“Please,” I said, and sat.
Holding down a normal job while serving the cryptid community can be difficult bordering on impossible, since there’s no way of predicting what kind of time will be required to, say, transport a plesiosaur from the city reservoir to a safer spot upriver. Some of us get around it by taking jobs within the cryptid community—Mom is basically a mobile first aid station, providing advice, medical care, and carefully researched remedies to anyone who needs her. Others find jobs that don’t require rigid hours. Dad is known throughout the academic community for his skill with ancient languages and ability to translate virtually anything. The academic community doesn’t know he accomplishes his linguistic feats by consulting with species who never allowed the languages in question to die out, and none of us see any reason to enlighten them. He gets paid, his presence on the books makes it easier to explain how the power stays on when people get nosy, and everything is fine.
(As a whole, our family doesn’t want for funds. Grateful cryptids who don’t place much value on human money have made substantial donations over the years. Dragons tend to pay in gold, which is always nice, and Aunt Lea is an Oceanid, which means sunken treasure. Between her and the finfolk, we could have been comfortable forever just thanks to things other people lost in the ocean. But there’s “not wanting for funds” and then there’s “being able to stay under the radar of the IRS.” We’re all more than willing to work occasionally, if it keeps the taxmen from our door. Nobody wants to negotiate an audit.)
Dad dished out waffles, bowls of strawberries, and—yes—more bacon, which Dominic promptly claimed in the name of the bottomless pit he called a stomach. Dad looked amused by this, and went to the fridge to get more. Feeding three growing, athletic teenagers had left both my parents with a very relaxed attitude about second helpings.
I waited until Dad had joined us at the table with another plate of bacon and a waffle of his own before I cleared my throat and said, “I had an interesting phone call this morning.”
“Oh?” asked Mom.
“The producers of Dance or Die are doing an all-star season. They want the top four dancers from the last five cycles, which means they want me.” I looked between my parents, trying to figure out what they thought of this idea. “They’re going to start filming in Hollywood in six weeks.”
“You can’t be serious.” I twisted in my seat. Antimony was behind me, headphones still around her neck, a disapproving expression on her face. “You said you were done. You said you weren’t dancing anymore.”
“Yeah, but that was before they asked if I wanted to compete again.” I twisted further, trying to meet her eyes. “This is a huge opportunity for me, and it’s going to look weird if I don’t show up when everyone else does. Which is a bigger risk of exposure? Going on TV one more time, or triggering a bunch of ‘whatever happened to . . .’ junkies to come looking for me?”
“Yes, but, dear . . . what if you win?” Mom sounded genuinely concerned. I glanced back to her. “Artie managed to get into their computers last time, and he said you only lost by about a hundred votes. People love you when you dance for them. What if they decide that this time, they should give you the prize you deserve?”
“Then I spend another year in New York, in an apartment someone else is paying for, which would mean I wouldn’t have to take back my job at the bar,” I said. “I could follow up with the people I helped while I was there before, and this time I could do it without trying to juggle work, dancing, and the cryptid community. This could be really good for me, Mom, and for the cryptids of Manhattan.”
“And you’d be back in the spotlight,” said Antimony. “Can’t forget about that.” She sounded remarkably bitter. I didn’t know how to respond.
I didn’t have to. Mom did it for me. “Antimony, don’t attack your sister. Verity has a point: she hasn’t properly retired her Valerie Pryor identity. Is there any way you could turn them down without them making a big deal about it?”
“Not really,” I said. “Adrian is the producer and the head judge, and I was one of his favorites. If I don’t come back, he’s going to say something about it on the air.”
“Which makes people wonder why you’d refuse something like this,” said Mom. “I think doing the show might be the best way to handle the situation. If you win, you can go back to New York for a year, and get the hidebehinds to help you arrange a murder.”