I must have looked pretty distraught if he was having that reaction. I put the phone down and thought about standing, but I wasn’t sure my legs would work. Better not to risk it until I had a bit more confidence. “That was Adrian Crier, the producer of Dance or Die. It’s his baby. He has a real thing for dance education, and he basically went into reality television so he could have a dance show one day.”
“Dance or Die—that’s the show you were on.” Dominic and I had spent a comfortable night curled up in a motel room in Colorado watching all my dance routines and solos on YouTube, with me explaining how each number had gone right—or wrong. I’d been more brutal to myself than the judging panel had ever been, but when I was done, Dominic had been there to kiss me and ask for more videos. It had been therapeutic in the extreme, and at the time, it had felt like a fitting funeral for my dance career.
Apparently not. Or maybe not, anyway; I still had to talk to some people, starting with the man in front of me.
“Yeah, that’s the show I was on,” I said. “He wants to do an all-star season, with the top four dancers from the past five seasons. I was number two in my season.” Me and Lyra, the only female top two in the show’s history. We’d promised to keep in touch after the show was over. I hadn’t heard from her since she’d won.
Dominic’s scowl lifted. “He wants you to be on television again?”
“Yeah.”
“Wouldn’t that be dangerous, after . . . everything?”
“Maybe,” I admitted. Dominic and I had left New York—and he’d left the Covenant of St. George—after a Covenant strike team had arrived with the intention of checking his work and starting their purge. They’d found out about me, and hence that my family line hadn’t died out after all; they’d learned that Dominic was keeping secrets, including my existence, from the organization he was supposed to be loyal to.
In the end, the only way we’d been able to escape with our lives was by having my telepathic cousin Sarah rewrite their memories, turning me into a Price imposter and Dominic into a power-mad traitor. As far as the Covenant team was concerned, both Dominic and his self-made “Price” had died in the gunfight that ended their assignment in the States.
(It had been a neat solution, but it wasn’t without its costs. Sarah had never used her telepathy that way before, and the backlash hurt her. Badly. She’s been recovering with my grandparents in Ohio ever since. For a while, we’d been afraid she was never going to be fully herself again. That fear had proved unfounded—she’s definitely still Sarah, if less cocky and confident in her own abilities than she used to be—but it was a terrifying experience, and not one that I’m in any hurry to repeat.)
“What would the benefits be?” asked Dominic. “If you danced again, and won, would it make you restart your dance career?”
I blew out a slow breath. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I thought I was done with that part of my life, but I also feel like . . . if I don’t do this, I’ll always be asking myself ‘what if,’ you know? What if I’d gone back? What if I’d danced so well that they gave me a second chance at the big stage?”
“Are you good enough?” He held up a hand before I could squawk indignantly. “You’re the finest dancer I’ve ever known, but when we met, you were dancing for three hours a day. I haven’t seen you practice your footwork in weeks. Will you be able to meet your own standards on the floor?”
“Yes,” I said. This, at least, I could say with certainty. “I haven’t been doing my dance practice, but the rest of my physical conditioning is still good. I’d have to vary my daily exercise routines, and really focus on my feet and hips between now and the show. That’s no big deal. I’m in better shape than most dancers can even dream of—and dancers are by and large a healthy lot that spends a lot of time in motion.”
“And your Valerie identity, it’s still sound?”
“No one’s managed to blow it yet,” I said. “I’d have to unpack my wigs, and see about getting a few new ones, since the old ones have been in storage since my last competition. But Verity Price has never danced professionally, and we use so much makeup when I’m Valerie that she and I don’t even have the same complexion. I’d basically have to pull my wig off and announce myself.” It was all very Scooby-Doo. A wig and some makeup and nobody knew my name. But it worked, and that was what mattered.
Dominic nodded. “Valerie Pryor, of course, is not married to me.”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s why I called you my boyfriend when I was talking to Adrian. I didn’t want to have to explain to him why I didn’t send him an invitation to the wedding. Not that he would have come, and not that there was actually a wedding, but you know what I mean.”
“Miraculously enough, I do know what you mean,” said Dominic. “Your approach to the English language is like a virus, and after long exposure, I’ve contracted a great deal of it. I may, by this point, be incurably afflicted.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. Dominic laughed before sobering, sitting up a little straighter in the bed. He shouldn’t have been capable of looking that grave while half-naked, but somehow, he managed it.