"Make it purposeful!" Miss Sylvia said with a musical lilt. "It's tendu, not ten-don't."
Mitchell groaned beside Rowen. After a week of listening to Miss Sylvia's "motivational" sayings she'd imagined herself inured to the awful humor, but this one was particularly egregious. Her partner clearly felt the same.
Rowen had discovered for certain that Mitchell was human. When someone teased him about Thomas, his cheeks did the color-changing thing, and she'd seen him eating a human food called "hamburger" than would have laid her up for a week. It had taken her a few days to be certain though, and her feelings on the matter were a thorny tangle.
Still, Mitchell was good—really good. It was a joy to dance with him every afternoon. Unlike most of the other dancers, who kept their distance and sneaked shy glances but didn't talk to her, Mitchell was a bubbling spring of conversation. Praise, jokes, and a litany of daily details he couldn't have known she would find so interesting poured forth from his mouth as though he needed to speak the way most humans needed to breathe. And when they danced together, it was as though he could read her mind, anticipate her moves, even her occasional wobbles. He was amazing.
But everyone here was good. Better than Rowen had expected. She had to work just as hard as when she'd been in Avalon but, unlike there, the other students also put extra time in at the studio. She was rarely alone in the open classroom.
These human dancers seemed to be, if possible, even more driven than Rowen. Which didn't make sense. They had infinitely more choices; they could still play some role in their community if they got cut. But there they were, after class, a decent handful of them at all hours, fine-tuning turns, pounding complex combinations into their brains, rarely chatting idly.
Instead of making her feel less alone, the discovery of this commonality somehow made her feel even more isolated.
Miss Sylvia clapped her hands after warm-ups—which was what the humans called "stretch and limbers"—and said, "Nutcracker Grand Pas de Deux."
Rowen looked around as everyone around her groaned, a few voices asking, "Already?" What was so disappointing about this announcement?
"Take some time to refresh your memories and work out your moves with your new partners," Miss Sylvia said. "We'll come back together at the top of the hour." Rowen scrunched her eyebrows, waiting for some kind of further instruction, but no one else seemed confused. They were simply turning to their partners and starting to pick through steps.
She barely felt Mitchell's fingertips take hers until he pulled on her and she stumbled, falling against his chest.
"Oh, sorry, Love. First turn. I thought you'd be ready."
"First turn?"
"Well, not turn, exactly." He put a hand on her waist, nudged her up en pointe, and guided her leg with his hands. "Devant développé." He pushed her quite ungracefully under his arm in a spin. "Pirouette. Attitude derrière. Look, watch Meghan."
Meghan and Thomas were moving slowly, but confidently through the motions Mitchell had just helped Rowen stagger though, and then continuing on, working together seamlessly. "They've danced this before," Rowen said, knowing somehow that she was helplessly behind and still not exactly comprehending why.
"Not together. Obvs Meghan danced it with me last year," he said with a wide grin. "Thomas' old partner graduated. Dances with Boston now. It's not San Francisco, but it's a job."
"You dance it every year?" With so many ways to dance, why would they do the same pas de duex over and over?
"For auditions. For The Nutcracker."
"The Nutcracker?"
"I know. Done to death, but it's tradition." He nodded toward Meghan again. "She wants Clara this year. Violently. Not that I blame her. It would be a coup."
Rowen's head was spinning and she had the discouraging sensation of having been thrown into deep and frigid water without the ability to swim. "What's The Nutcracker?"
Mitchell finally shut up at that. But the way he stared at her with wide, horrified eyes didn't exactly improve the atmosphere. Then his features cleared and he laughed. "Oh, you must call it something else where you're from. Scotland, yes? What language do they speak there?"
"Er, Gaelic," she answered automatically, though she remembered Tamani saying that wasn't exactly true.
"Figure out what the Gaelic word is for it, and that'll clear everything up." He paused. "Though you'd think the character names would be the same. Similar, at least. Clara? Fritz? The Sugarplum Fairy?"
Rowen shook her head at the first two names then froze at the F-word before shaking her head once more.
"You've got to know it." He paused, pursed his lips, and then started wordlessly singing an intricate tune that didn't sound like anything Rowen had ever heard before.
"Oh, forget it," he said after a while. "I can barely carry a tune with a bucket in my hands. It's just the language barrier; I'm sure of it. Every dancer knows The Nutcracker. In the meantime, let's go work with Meghan and Thomas."
"Mitchell, I don't think—"
"Come now, Darling, bark worse than her bite and all that."
Bite? Surely humans wouldn't actually bite each other! Not in the middle of ballet class at any rate. But she didn't resist too hard when her partner pulled her over to the other pair.
"Hey Lovelies," Mitchell said, still holding her wrist. "Work with us—Row doesn't know this one."
Meghan raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. "New girl doesn't know the Nutcracker Grand Pas de Deux? Are you kidding me?"
"Don't mock," Mitchell said, and Rowen was surprised to hear a hard edge in his voice. And even more surprised when Meghan responded by closing her mouth and shrugging a vague acquiescence.
Neither Meghan nor Rowen said a word as they went through the movements, though the boys murmured and chuckled easily. They spent the next fifteen minutes walking through the first several bars of the dance before Miss Sylvia called for their attention and began going through each step in careful detail, working on form and positioning.
The cheerful but picky instructor returned again and again to Meghan and Thomas, praising Meghan's lines, her balance, her light fingers on Thomas'. For the first time since classes started, there wasn't a single word of praise for Rowen, who spent as much time watching the other dancers as she did focusing on her own steps. Meghan mostly hid her smug grin, but Rowen had been in the theatre too long to miss that tiny tilt at the edges of her mouth.
The two hours of pas de deux felt more like two days, but finally Miss Sylvia released them.
"Row, come here," Mitchell said, beckoning to where his duffel sat on the floor. He riffled through it and found a large, fat pen, which he clasped in both hands in supplication. "Darling, I love you to pieces and I think you're extraordinarily skilled, but you've got to get up to speed on this dance. Casting for the winter show is based on this pas de deux and—even though they claim otherwise—casting for the spring audition is heavily-influenced by your performance in The Nutcracker." He took a deep breath and then continued, still so very serious. Especially for him. "The spring concert is your audition for every major company in the world and if you fail, you don't get a job. Ever. My career is resting on this and I need you to be one hundred and seven percent. I swear on a stack of Bibles and one copy of Luna that I'll give you nothing less in return."
Rowen nodded, but didn't trust herself to speak without tearing up. She hadn't fully understood everything he'd said, but she knew that tone of voice. It was the one her fellow Sparklers had used the audition after a Ticer pushed one of them out. "Tell me what to do," she said.
He grabbed her arm and started writing on it with the pen—thick black letters that looked like they'd never wash off. "YouTube," he said, concentrating on the letters. "Nutcracker. Grand Pas de Deux. Find the one with Anna Tsygankova and Matthew Golding. They're the best." He added those names to the scrawl on her skin and Rowen was pretty sure she'd be sporting them for the rest of her life. "Our choreography is very slightly different, but that's the closest version, and I can totally show you the changes." He looked up at her as he put the lid back on the pen with a little snap. "Come on Monday with the moves basically down and we can work from there. Be ready to stay after every day this week." He stepped forward and held both her hands in his. "I can't teach you the whole dance from scratch and still expect to be where we need to be in six weeks for auditions. It's too much. We've got to be fine tuning within a week."
"I'll learn it," she said, needing to interrupt this frenetic current of desperate words. "I promise. I—I'm sorry I don't know it already."
"No, no. It's okay." He grinned, but there was a nervousness there that kept the smile from shining in his eyes. "You'll probably get two minutes into the clip and realize you totally do know it. I mean, Scotland isn't Mars—surely they have The Nutcracker."
Rowen gave him her best fake smile and hoped it reassured him somewhat. "I'll work hard," she promised. And hoped Tamani wasn't planning on going home to Orick this weekend. Or, if he was, that he wouldn't mind leaving her in San Francisco.
With another brittle smile at Mitchell, she shouldered her rucksack and headed out the door. Tamani had requested she not stay late tonight—said he had an appointment of some kind—and besides, it was Friday. People rarely stayed late on Friday; they came back on Saturday instead. Rowen had come in herself last Saturday, for some extra studio hours, but this weekend she wouldn't be ready. She apparently was going to have to go home and watch videos of this ballet that everyone knew except her. It was more than a little humiliating. Ducking her head, she made for the door where she'd be able to see Tamani when he pulled up to the curb.
Standing right in front of that door was a tall male she didn't recognize. She slowed as she approached and something skittered inside her chest as she took him in from shoes to hair. He was tall—taller than most of the danseurs at the school—and though he wasn't one of them, he had that lithe, supple build that suggested he could have been. He was wearing tiny soundmakers in his ears and was staring down at a device—what had Tamani called it? An intelligent phone?—but even though he wasn't looking at her, she had the sensation of being prey in the presence of a hunter.
"Hey, Shawn," Mitchell called from behind her, and edged past to do a sort of complex hand-shaking greeting that Rowen had observed only happened between males of the species.
Rowen stopped walking. There was no point; this Shawn creature was blocking the doors and, in Mitchell's chatty company, she doubted either of them would be moving along any time soon. Besides, still trying to push human friendships on her, Tamani continued to show up a little late every day, hoping Rowen would use the time to strike up conversations with her classmates. Which she might be willing to do if only she knew how to start. Instead, she was utterly baffled and fairly certain the other dancers interpreted that as snobbish. The few times she had attempted to start a conversation, the girls had kept asking her to repeat herself until she grew so rattled she started stammering, which only made the problem worse. So she'd given up with everyone except Mitchell.
And she was on the verge of failing him.
"Oh hey," Mitchell said, his hand snaking out so quickly Rowen couldn't dodge. He dragged her close and slung an arm around her shoulders. "My new partner."
"You don't have Meghan anymore?" Shawn asked.
"We get a new partner every year." He leaned over and kissed her temple, making Rowen feel a little better. "She's good though. A worthy replacement, and I don't say that lightly."
"Big compliment, then," Shawn said, grinning.
Rowen dropped her eyelids. That smile. It sent a vibration of something pleasant radiating out of her core and into her stems. Her breath felt short and her knees were wobbly, as though she'd put in far more time in the studio today than she actually had.
"She's modest," Mitchell said, the humor heavy in his voice when he squeezed her shoulders. "But you should watch her through the windows one of these days. She's amazing. Even if she doesn't know what The Nutcracker is."
Rowen elbowed Mitchell, but he only laughed and stepped out of reach. "I'm off. Get into some trouble while I'm gone," he said in a sing-song voice and waggled his eyebrows at them suggestively.
Rowen waited for the disgust at his insinuation to well up within her, but instead it felt as though fireworks were going off in her belly and she felt irrationally shy. She ducked her head and stared at Shawn's shoes, even as she wished she had the courage to look at his face.
"Mitchell's really good," Shawn said. His voice was quite low and rumbled like gentle thunder. "Even though he's super friendly, he's actually picky as hell. He must really be impressed with you. How long have you been dancing?"
"Since I could walk," Rowen muttered, kicking herself for this paralyzing bout of panic that barely let her stammer out her words.
"Ah, same as Meghan, then."
Meghan? This was the second time he'd mentioned her. "Meghan is ... your girlfriend?" She forced the words out, not understanding why it seemed so very critical that she know this answer.
But Shawn only barked out a loud laugh. "No, no, no. My sister."
"Oh." Rowen straightened, feeling nearly jovial at that. But, of course, she should have seen. Shawn had the same dark skin and hair as Meghan, and she'd already noted his height and supple build. She just hadn't made the connection that he was a masculine version of Meghan. "Of course you are." Why did she feel suddenly cheerful?
Rowen forced herself to raise her eyelids, trying to figure out what was so different about this human. He wore the bulky footwear Tamani referred to as "tennis shoes," and his legs were bare up to a pair of shorts that just covered his knees. They weren't quite the denim Rowen often saw males wearing in films, though never on Tamani, but they weren't the soft shorts the other danseurs wore either. They were a bit poofy and had a number of pockets down each side of his thighs. She imagined them quite useful. But what yanked at her attention was they way they hung, low slung, just beneath his hipbones. And even though she couldn't see any actual skin at his waist, his shirt was fitted such that she could see the curves and shadows of ridges and ripples just above the waistband. She was holding her breath and didn't bother to let it out as her eyes traveled higher, noting his slender torso and corded arms.
Then she was peering at his face.
And he was looking right back.
His features were statuesque, as fine and sleek as any faerie could wish, with eyes dark as moist soil, the kind delicate seedlings were planted in. Completely against her will, she found the corners of her mouth rising upward.
He smiled back and for a moment the world stopped and a cloud of perfection settled around them.
"Hey Shawn."
Two words broke the spell. While the other girls seemed put off by Rowen's shyness, Meghan had no problem tossing Rowen nasty looks, whispering comments in her direction, or snickering if Miss Sylvia had cause to correct her. What Rowen had said about the scholarship—the compliment she'd so carefully tried to give—had backfired in a massive way. Meghan's front row seat at today's pas de deux disaster hadn't helped.
The human girl stepped right up beside Shawn, tucked herself under his arm, and tried to push him toward the door.
"Simmer," Shawn said with a grin. "I'm making friends." And then he looked at Rowen and there was an invitation in his gaze that made Rowen's mouth feel dry and glued her feet to the floor. What in the name of the Goddess was wrong with her?
Meghan gave a brittle laugh and said, "Her? That's Rowen." She tipped her head nearer to Shawn and said, meaningfully, "The new one."
"Ah," Shawn replied, and his eyes shuttered, all invitation vanished in an instant.
It felt like a slap across her face. Her thoughts reeled, speech fled, fiery darts of indignity pinned her to inaction.
Shawn smirked, his expression taunting. "Nothing left to say?"
Rowen only pursed her lips and remained silent. She'd never been one to beat against walls of stone.
"Oh, Rowen doesn't talk," Meghan said. "She's better than the rest of us."
The insult left Rowen feeling hot and cold at once—in part, somehow, because Meghan had said it in front of her brother. Meghan's brother, who was looking at Rowen like she deserved such treatment. Something about him, about his brown eyes, darker than any faerie could ever have, finally helped melt the ice that was holding her in place. With a flip of her head she tossed her hair and let her not-of-this-world brogue roll out extra heavy.
"I doon talk 'cause people laugh at my accent. 'Tis nae aboot being better. Doon need to spake to dance. But, aye, there ye're right. As far as dancin' goes, I am better'n the rest of ye."
Straight and tall, with that natural grace Miss Sylvia frequently praised in front of everyone, she shoved past the both of them, knowing without looking that his eyes followed her all the way down the hall.