Page 33 of Nightmare's Dance

We had a rolling platform we used for rigging and stuff. Maybe they could get that—if I’d be able to make it down.

The lights went out, and I squeaked out another muffled cry.

“Ember.” Nic’s gently accented voice soothed me, containing none of the anger from earlier.

How did he get up here?

Arms wrapped around me, holding me tight.

“I promise I will never let you fall,” he said. “Let go and hold on to me.”

Tears leaked out from the corners of my eyes. I’d fallen and fallen and fallen, and I never wanted to fall again.

He gently pried my fingers off the silk, all the while murmuring to me how he’d never let me go.

My entire body shook as he slowly untangled me from my perch and pulled me into his arms. I buried my face against his chest and gripped his shirt hard enough to tear fabric—if he hadn’t had some sort of weird dream material making up his clothing. Once he had my feet free, I wrapped my legs around his waist and clung to him like a monkey.

“You’re lucky my body is relatively mutable,” he grunted, “or you’d be crushing my ribs right now.”

“Maybe you’re lucky,” I stammered.

He chuckled, and then we were sitting on the ground. I hadn’t felt the transition at all. The lights flicked on, but I couldn’t get my arms to relax. Terror still had me in its grip, though I was no longer in the air.

Terror of falling, but also fear that I might have lost my ability to fly. I lived for my time in the silks and in the straps. What if I could never go back? What if Baz had taken that from me, too?

“It’s okay, Ember,” Nic whispered, resting his cheek against my head. He held me tightly in his arms. “Take your time.”

I sniffed, trying to hold back the tears, but his soft words broke the dam I’d built in the handful of hours I’d been home, and everything I’d been holding back burst forth. I sobbed in his arms, distantly aware that Ash had wrapped herself around me from the back.

It was probably only a few minutes, but I felt like I’d cried for hours by the time the flood of tears stopped.

“Sorry,” I choked out.

“We all gotta ugly cry sometimes, Spark,” Ash said.

Nic tightened his arms around me briefly.

“Thought you were leaving,” I said, still speaking against his chest.

“It turns out we broke the only suitable mirror,” he said.

“You can’t use just any mirror?” The question pulled me out of some of my funk.

“Only mirrors backed with silver.”

“What about the cabin mirror?”

“It’s broken as well.” Something about the way Nic held me made me feel like he was happy to have me there, despite his anger earlier. He held me the way Geraint did, possessively, as if he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me if he could help it.

I wanted to sink into that feeling and pretend like I could count on Nic like I could Geraint. Instead, I made myself pull away. I knew next to nothing about Nic, and I didn’t want to fool myself into thinking I could rely on him. Of course, it seemed I hadn’t known everything about Geraint, either. But honestly, I’d known he wasn’t telling me everything about his past, and I’d never pushed. It was easier just to accept what he gave me and not dig any deeper. Really, I was just as glad I hadn’t. If I managed to rescue him, I wasn’t sure how things would change, but I knew they would. That broke my heart all over again.

“I’m sorry. I have no idea what happened.” I scooted backward on the crash mat I’d put down under my silks.

“Perhaps you should stick closer to the ground until you’ve recovered from the trauma Baz inflicted upon you,” Nic suggested gently.

“Maybe.” I sighed. “Guess I’ll practice my lyra for a while.” I didn’t even look up at the silks, didn’t put them away like I should have. I just got up and walked away.

The day was well into dusk when I went outside, and mosquitos buzzed around me. Crickets chirped and cicadas filled the air with their pulsating sound. I wiped sweat from my brow and trudged to the house.

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