His breath, scented with cinnamon gum, warms my face. I shift my gaze to the stage and watch Audrey, biting the inside of my cheek until I taste blood.
“I hate myself for hurting her,” Jax continues, intent now on the performance. “All she asked was that I didn’t distract her for a little longer. Give her space to get that scholarship and secure her future. Then, finally, we were going to go out this summer.” He moans then looks again at me. “I haven’t forgotten how worth the wait she is. But I can’t stop thinking about that kiss, either. Come on, you gotta remember. Right?”
Sunny and Quan are watching us with bated breath, waiting for my response.
My windpipe feels stuffed and cold, like a straw stuck in a milk-shake. I struggle to inhale. “I—I’m sorry. I don’t remember any of that.” I’m such a jerk, and as good of a liar as Etalon. It must be habitual for our kind. “Are you sure it wasn’t a dream?” The irony of such a question from a succubus would make me laugh, if I weren’t still struggling to accept what I am to begin with.
Jax licks his lips. “No. I remember how it tasted. Like nectar, spiked with a thousand volts of electricity. I don’t dream that vividly, Rune. We need to talk about this.”
I pry my attention from his attractive features, afraid of the intrigue there, of how it’s juxtaposed with shame and confusion. What’s to talk about? We’re both attracted to other people. You were entranced by an incubus’s song. I was driven by instinct to siphon away your energy while you were vulnerable. No other explanation necessary.
These are the things he doesn’t remember, and the things I can never share.
Sunny touches my knee and gestures to the stage. Instead of portraying madness, Audrey’s voice and body movements—not to mention her glowing aura—vacillate between betrayal and regret, completely out of character for the solo. Still, her notes are flawless, until the final cadenza, where she cracks while swallowing back a sob. She stops and the instruments follow her lead, silencing.
Her petite form slumps like a fragile doll. “I’m . . . I’m sorry!” She half shouts, half moans in a wretched attempt to save face. Then she runs backstage behind the curtains before the tremor in her voice stops echoing.
The houselights click on, washing us all in unforgiving light.
Mumbles burble up all around.
Roxie and Kat bump fists.
Bouchard struts across the stage. “Well, it would seem we have our prestigious lead role. The part of Renata goes to—”
“Wait!” I shout, standing up so fast my tote sluffs to the floor like a dead thing. Hair hangs across my eyes, graciously blurring the fifty-some students shifted in their seats to gawk at me. Audrey has lost her chance to let her paraplegic sister live vicariously through her. She’s lost that one shot at a scholarship and the future she can’t afford otherwise. And she and Jax are on the outs before they ever got to reach the supercouple status I know they’re capable of. Because of me.
Unless . . .
There’s one thing I can do to make Jax forget he ever liked kissing me, and to see that Audrey still gets her chance to shine in front of that talent scout, but my entire body quakes just considering it.
A lump of dread strangles me. I clear my throat. “I—I haven’t had my turn yet.” My statement to Madame Bouchard sounds stronger than I feel. I swallow against the lump making another appearance. “I know I can do better than those two amateurs.” The cruel insult shatters loose, jagged and cold as broken glass, cutting both my heart and my tongue.
I sense my friends’ stares of disbelief, but can’t bring myself to look their way.
Kat and Roxie are turned full around in their seats to glare at me, so I focus on them. I’ll use everything Etalon has taught me. If I can master Renata’s song once more and knock Kat down to understudy, she’ll walk away from the opera completely, leaving Audrey next in line.
I glance at the row of teachers behind me. Everyone is there but Professor Tomlin, who often spends weekends in Paris to play with his band. But I don’t need him to sway the vote.
“You told me I could try out if I wanted, right?” I ask.
Aunt Charlotte drags her glasses off her face and considers for an instant, as if worried I’m not ready. Or maybe she’s ashamed that I slammed Audrey so heartlessly, someone who’s supposed to be my friend. Finally she nods—her forced enthusiasm spreading through the others.
Headmaster Fabre pipes up: “Madame Bouchard, it would appear we have one last prospect to consider.”
In spite of the Bride of Frankenstein’s obvious disapproval, she nods me forward, jowls clenched to razor-sharp angles.
I wriggle past Jax, whose face reflects the same disgusted shock as Sunny’s and Quan’s. Without offering any explanation, I step into the aisle to land the biggest role I never wanted.
18
NATURE’S MORATORIUM
“Merciless is the law of nature, and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom.”
Nikola Tesla