by Amanda Marin
But Sebastian’s already cutting her off. “And if—”
Mayday, mayday!
I can’t let him do it. I can’t let him keep talking. Every word that comes out of his mouth is social suicide around here. He embarrassed me yesterday, but we’re even—I know he’s taking tap dance. Plus, Headmistress Fothergill tasked me with helping him adjust and catch up. I can’t fail to graduate … which means I can’t fail him.
So I intervene.
Panicking, I raise my hand and interrupt, blurting out the first words that come to mind. “Can I volunteer to be in your next demonstration?”
Okay. My plan to intervene isn’t quite as uninventive and bland as Ace Cola, the champion of power drinks, but it’s definitely not the verbal equivalent of the next Laffitte, either.
Still, it’s effective.
Ms. Applegate looks at me, her head tilted to the side, puzzled. She hadn’t started the next demonstration yet. Her eyes brighten as she glances at the spot where Ellabelle Cranshaw stood beside her a moment ago. A place now vacant. A position waiting to be filled. And a way out of this uncomfortable conversation.
“Yes, yes, of course, Bianca,” she says, waving me forward. Her grin broadens, betraying her gratitude.
I don’t particularly feel like being one of Ms. Applegate’s test subjects— especially after seeing how cloudy and unfocused Ellabelle became. But I move to the front of the room anyway, stepping over my bag on the floor, then weaving through a maze of ponytails and perfume.
As I take the spot beside Ms. Applegate, I look out across the sea of azure plaid skirts and stares. Sebastian’s shoulders sag as he realizes we’re moving on. His question will go unanswered. He doesn’t push it, though.
Mission accomplished.
“You can’t just ask questions like that,” I explain to Sebastian later as we walk with Kash toward Grand Park. After another demonstration of what to watch for when over-inspiring a subject—this time on me instead of Ellabelle Cranshaw—Ms. Applegate has once again unleashed us on the city to test our strength. To start small with our subjects. And to watch for the slightest sign when we’ve pushed too hard.
“I don’t understand. Why not?” he asks, shaking his head.
“Because,” Kash says, speaking quickly, quietly. She glances around to make sure none of the passersby are listening. They’re not. They’re too busy on their phones, juggling shopping bags, or looking in shop windows. “We’re Muses. Our mission is one of beauty, not darkness and evil. It’s not who we are. We belong to the light.”
Ahead of us, the signal at the intersection changes color, and the cars on the street slow from a crawl to a full stop. The pedestrian beacon flickers, and the countdown to cross toward the park begins. As we push forward with the rest of the crowd, Sebastian shrugs.
“I guess talking about the balance between light and dark wasn’t such a big deal at my last school,” he says. “I didn’t realize it’d be like that here.”
“Well, now you know,” I reassure him.
I look up at him as I step onto the curb. His swagger is back for the most part—his shoulders square and his chin held high. But when he glances back down at me, there’s a hint of worry in his eye. I’ve scared him, I bet. He’s probably wondering if he’s on the fast track to becoming Brightling’s latest social pariah. Like Aurelia Ketterling was for a while freshman year when she kept toting around her copy of Encyclopaedia Mythica, trying to convince everyone that the chimeras and centaurs discussed in its pages are real.
Taking pity on him, I sigh and nudge him playfully in the arm with my elbow. “Don’t worry, I’m sure your new fan base is still just as devoted as they were yesterday.”
Kash nods in agreement. “Me, too,” she adds. “In fact, I heard Melody Dillard whispering to Bernadette Norcott about the dreaminess of your eyes in the hallway as we were leaving.”
She says the words before thinking them through and promptly blushes when Sebastian looks at her. Knowing her, she’s probably worried that he thinks her telling him this means she agrees with Melody’s assessment. Any second now, the bouncing will begin.
“Melody Dillard …?” Sebastian echoes, turning the name over on his tongue as if saying her name alone is equivalent to a kiss.
And like that, the shadow of humility lingering in his stare vanishes. The arrogant narcissist I met yesterday in Poise and Charm is back and walking beside me. I’m not sure whether to rejoice that we restored his confidence … or roll my eyes.
I choose to roll my eyes.
As we step through the open wrought-iron gates marking the entrance to Grand Park, though, neither Kash nor Sebastian notice. The park opens up before us like a whole new world inside the concrete, metal, and glass of the city. A rolling, lush lawn stretches out like an emerald carpet. There are winding pathways speckled with fountains and stone footbridges … Manicured trees and bushes transplanted from similar climates around the globe … And my favorite spot of all: Brambleton Terrace, where local artisans gather to share and sell their work.
“So what are we supposed to do now that we’re here?” Sebastian asks, popping a butterscotch in his mouth and following Kash and me as we begin down the path toward Brambleton. Our usual destination.
“This,” I say simply.
Pausing, I focus my attention on a little boy in the distance playing with a toy harmonica while he sits on a park bench with a woman who must be his mother. He’s small—maybe four or five years old—with spindly legs that he swings absentmindedly as he blows hard into the tiny instrument. For all his effort, the only sounds he manages to produce are shrill, off-key shrieks. They make it nearly impossible for his mother to carry on her conversation with the woman beside her.
“Jacob, honey, please stop that,” the mother scolds gently. Finally frustrated with trying to talk over his squealing, she reaches over to take the harmonica away.
But I lift my arm instead, and I move my hand. Heat and hope travel and twist through my veins, then out my fingertips toward the little boy. Just as his mother swipes at the harmonica, he manages one final breath. A perfect, lovely chord. Chipper and bright. Energetic and crisp.
The mother stops, startled, and gasps. She looks between her son and friend, her jaw dangling. Jacob does it again. And again. A chord becomes a few bars of music—and then a song. Passersby stop to listen, watch, and marvel, and by the time he reaches the end of his new melody, almost a dozen people surround him, clapping.
“Diane, he’s a prodigy—a prodigy!” the mother’s friend exclaims as she applauds.
Satisfied, I lower my arm and smile to myself. Success: a talent awoken in a small child with no sign of over-inspiration—no glazed eyes or lethargic movements. I think Ms. Applegate would approve. I feel almost as excited as the mother and her friend.
“You’re so good at this, Bianca,” Kash tells me as we start forward again. “I wouldn’t have been able to inspire more than a couple of notes in him, I’m sure.”
I look down at my gnawed fingertips. It’s hard to believe sometimes that they’re the conduit to such special things. “Thanks,” I mutter, “but you know as well as I do that ninety percent of that was his doing.”
“What happens when that kid’s mom figures out he can’t do that again—he’s not really a prodigy?” Sebastian asks quietly, darkly, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
The gloom in his voice startles me. I feel the wrinkles forming in my forehead. “Of course he’ll be able to do that again. He has the natural talent. I just helped coax it out of him.”
As if to prove my point, another set of notes fills the air behind us, carried on the breeze. I don’t have to look over my shoulder to know little Jacob is carrying on with his first recital.
“I highly doubt there’s much of a career in professional harmonica-playing, but it seems like he’s off to a good start, if you ask me,” I add. I bat my eyes innocently when our stares meet, but I can’t help feeling a little smug.
; Maybe more than a little smug.
Sebastian just shakes his head and gives me that half-grin of his. Like I both entertain and perplex him. Then he takes a butterscotch candy out of his pocket, offers it to me, and pops it in his own mouth when I decline.
5
There’s a reason I always like to go to Brambleton Terrace: my grandma. It was where she took me to tell me about being a Muse—that it’s in my blood. Something passed down through the generations. I’m no ordinary Muse, either, she said. My gift to inspire comes from both sides of the family. Her side—my father’s side—is directly descended from Clio. And my mother, a pledge of Calliope, can trace her lineage back through nearly three hundred years of Muses.
When I asked my grandmother if I was a Muse, too, she nodded, chuckling, and held me tight. She pointed to all the artists crowding the courtyard. There were so many of them: musicians in a string quartet and painters with their brushes—poets reciting their sonnets aloud and street performers rehearsing a skit—even a chalk artist drawing scenes on the walkway. I gaped at them all, beholding the infinite beauty that lay before me, honored and excited to be a part of their world.
“Someday, Bianca,” my grandma told me, “you will be a great enough Muse to inspire all this—and more.”
Coming here reminds me of her words—my birthright, my responsibility, and all the wonder I felt that day.
Kash likes it here, too, for her own reasons.
“Come on—let’s hurry,” she urges, picking up her pace as Brambleton comes into view.
Her excitement illuminates her eyes like a pair of spotlights on stage. And then, a moment later, she slips away from Sebastian and me, breaking apart from us like a puppy chasing after a stick. Just as happy. Just as carefree.
“Where’s she going?” Sebastian asks, squinting after her, trying to follow her form as she darts away.
“You’ll see. Just give her a minute,” I tell him. “And take a seat. You’re in for the best show you’ve seen in a long time.”
I tug on his shirtsleeve, pulling him with me to sit on the edge of a fountain while we wait.
“I don’t understand. Aren’t we supposed to be practicing?” he asks as he lowers himself down beside me.
I nod and pick at a spot on my chewed-up nails. “We are. Kash is.”
It only takes another moment before the crinkle between his eyes softens, his confusion fading. He finally sees what I’ve witnessed every week for the past four years. The nearby crowd reshapes, forming a crescent around a spectacle at its center. Sebastian and I watch from the outskirts, peering between the limbs of those standing by. They gape, amazed by the figure floating and twirling across the cobblestones before them: a ballerina. She may be in a uniform and flats instead of a tutu and pointe shoes, but she’s every bit as graceful and talented as a principal dancer with the Bolshoi. And they know it. They can see it at a glance.
It’s Kash. Doing what she’s best at.
“She’s amazing,” Sebastian whispers as we watch her move.
He’s right. Kash is bold and elegant, simultaneously as light as a feather, as high as a cloud, and as powerful as the wind. She bounds across the courtyard in a series of moves that meld seamlessly into one another. Energetic, scissor-like kicks—échappé, I’ve heard her call them. Quick, tiny steps—bourrée—as fast as the beating of a hummingbird’s wings. And pirouettes that would make the globe stop spinning to watch. For a few minutes, as she dances to the quartet accompanying her, the soft-spoken girl who apologizes for everything and bounces indecisively is nowhere in sight.
“Kash couldn’t walk when she was little,” I tell Sebastian while we watch her body bend and soar. “She had a problem with her hip—something she was born with. The doctors told her parents she might never walk.”
For a second, he tears his eyes away from her, and he smirks with disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?”
I shake my head. It’s one of the first things Kash told me when we met our freshman year at Brightling—the kind of thing that’s hard to forget, that makes an impression.
“So what happened? How did she go from that to … this?” Sebastian nods toward the dance circle again, just in time to see Kash leap into a flawless, gravity-defying grand jeté.
“Her mom and dad didn’t give up on her,” I explain. “She had surgeries and tons of physical therapy—which turned into dance lessons to keep her moving and help with balance. And she ended up loving it. It’s how her mom figured out she’s a Muse, too.”
Sebastian’s mouth curls into an impressed grin, and he nods with approval. “I totally underestimated her.”
I shrug. “A lot of people do. She’s small. She’s meek. But she’s also so much more.”
I barely finish my statement before I notice something out of the corner of my eye. A young woman on the fringe of Kash’s admirers is starry-eyed and listless, a vacant smile on her face. One just like Ellabelle Cranshaw had—and me, too, I suppose—earlier today in class with Ms. Applegate.
“That’s not supposed to be happening, is it?” Sebastian says, an uneasy undercurrent in his tone, as he notices the same thing I have.
Crap.
The young woman isn’t the only one impacted, either. As I glance around, I see more of them—their numbers rising by the second. Mundanes who have been over-inspired. Entranced by Kash’s ballet. If Kash wanted to, she could get them to do anything she wished right now. She could have them sing an opera or make up a limerick … Or she could force them to steal a drawing from a nearby kiosk—or to hurt themselves, or someone else, even.
She wouldn’t do any of that, of course—I know her; I know she wouldn’t. But she could. Without even meaning to, she’s walking the fine line between inspiration and control.
“Come on. We have to stop her,” Sebastian says, already standing.
It’s his turn to tug at my sleeve now. He moves quickly, hurrying across the courtyard toward Kash. I can barely manage to keep up. By the time I reach them both, he’s already speaking again.
“All right, everyone. The performance is over,” he announces. “The prima ballerina’s presence is required back at Lincoln Center.”
The music—and Kash—come to an abrupt halt. Groaning with disappointment, the crowd begins to disperse.
“I know, I know, very unfortunate,” Sebastian says amidst the grumbles. “This week’s performance has been brought to you by the letter ‘B’ and the number nine. If you wish to register a complaint, take it up with them.”
While he fields their grievances, I rush over to Kash, who is limping toward the mound of her school bag and blazer propped against the base of a statue. Her chest heaves and sweat dampens her hairline. She grimaces with pain at each step.
“I did it again, didn’t I?” she asks softly as she picks up her belongings. There’s no need to clarify the meaning of “it.” We both know. This isn’t the first time she has over-inspired her audience.
“Don’t worry—you’ll get the hang of it,” I assure her, beating her to her blazer. I frown as she wobbles under the weight of her backpack on her shoulders. I was just telling Sebastian about her childhood troubles with walking. “I’m more worried about your ankle. Are you hurt?”
Kash gingerly takes a step forward and clenches her teeth. “I landed funny toward the end there. Even if you guys hadn’t stopped me, I wouldn’t have been able to go on much longer.”
“We have to get you back to the academy,” I insist. “You need to get that looked at.”
Joining us, Sebastian nods. “Let me carry your bag for you,” he offers.
She wobbles again, this time stumbling against his chest, as she tries to take off her backpack.
“Woah,” he mutters, steadying her, “don’t be in such a hurry.”
Technically, there is a reason to hurry: Poise and Charm class. But I don’t want to admit that—not to him, and definitely not to Kash, with her injury. I’m too embarrassed for him to know I’m failing, and sh
e’ll never quit apologizing for making me late. Besides, I’m pretty sure even Ms. Dashwood will understand this excuse.
“Right,” I agree. “We’ll help you.”
Before she can protest, Sebastian and I have one of her arms slung over each of our shoulders. We limp along together, retracing our steps through the park like some bizarre, multi-legged creature. Maybe we’re the ones who belong in Aurelia Ketterling’s book instead of the two-headed dragons.
“It’s probably just a sprain, nothing serious,” I say as we hobble along.
“I hope so,” Kash laments. “The dance recital is coming up soon.”
“Don’t worry,” I try to assure her. “A quick visit to the infirmary and some ice packs, and you’ll be just fine. Don’t you think, Sebastian?”
I try to catch his eye over the top of Kash’s head, eager to get him to agree, to make her feel better. But he’s distracted, staring off at a figure in the distance, further down a parallel path. There, a silver-haired man in an expensive-looking dark suit—one with a bright green handkerchief in the front pocket—walks purposefully, as if on a mission. He reminds me of the person who stole from the violinist yesterday … Maybe it is the thief from yesterday.
After a second, the man disappears from view, hidden by a pack of joggers overtaking him. Gone before I can be sure. And finally, Sebastian glances over at me, swallowing hard. Like he’s just seen the monster under his bed.
“Yeah, it’s probably just a mild sprain,” he says, slightly hoarse. He clears his throat and forces a grin. “You’ll be dancing again in no time, Kash.”
“You didn’t have to wait for me,” I tell Sebastian when I spot him sitting in his tuxedo at the bottom of the stairs.
He stands up as I approach. “I wanted to. You shouldn’t have to walk into Poise and Charm late again on your own. It’ll make it easier if I’m with you.”
I pause on the final step, taken aback. My hand slips from the railing and falls to my side, collapsing against the fluff and fabric of my gown. He’s right. Even if Ms. Dashwood is upset that I’m late, he’ll be there to back up my story. To take some of the heat and attention. To defend me. First, he helped Kash—because, to be honest, it was really him who shouldered most of her weight on the way back from Grand Park … And now he’s helping me.