Dance of Fire (8 page)

The waitress tapped her pen against her order pad. ‘All right, honey, I'm putting you in for a goat's cheese and walnut salad. How does that sound?'

To Vanessa's surprise, it sounded perfect. ‘That's great.'

‘I thought so,' the waitress said, winking. ‘And you, dear?' She turned to Svetya, who was telling a long story with gestures, her lacquered fingernails flitting about her face, her features bewitching.

Vanessa pointed to the title on the menu:
Barre None.
‘What does that mean?'

The waitress chuckled. ‘It's a pun on the phrase
bar none
, which means “without exception”. The Royal Court is the best company of dancers,
bar none
.'

Svetya let out a low laugh. ‘Indeed,' she said, handing the menu to the waitress. ‘I'll have the gravy and chips platter. Hold the salad.'

Geo let out a deep laugh. ‘One day this is going to catch up with you.'

The waitress pressed her lips together. ‘Very well then,' she said, and looked around the booth. ‘And for the boys?'

After everyone had ordered, and the waitress had disappeared, Vanessa looked around the restaurant. A few tables away was Pauline, the ballerina from Paris, sitting with a noisy group. All around them were clusters of dancers, eating and laughing and chattering about the competition and what they would be performing.

‘I said, are you OK, Vanessa?' Justin tapped her shoulder.

‘Sorry, you guys, I'm just . . . tired,' she said.

‘There is absolutely no need to apologise,' Geo said, ­running his fingers through his orange hair. ‘You two flew halfway across the world to be here. Svetya and I? We rolled out of bed this morning, and here we are.' He took a piece of bread
from the basket in the centre of the table. ‘So . . . who are you?'

Justin laughed. ‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean, we're all training with Enzo for a reason. And you two –' he pointed to Vanessa and Justin – ‘were late additions. They don't even have your head shots up in the lobby. But you didn't blink when Enzo did his magical blur step. So why are you here?'

Vanessa looked at Justin. What should they say? They couldn't talk about Hilda and Josef, and she certainly couldn't talk about the demon.

‘Well?' Svetya said.

‘I guess you'll have to wait and see,' Vanessa said.

Geo laughed. ‘Svetya doesn't like to wait for anything.'

Just then the waitress arrived, filling the table with a savoury mess of food.

‘In the nick of time!' Svetya said. ‘I am so hungry I could eat my own head.'

Vanessa didn't realise how hungry she was until her salad was in front of her.

‘I'd never even heard of the Lyric Elite until about three months ago. Enzo pulled me aside after one of our student recitals,' Geo continued. ‘Svetya and I were dancing
Romeo and Juliet
– the Prokofiev version.'

‘A Russian composer,' Svetya said proudly. ‘There is nothing like them.'

‘Anyway,' Geo said, ‘we were in the middle of the balcony scene, and as I was lifting Svetya I felt myself getting . . .
light-headed. I was so involved with the dance that suddenly I couldn't even see. I was . . . I don't know . . . enveloped by the music. All of the colours in the room seemed distorted and very bright, and, well –'

‘What Geo is trying to say is that he dropped me,' Svetya said, turning to Geo and smacking him lightly on the back of the head. ‘Lucky for you I didn't hurt myself.' She dipped one of her chips into the gravy on her plate, then popped it into her mouth. ‘My Juliet was glorious, by the way.'

But Vanessa was much more interested in Geo's story. ‘That sort of thing,' she said, ‘it's happened to me. Sometimes when I'm dancing really well, it's almost like . . . I'm taken out of my body and into a different plane.' She laughed and stared into her salad. ‘I know that sounds crazy, but –'

‘No,' Geo said. ‘It's not crazy. I promise.'

He looked at her with affirmation in his eyes, and for the first time since she'd arrived in London, Vanessa was glad to be there.

‘So,' Svetya said impatiently, ‘you two were
partners
?' Her eyes darted back and forth between Vanessa and Justin as if the thought were unbelievable.

‘No,' Vanessa said, just as Justin said, ‘Yes.'

Svetya curled a lock of blonde hair around her finger. ‘It can't be both,' she said, sounding amused. ‘Which one is it?'

Vanessa felt her face grow hot as Justin shrank back in his seat.

‘Actually, it can be,' Justin explained, sounding uncomfortable. ‘We didn't start out as partners, but we were at the end of the semester.'

In a way they
had
been partners, Vanessa thought. While she'd been obsessed with Zep, Justin had been looking out for her, gathering information on Zep and Josef, bursting into the studio just before the demon would have taken her soul. If it hadn't been for him, she wouldn't be here at all.

‘He's right,' Vanessa said, staring at Justin. ‘I had another partner before, but he, um, turned out to be a bad match. Justin came in at the end and caught me from a fall. A fall that could have ended my career.' Vanessa willed Justin to look at her, but he wouldn't. ‘I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't shown up.'

Look at me
, she pleaded again, silently, waiting for Justin to meet her eye. When he finally did, he merely gave her a stiff nod before turning away.

‘That's a nice story and all,' Svetya said, pulling her masses of wavy blonde hair into a loose bun. ‘But let's talk about me. After one of my performances last fall, Enzo was waiting. At first I thought he wanted me to sign his playbill. You know, like a fan –' Geo groaned – ‘but instead he told me there was more to dance than I'd been taught. He told me I could learn things my teachers never imagined. That he would help me.' Svetya stared at Vanessa. ‘And he did. I
earned
my way into this competition – I placed first in all of the preliminaries. I'm here to win.'

Vanessa stumbled for something to say in response. ‘That's nice,' she replied. ‘I'm glad you and Enzo have such a nice relationship.'

Svetya rolled her eyes. ‘Enzo is just my coach. He's not my type. He's too involved with himself,' she said. ‘You can tell by
the way he looks at himself in the mirror every time he walks by. I want a man to look at
me
.' Svetya's gaze drifted to Justin, who straightened in his seat.

‘I'm sure that when any man looks at you, he sees the same thing I see,' Geo said.

‘What is that?' Svetya asked.

‘Someone to run away from.'

Svetya swatted his arm playfully. Vanessa pushed her plate aside and let her gaze drift along the walls of the restaurant, scanning the photographs of ballet companies, some of which stretched back decades, until a face jumped out at her.

Vanessa gasped. ‘Excuse me,' she said to the group. ‘I have to . . . go to the bathroom.'

She stood up. Instead of heading for the ladies' room, she walked over to the photograph, which was on the opposite wall. It was a portrait of the Royal Court Company: a black-and-white shot of the entire dance troupe, the dancers' lean figures outlined in simple black leotards and tights as they gazed into the camera.

And there in the centre of them all was a girl, her lips arranged in a haunting smile, the light glinting off her eyes as if she were holding on to a secret.

Margaret
.

Chapter Five

Margaret's pale shoulders were luminous, her figure like a white outline frozen into the wall. The photograph was labelled
The Royal Court Ballet Company
and dated two and a half years earlier.

Had Margaret been in London all along? Was she here now?

Vanessa's mind tumbled back to her family's kitchen, the feel of the cold metal chair against her legs that night nearly three years ago when the New York Ballet Academy had called to inform them that Margaret had run away. Disappeared. Posters went up all over the city; the police and private detectives had searched everywhere, but no leads were ever found, no sliver of evidence on which to hang hopes that her sister was alive.

Had Margaret been in the Royal Court all this time? Why hadn't she told her family?

A hand on Vanessa's shoulder startled her.

‘Sorry!' Geo said when she jumped. He nodded to the others, who were all putting on their coats. Vanessa's jacket was draped over his forearm. ‘The restaurant is closing.'

Behind him, Justin was chatting with Svetya as the two of them wove slowly through the tables towards the door.

‘Is everything OK?' Geo asked, concern in his voice.

Vanessa glanced back at the photo of Margaret. Geo seemed nice enough, but she barely knew him – she couldn't tell him about her sister. ‘I'm fine,' she said quickly, taking her jacket from him and pulling it on. ‘Thanks.'

Outside, Justin and Svetya were wandering down the ­pavement, chatting and laughing about God-knows-what, their voices ricocheting off the darkened storefronts. The weird London misty not-quite-rain filled the air.

Vanessa jogged forward and touched Justin's arm. ‘I need to show you something,' she said.

He must have read the disquiet in her face, because he turned to Svetya and said, ‘Will you give us a minute?'

Svetya glared at Vanessa but said nothing.

Vanessa waited until Geo had got a few steps ahead of them and was walking side by side with Svetya, out of earshot. ‘Sorry to interrupt.'

‘You weren't interrupting,' Justin said. ‘What's wrong?'

Vanessa lowered her voice. ‘I saw Margaret.'

‘What?' Justin said, alarmed. ‘Where?'

‘On the wall in the restaurant, in a photograph of the Royal Court Company. I'll show you.' Vanessa started back towards the restaurant, but Justin didn't move.

‘Vanessa, wait!' he called out.

‘It was
her
,' Vanessa insisted. ‘When you see the picture –'

‘I believe you,' Justin said carefully. ‘But the restaurant is closing. The photograph will still be there tomorrow. We'll come back right after rehearsal. I promise.' The misty dark around him glowed with the light from the street lamps. A damp tangle of sandy-coloured hair fell loose over his forehead. ‘We just got out of the strangest rehearsal we've ever had, and we have to wake up bright and early tomorrow morning and do it again. And then we have to win this competition. That's enough for our first day in London.'

‘You don't understand,' Vanessa said. Why couldn't Justin see how
big
this was? How had Margaret ended up in the Royal Court Company? And where was she now?

Justin looked over his shoulder at the others, in the distance.

And then it dawned on her. ‘You just want to go back and flirt with Svetya.'

‘Is that what you think?' Justin's face went blank. ‘I'm only interested in you, Vanessa. Demon or no demon. But Svetya
is
a dancer with the Royal School of Ballet. It's basically a feeder into the Royal Court Company. Maybe she knows something about the dancers who – the ones who are like Josef. It doesn't hurt to be nice.'

What he said made sense, and yet Vanessa couldn't help herself from saying, ‘And she's very pretty.' She wasn't sexy like
Svetya; she didn't have pouty lips or curves that made boys turn their heads. Justin was three years older than she was. Vanessa was just a freshman. What did he see in her anyway?

‘She is, but so what?' Justin leaned so close their foreheads almost touched, the familiar smell of his skin filling the air between them. ‘That's not why I'm here,' he whispered. ‘I came here for you.'

She knew she should back away; she shouldn't let Justin get close. The demon's voice from her dream echoed in her mind:
Your kiss will bring me home again, my love
. But staring at Justin now, at the flecks of light that seemed to dance inside his eyes, at the perfect slope of his nose and the arch of his lips, she couldn't deny that she wanted him to like her because . . . well, she liked him.

She more than liked him actually.

He'd come here for her. That was romantic, wasn't it? But she didn't feel safe knowing that the demon was here in ­London, and she didn't want anyone to get hurt because of her. Especially not Justin.

‘We're together in a foreign city,' Justin said. ‘A very cold and damp foreign city. For just a little while I want to enjoy it. With you.' He pushed her hair back from her face, his hand lingering for a moment on her cheek. ‘Be here now,' he said. ‘With me.'

She looked back towards the pub, and for the first time all night she noticed the beauty of the London skyline, how the old buildings were jumbled together with the new, creating something spectacular and almost otherworldly. ‘OK,' she whispered.

The fog of his breath mingled with hers, so close it tickled her lips. He slid his fingers down her cheek, and for a moment she didn't care about the competition or the demon or her nightmares. She let him pull her towards him, her body melting into his, as drumbeats floated on the wind from somewhere up ahead.