Page 12 of Kingmakers, Year Two

I love my cousin, but her dad is a barely-civilized psychopath and my night doesn’t need any more complications.

Besides, I’ve got to focus on Iggy. I can hear The Shakers winding down, which means he’s up in just a couple of minutes.

I head back up to the roof, backstage to the little dressing room I set up for him. Iggy’s pouring over his lyrics sheet, which looks like the journal of a madman, full of inky scribbles, crossed-out lines, and tiny arrows pointing to revisions.

He looks up when I enter, pushing his shaggy hair back out of his eyes and giving me his slow, sleepy grin.

“The band sounds great!”

“You’re gonna sound better.”

“Not too many people out there?”

“Nah,” I lie. “Barely any.”

In the bright stage lights, Iggy won’t see any different till he’s already done.

“That’s good,” he sighs.

Iggy’s normal speaking voice is so soft and slow that the transformation to his rapid-fire rapping jars me every time.

I tell him, “If your album charts the way I think it’s gonna, the contract with Virgin is a sure thing.”

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Iggy says.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out, seeing a message from Anders:

Poe rolledup with three dudes, but I told him to fuck off. Think he left.

Good.I knew he couldn’t resist showing his ugly mug, but I’m glad Beckett and Anders were intimidating enough to dissuade him. If he comes back, we’re gonna have a much less-friendly conversation.

“Problem?” Iggy asks.

“Nope.” I tuck my phone back in my pocket. “You ready?”

Iggy folds up his lyrics sheet and stuffs it in his pocket. I know he’s already got it all locked up in that insane brain of his—he just likes to look it over to reassure himself.

The crowd whoops and cheers as The Shakers take their bow.

“Sounds like a lot of people,” Iggy says mildly.

“You got this.”

I walk him to the stairs leading up the backside of the stage. The sound engineer clips on Iggy’s mic and gives him the hand-held as well. The opening bars of “Deathless Life” begin to play. Iggy squares his shoulders and I see the transformation wash over him—his eyes narrowing, his lips tightening, his fingers gripping the mic.

Then he bounds up the stairs and starts shouting with the speed of an auctioneer:

They saidI was buried

Desiccated and dead

I’ll climb up out the grave

Break the stone on ya head

I’mbreathless and reckless

Continually climb

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