Custo touched her mind and was surprised to find a very defined series of thoughts. She was scared he’d let go of her. Scared her knees would give. Scared they wouldn’t have a chance to finish what they’d started.
He was a little shaken himself, but he forced himself on to other pressing matters.
“We need to talk about tonight, review the security plan.”
Annabella was silent for a moment before answering. Finally, she shook her head. “No. I’m not going to think about that at all.” Her voice was raspy, and she gave a little cough to clear it. “I can’t, you understand?”
After seeing the mastery and grace of that dance class, he had to admit he did. Her focus had to be entirely on her performance. The rest was up to him.
Her weight shifted to her own feet, and he released her. He’d wanted to reassure her, show her that he had everything under control, to tell her that she could depend on him, but she was beyond that now. Had to be.
He attempted to follow her thought leaps. It was easier now that he was coming to know her better. She was retracing the steps of the story, and he could almost feel the veil between earth and the Shadowlands trembling.
By the time she sat at her dressing table, she was in deep concentration. He spent the next half hour checking in with his team—still no word from Adam—while Annabella transformed her girlish face into the ethereal appearance of a ghost. She pancaked her skin white. She lined her eyes black, adhering the lashes to her already thick, dark fringe. She shaded the hollow of her cheeks just so, then stood, holding her leotard over her breasts, and handed him a white-dipped sponge.
“Wipe me down, would you?” she asked his reflection in the mirror.
He didn’t know what she meant, but would do anything she asked. So he took the sponge.
“My shoulders, neck right into my hairline, and my back,” she clarified. Underneath her words was an implicit invitation. Among the complex movements of choreography filling her mind, she’d decided something.
Custo stepped close to her, their gazes locked in the glass. He couldn’t act on his desires, so he bent to his task and stroked her with the sponge. Her character was the ghost of an almost-bride, so he swept the color from her skin. He erased the pulse of life from the curves of her back and arms. He stroked the white across her shoulders to the dip below her graceful throat and the valley between her breasts.
His head was bent, mouth at her ear, arms circling her waist when she spoke, her voice thin. “My costume is on the rack.”
He could feel her heart pounding in her chest—his was, too—and forced himself to take a step backward.
She reached to take the frothy white dress from a hanger, and keeping her back to him, her face to a bland corner of the dressing room, dropped her warm-up clothes and donned the costume. Her hands molded the bodice to her frame and she backed up to him again.
“Would you?” she asked.
The back gaped open, lined with matching rows of tiny hooks and eyes, too small for his hands. He did the best he could with his clumsy fingers and when he brought his gaze back up, found Annabella utterly transformed into an other-worldly bride.
Someone knocked on the door, calling, “Ready in five,” then moved down the hall.
“I guess this is it,” she said.
“Don’t worry about anything,” Custo said. “Just dance.”
She inhaled deeply and exhaled with a shudder. “Let’s go.”
From side stage, Custo could hear the rumble of the audience and the stray, discordant notes of the orchestra. The Segue team was either already seated or circulating until curtain.
Jens was on the opposite side of the stage. He’d simplified the Segue uniform to an all-black ensemble that might pass for stage crew. Only the jacket seemed unusual, but that couldn’t be helped. He had to hide his gun somewhere. Everyone was in place. Everyone was ready.
The orchestra went suddenly silent and the audience muted to a murmur, then a general hush. The music began, each instrument weaving an eerie thread of the story.
The other dancers, brides in death, comprised the first movement. Then the stage cleared with a bustle and Custo’s space was crammed with dancers heaving for breath, watching from the wings.
A new phrase of music began, mournful and romantic, and Annabella stepped into view, a maiden ghost, a wili. The light of the stage shifted slightly with her appearance, deepening with color, with compelling light, with magic.
Annabella. There could be no doubt; she was born to dance.
She mingled with the other wilis, and then exited to the other side with the group while cocky, pretty-boy Jasper took the stage.