Dance of Fire (32 page)

And then she understood what Zep had said on the roof, that final
I found her
, though she didn't have time to ask, because she was throwing herself into her sister's arms, her eyes blinded by tears, and she was saying her name over and over again. ‘Margaret!'

‘I don't understand how you're here,' Vanessa said, a few minutes and several bone-crushing hugs later.

‘It's a very long story,' Margaret said. ‘Too long to tell on a cold street. This is Hal, by the way.'

Vanessa nodded at Hal, who nodded back at her, and hugged her sister again. ‘Let's go inside, and you can tell it to me and Mom together.'

The eight of them moved up the steps towards the hotel entrance. Svetya, Geo and the Fratellis swept in through the doors, but Vanessa stopped short.

‘What's wrong, Ness?' Margaret asked. And the easy familiarity of her sister's voice and that nickname made Vanessa's eyes sting with tears.

She glanced back at Justin and said, ‘I'll be with you in just a moment.'

‘Take your time,' Margaret said. ‘I've waited this long to see you, another minute or two won't kill me. I'll be in the lobby.'

Vanessa watched her sister disappear inside, then turned to Justin, whose hands were buried in the pockets of the jacket the Fratellis had lent him. His jacket – the one Vanessa was wearing right now – smelled citrusy, like his shampoo. Vanessa breathed in the night air and looked around at the couples walking to and from the theatres and restaurants around ­Trafalgar Square. Everyone was happy, in love, full of life.

So why did she feel so sad?

‘Justin,' Vanessa said, ‘if anyone deserves this scholarship, it's you. I don't want you to give that up because of me.'

He smiled. ‘I don't plan to give it up. There are still dark dancers in the Royal Court. And even if there isn't a Lyric Elite, that doesn't mean I can't stop them from whatever nasty business they're doing,' he said. ‘Corny, but true.'

‘I can't wait to see you on a ballet stage one day so I can tell everyone, “I knew him back when he was my dance partner,”' she said, smiling sadly.

Justin let out a small laugh. ‘What about you? I'm sure you'll grace a thousand different stages all over the world.'

‘Maybe,' Vanessa said. ‘Though, to be honest? I think I've had enough dancing for a while.'

Justin leaned forward, wrapping his arms around her waist. ‘You just found your sister. This is a big deal. Maybe the biggest deal.' He paused. ‘But does this change anything between us?'

She thought for a moment. The demon was gone. Her sister was back. And Justin loved her. He might not be coming back with her to NYBA, but that didn't mean they couldn't be together. Or at least try.

There were a million things she could say to him, but instead of all that she simply tipped her head upwards and pressed her lips to his.

Then she pulled back. ‘I'll see you in London for spring break.'

A wide grin took over Justin's face. ‘Sounds like a plan,' he said. ‘A perfect plan.'

Inside the hotel, Margaret was waiting, watching through one of the front windows. ‘Are you OK?' she asked.

The Fratellis, Svetya, Geo and Hal were seated in the lobby. Vanessa looked at them. ‘You go ahead,' Svetya said. ‘Let us know when we can join you.'

Vanessa nodded and took her sister's hand. She led her through the hotel lobby, towards the bustling restaurant. ‘Let's go give Mom a heart attack.'

‘Good luck!' Nicola called after them. Nicholas just gave her two thumbs-up.

Margaret laughed as she followed Vanessa into a modern-looking dining room with bright white tables and low ­mood-lighting. Most of the tables were full.

‘Adler,' Vanessa said to the hostess, who muttered, ‘Only a lit
tle bit late,' and then led them towards the back of the restaurant.

In the distance Vanessa could see her mother sitting by herself at a large table, sipping a half-empty glass of white wine. Her brown hair was swept up, away from her face, and she was wearing a chic grey dress with a low neckline.

When she saw Vanessa, her mother stood up from her chair, her face pinched together into a swirl of angry lines. ‘Vanessa! Where on
earth
have you been?'

‘Mom –'

‘Don't
Mom
me. I've been waiting for you. I texted you –' She pivoted and looked at Margaret, her wine glass in her
hand. ‘And who's this? Another friend?'

‘
Mom
,' Vanessa said.

Vanessa watched as her mother studied her older daughter, waiting for her to see past the clothing and the dyed hair and the years of being apart.

She waited.

And then it happened.

All the muscles in her mother's face relaxed. The sadness that had covered her like a dark cloud for years lifted, and Vanessa saw the mother she used to know – the beautiful woman who was devoted to her husband and daughters, the former ballerina who loved her life and her girls and had never suffered the loss of a child.

The wine glass fell to the floor with a crack.

‘It can't be,' her mother whispered.

But it was, and finally, as she watched her mother rush to Margaret and take her in her arms, both of them weeping with joy, Vanessa felt whole.

Two And A Half Years Earlier

From the Diary of Margaret Adler

January 1

A new year, a new diary.

When I went into hiding, I had to give up a lot. The big things I regretted every day: my dancing, my name, my parents, my sister. But there were smaller things I lost too, things that sound silly: my walk to class across the NYBA campus, the Lincoln Center fountain ­glittering in the distance. My birthday cards from friends and family. And my diary.

Hal insisted I leave it behind. ‘If you take it with you,' he said to me that night after I won the Royal Court competition, ‘Erik will never believe you're gone.'

‘But he'll know what I was thinking!' I protested.

Hal only nodded. ‘Right. He'll see how you were thinking, and he'll believe that you fell into a pit of despair that no one could rescue you from. That's why you have to write one last entry, one that will convince him never to look for you.'

And that was when I did something I'd never done before: I lied to you, my diary. I wrote how my despair (all too real) had overcome me, so I had nothing to live for. And then I left the diary on my desk, sure I'd never see it again. I didn't mind leaving behind the things I'd acquired since arriving in London. The clothes, the IDs – they all belonged to some fake person, to Margot Adams.

None of it was mine.

But leaving the diary was different.

But then Vanessa returned it, and now I can be sure that what I write will be read by you alone, Diary, and no one else.

Hal was as good as his word: he called on a bunch of his hacker friends to ‘witness' a girl plunging to her death from Tower Bridge. He told them she had to change her identity for political reasons, that her life depended on it, and he wouldn't ask people to lie for him otherwise. And, because Hal is the most decent person I have ever met outside my family, dozens came forward and swore they saw me jump.

I didn't even have to be at the ‘suicide' site in the end. Hal told his people the time, the site, the distance from either end of the bridge and even the exact phase of the moon. And then seventeen ‘witnesses' came forth for the police.

There were so many of them and of so many ages (the youngest was twelve, the oldest in his sixties), and from so many walks of life, the police accepted their accounts without question. The river
was searched, and though no body was recovered, the witnesses were too reliable to be doubted.

And so Margot Adams died for the second and last time. And I was free of Erik.

Hal's friends also found me a place to live, though at first I was handed from person to person like a relay baton. Five apartments later, I ended up on Streatham Place in Brixton, a lively area of London with a multicultural community, a neighbourhood I'm told used to be dodgier than it is now. All I know is that the people on the streets are warm and polite, that the best jerk chicken in all of London can be found a block away and that no one there thinks about demons or dance or any such things.

When I arrived, Harriet gave me a new passport and a work visa – in the name of Glynnis MacMurray. ‘Don't blame me for the name,' she said. ‘It was Hal's doing.' Harriet worked for a small music label, programming their mixing boards and helping produce records, and soon enough I did too. ‘You'll be our web designer,' she told me when I moved in. ‘Though first you'll only be an intern.'

‘I don't know how to be a web designer,' I told her.

‘Don't be daft,' she said. ‘That's why you'll start as an intern. Trust me, it's easy.'

At first Hal kept his distance. He was still in touch with Erik, and he didn't want to risk the truth coming out. But he kept checking up on me, and he was sweet and kind and thoughtful, and he cared about me. Not because I was a dancer or talented. Just
because of me. He took care of disposing of the evidence of my old lives, and I never found out exactly how. Only later did I learn that he'd left them behind in Margot Adams's empty grave – along with a losing lottery ticket that had his phone number coded in the numbers.

When I asked him why, he said that on the off-chance someone came to London snooping around, he needed to know about it so he could protect me.

Little did I suspect that someone would be my sister – or rather, a friend of hers named Zeppelin Gray, who figured out the code, called Hal and explained who he was. He told me that my sister was here in London, competing in the very same competition that I had won. The rest, as they say, is history.

Erik, or Enzo, as he calls himself now, is still out there. And still, throughout the world, there exist dark dancers who try to use the art of dance for evil purposes . . . But I know that Josef is dead and no longer hunting me – or my sister – and for the first time in years I feel safe. Anything else, I can worry about tomorrow. Or the tomorrow after that. I don't know what the future will bring, but I will figure it out. But not this moment, because now, back in my childhood home, Vanessa is calling me downstairs to dinner, and I know better than to keep my parents waiting.

I am no longer Margaret Adler the ballerina. Instead, I am Margaret Adler the friend, the daughter and – especially – the sister.

Read On For A Taste Of
Dance Of Shadows
, The Captivating Prequel To
Dance Of Fire

Prologue

In the harsh glare of the lights, Chloë's shadow stretched across the stage. Her toes pointed and taut, her arms fluttering like wings, she arched her neck and watched as her own silhouette seemed to move without her . . .

A drop of sweat slid down her chest and seeped into the thin fabric of her leotard. There was no music. The room beyond was dark and empty, yet she could feel her master's eyes on her. She tried not to tremble as she lifted her chin to meet his gaze. Slowly, she extended a long, slender leg into the air.

He rapped his staff on the floor. “Again.”

Chloë wiped her temples. The floor was speckled with sweat and blood from hours of practice, but still she took her position. On the choreographer's count, the thirteen ballerinas
around her began to flit in and out in cascades of white, their shoes pattering softly against the wood.

“One and two and three and four!”

And before she knew it, her feet ­were moving soundlessly across the stage. She dipped her head back, fanning her arms toward the light.

“Now rise!” he yelled as she thrust herself toward the circle of dancers, keeping in step. “Transcend your body! Your bones are hollow! Your feet are mere feathers!”

Chloë twirled, her back flexed into a crescent as the dancers flew past, their faces vacant, their feet moving so quickly they seemed to blur.

“Yes!” cried the choreographer, his smile wide and triumphant. “Yes!”

Chloë was dizzy and exhausted, her leotard damp with
sweat, but she didn't care. The routine was finally coming together. Her legs wove around each other with effortless
grace, and her body followed, smooth and slippery, like a strip of satin gliding over the stage.

Letting herself go, she cocked her head back in a flush of rapture. Her chest heaved, and hot, thick air filled her lungs.

The other dancers reached for her, their faces a pale swirl. Chloë bowed out of their reach, dipping low and letting her fingertips graze the wooden floor. It felt strangely hot. The thin smell of smoke coiled around her, tickling her nose, and the choreographer's voice grew distant and watery. The overhead lights seemed to flicker, casting eerie shadows against the walls.

A wave of heat rippled through her body. It was strange, unidentifiable—­a hot presence spilling into her veins, making her head throb.

A string of whispers began to unravel in her mind, the voices too soft to understand. She jerked her head, trying to shake them off, but they melded into one another, foreign and indecipherable, growing louder, shriller.

Her eyes burned. The room swam with red. The ribbons of her pointe shoes tightened around her ankles. Without warning, her legs bent backward, as if boneless. Her arms cracked and swung over her head. Against her will, her chin jerked upward to face the overhead lights.