Page 115 of The Devil and His Goddess

“I can’t,” I answered in a small voice.

“Why?” he demanded even as his face remained deadly calm. Again, the question was posed, already knowing my answer.

I shook my head and gestured at the mirror behind him. “Because all I see is a girl who’s broken.”

“Harper,” Aiysha gasped sadly before coming to kneel beside me on the floor. She wrapped her arm around my shoulder and squeezed me, but my gaze stayed trained on Perseus’s.

I knew what his response would be. It was the same one he gave me every time we had this conversation, and we’d had it plenty of times. We’d briefly started it in the pool and since then, we’d had it a handful more. He’d always try to convince me I wasn’t broken, but his belief in me didn’t match the facts stacked against me.

“You aren’t broken,” he declared as he always did.

“Then why can’t I get back to who I was before?” I fired back. “Why can’t I dance like I used to?”

“Because that’s not who you are anymore, Harper,” he answered with a furrowed brow, the first sign of his sure mask giving way to glimpses of pain. “As much as we want to rewind time to save you from what happened, wecan’t. We don’t have the power to change what’s already happened, which means the girl you’ve been searching for isn’t there. She’s changed.You’vechanged. You have to let go of her and start dancing as the Harper you arenow.”

The truth of his statement hit me like a gust of wind on a mountain’s cliff. I had no response to form as I fell over the edge and into a place where I had to face what he was saying.

Who I was before was vibrant, gifted with a way of dancing, flirtatious, and full oflife. I was naive and unfamiliar with struggles like the one in store for me.

Who I was now was dull, struggling with what mattered most, hesitant, and full of so muchpain. I was well-acquainted with the evil of the world and had tasted its poison.

I’d been trying to dance as myself from before, but how could I? How could I dance or even live as though the poison didn’t run through my veins?

So who exactly was I now? I’d been trying to figure that out, and I always came back to the same conclusion.

“The girl I am now is weak,” I choked out.

Perseus clenched his fists as his jaw ticked. Aiysha squeezed me harder and immediately tried to dismiss the notion, but her reassurances fell on deaf ears.

Perseus shot to his feet and stared down at me. “Get up. You’re dancing.”

The abrupt command paired with the authoritative tone he used as artistic director had nerves darting around inside of me. He already knew I couldn’t do it, but still, I stood with Aiysha next to me.

Perseus held a hand out next to him, and a long, thick black cloth suddenly appeared in his palm. Without a word, he came up to me and began to wrap the cloth around my eyes like a blindfold.

“What are you doing?” I asked, reaching up to pull the fabric off.

“Don’t,” he warned, making me freeze.

He secured the cloth near my bun, and the heat of his body left my back as he moved to my front and started pulling my pointe shoes off to replace them with something else. I wiggled my foot and gave a test tap on the ground, confirming it was a stretch canvas ballet shoe.

“You’re going to dance with that blindfold on,” he announced once finished with my shoes.

I frowned and opened my mouth to argue, but Aiysha beat me to it.

“Perseus, she has to see to dance. Vision is crucial for balance and placement and a whole slew of things. She’ll fall or—”

“No, she won’t.”

The confident response came from right in front of me. Even with the total darkness, I could feel his searing gaze on me. I could feel his unfaltering belief in me. Despite knowing the trash performances I’d been giving all this time, he still believed that I was capable of more, and I desperatelywantedto believe him.

Silence descended over the room. I waited to hear them discuss more or argue, but they said nothing—at least, nothing that I could hear. I turned my head in every direction and asked, “Are you guys still there?”

Another brief moment of quiet came before Perseus answered from near the stereo. “We’re here. Are you ready?”

I worried my lip and touched the fabric over my eyes. “Do I have to do it blindfolded?”

“Yes,” came his firm reply.

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