
I shook my head at the crazy person in the mirror then headed to gather the stuff I needed to hand in, not quite paper, not quite plastic.
Junie was in the living room when I went in, her fingers clicking the keys of a computer while she talked on a headset.
“You tried everything? There has to be something else. I know you can figure this out. You’re just as smart as them. Hold on, Dean.” She frowned at me. “What are you wearing? You look like a orangesicle.”
“Thanks, I
am.”
“How did last night go?”
“You didn’t see the footage?”
“Cameras aren’t allowed inside Gerveeg’s concerts. I saw the protesters. Did they bother you?”
I shrugged. “I don’t read Soremni, unless it’s notation. I hope that’s not a problem.”
“Do you want to know?”
I stared at her while I tugged on my loose jumper. “I guess. What are they protesting?”
She pulled her knees up. “Dean, I’ll call you back.” She pulled off the headset and propped her chin on her hands. “So after Terramore, Sean sent a lot of Crustique to different places to work around the Soremni kingdom. Oliver sanctioned it personally. People feel like they’ve lost jobs to these creatures that they consider monstrous. That’s the biggest group of protesters.”
“What else?”
She made a face at me. “Calling him a half-breed who belongs in a zoo instead of a concert hall, that sort of thing. Then there’s the group that wants you to die for touching their Takeo. That group and the zoo group get into some awesome fights, bashing each other with their signs, that kind of thing.”
I stared at her. “Wow. That’s a lot going on.”
She shrugged and brushed her long dark hair behind her shoulders. She was wearing Junie clothes this time, ratty t-shirt that I could have sworn I’d seen Dean wear, and sweat pants with holes in them.
“You’re wearing Dean’s shirt. Are you sure you aren’t serious?”
She made a face at me. “I am not. Just because he has one like it… Get to your internship. You don’t want to be late.”
I shook my head and left the apartment. I walked down the hall, weirdly spongy carpet underfoot then took the elevator to the lobby, submerging halfway there. I finally got to the dome, swam in and stood towards the back of the groups of youngish kids. Apparently these were the artistic Soremni's, because none of them looked as pulled together and all that as Brenda.
While we were waiting for Gerveeg, I furtively glanced around at the other kids. One was sipping something through a straw. His hair was dark, messy, and too long floating around his head. He had circles under his eyes like he hadn’t slept much over the weekend. When he caught my glance he winked at me.
I stared at him openly then. I couldn’t help it. I knew that kid. He was the guy from the shuttle, the one who had stolen boxie. I started towards him, my heart pounding and fist clenching when Gerveeg swam through, getting everyone’s attention as he waved his arms like a fake conductor, not like the real one he was.
“All right, kids. I hope you enjoyed your fun. Give Cassie your papers and then she’ll tell you what to do. That’s basically what this internship will be like: She’ll tell you what to do, you’ll do it. We had a concert last night. You’ll have to put the dome back together. The usual employees will be patient and teach you what to do, at least some of you. A few special chosen ones will be learning about ticket making. Have fun!”
He swam off, leaving us there, muttering. I headed towards the jerk again, but Cassie put her hand on my shoulder and turned me towards her. She held out her hand and I gave her what she wanted instead of shaking her hand or something else creepy.
“You’re in the dome with Missatt along with…” She looked down at her little digital book. “Carni and Brig. Missatt will show you how to realign the dome plates. That will be today’s assignment.”
She left me and two other kids, one a girl, one a boy, neither of them the thief. Good. I didn’t want to work with a thief. I shot him a hard glare before I remembered that I was supposed to be Soremni. Even Soremni females would have a problem with some jerk taking off with their music, wouldn’t they? I hadn’t gotten a chance to work on it since I’d gotten it back.
The dome was made out of these glass plates, not quite glass because they had wires through them that conducted sound or light or energy, something. They reflected the sound back just right, but in the course of the concert, some were misaligned. We had to go over the entire dome checking each plate’s alignment. There were millions of the things. So, that’s what I did. They gave us a fifteen-minute lunch break when everyone sat around with their jelly sticks. Mmm.
“Did you see the interview with Brenda?” Carni, the girl with long dark red hair said to her friend, black haired, dark skinned, both of them eating the inevitable jelly sticks.
The other girl leaned forward and nodded rapidly. “I almost fainted when I heard the part where Takeo threw his mate over his shoulder and carried her away.” She gazed off dreamily while I ripped a violent chunk out of my jelly stick. It tasted like strawberry rhubarb pie.
“Are you guys talking about the interview? I can’t believe they already did the links, and who milks a brogge anymore? That’s so antiquated. She’s just making fun of us, showing how stupid our customs are, but they’re not really our customs anymore.” That was a new girl, short dark hair and a serious frown on her face.
“I don’t think so,” the red-haired girl replied. “No one can sing like that unless they feel it. She loves him. I heard that her dad is part Soremni. That’s probably why she let Takeo bite her neck. A full-blooded Vashni wouldn’t ever do that. They’d rather die a ceremonial death.”
“Do you think he liked it? Why bite a Vashni’s neck? If he wants to bite someone’s neck, I can think of a few willing,” the dark girl said with an arched brow.
The other girls giggled.
“Not taking part in the gossip?” A low voice came from over my shoulder.
I stiffened up but didn’t whirl around. This wasn’t the place for an all-out fight. I was a super soft Soremni female. “I don’t talk to thieves.” I kept my voice calm somehow.
“What did they steal? Now I’m intrigued. I thought they were your ordinary, middle-class Soremni musicians with middle-class ideas.”
I pressed my lips together. He knew what I meant.
“You aren’t going to report me? What kind of a citizen are you? You’re responsible for my crime if you don’t report it.”
I turned and stared directly at him before I remembered to be shy and look away. “I’m here to do an internship. I’ll report you after I finish today. If you’d like to give me your name, address and the best way to find you, I’ll be sure to contact the proper authorities on your behalf.”
He smirked. “No need for that. I’m very sorry for what I did. I was so ashamed, I was going to sneak out before you noticed me or something.”
“That would have been more pleasant.”
“But I’m not much of a sneaker. And besides that, I want to know where you got that thing. Someone stole it off me before I got two blocks. You should invite me to your room to play with it sometime. You probably don’t get a lot of those kinds of offers.”
I stared at him without any expression, trying to figure out what to say. “So that’s your introduction, ‘I’m a sucky thief and person with no respect for women.’ Good to know. I’m not interested in having friends or enemies here. Don’t bother me and I won’t report you. I’m here for the music.” I got up and kicked away from him. I went back to work early, adjusting each plate. I wanted to hum to check the sound, but I somehow held back.
My shoulders were stiff, my arms aching by the time Cassie called that we were through for the day. When I got back to my room, I kicked off the orangesicle jumper and went into the kitchen in my goo leggings and top. There were only a couple of weird fruits and veggies plus some sauces. The kitchen was dry, so it would be weird to cook Soremni style, but I’d adapt. I sautéed things and added the sauces and breading, glad for Housekeeper Mirta’s strict lessons. Afterwards, I sat on the couch, put the tray on the table, and pulled out my music box.
I listened to track 13 first. Sean. I loved him so much. I listened again, two more times before I put it to the side and opened the small digital notebook like Junie had. A girl’s face appeared on the screen, a face that looked like a reflection, but she looked much cuter.
; This was my first introduction to my double. She didn’t waste time. She gave the assignment number, had already scanned in everything I needed and there was an audio recording of the day’s lecture. She hesitated at the end.
“It was mostly reading through syllabi. If I were you, I’d read ahead in English and History, get your essays written early. Do you want me to check them for you?”
I stared at her trying not to stare. She looked and sounded eerily like me. “Thanks.”
She nodded briskly. “I ran into your friend. Cole. He asked me to go to the dojo tonight. I am not well-trained in karate so I declined. I will work on it.”
“Oh.” He was willing to spar with me even after the portermutt thing. I didn’t like the idea of trying to pull something over on Cole. “Try to avoid him. He knows me too well.”
She nodded. “All right. Your friend Flop came over. She wanted to give me pointers on how to be you more naturally. It was awkward. It’s difficult to play a role if everyone isn’t playing their parts.”
“Oh. I’ll call her.”
“Your father eats horrible food. Shall I cook for him? I’m very studied in human cooking.”
“If you cook for yourself, then making some for him would be fine, but it’s not part of your job.”
“I know what my job is.” Her voice came sharper.
“I’m sure you do. Thanks for the notes and stuff. I’ll send things when I’ve worked on them.”
I switched the thing off and started reading the lessons she’d marked. The Cole thing bothered me. It would be better if he knew so he didn’t freak out when he figured it out, but he didn’t want to know anything. Maybe my dad could tell him without telling him.
I called him.
“Hey honey. You’re making me dinner. So many vegetables. I thought I’d get a break from all that.”
I laughed. “Sorry, I’m still watching you. Is it too creepy having her around?”
“No, she’s pretty chill.”
“What about Cole? She said that she ran into him. I don’t feel good about…”
Water Games (Watergirl Book 4) Page 20