Page 39 of Malice in e minor

“I just got hired to write a ballet with Immortal Nightmare. This could be good for me.”

I broke down my night, but kept it brief because she was still at work. She would have told me if she didn’t have a few minutes to talk.

“Is that going to cause any problems?” she asked.

“Why would it?”

“Doesn’t that girl think she owns your choreographer and already not like you? I looked into her. She has a sealed record. I can unseal it, but I wanted to ask you first.”

Did I? Aside from telling everyone I was only here because I fucked Faustus, she hadn’t bothered me. And no one really believed her after Leif started spreading that video around. If it was sealed, it was probably from when Isobel was just a stupid kid. It could have been something like shoplifting.

Still, it also might be serious.

JaToya also might get caught. She was brilliant, but unsealing someone’s record was deeper than she’d gone before. I knew she could do it, but I’d never forgive myself if she got caught looking out for me. She’d lose her job. She’d probably never be able to get another one in her field because she couldn’t get clearance with a record. No one was going to seal her record.

She couldn’t. Topher seemed to know everything about everyone. If I really needed to know, I could probably flirt it out of him.

“Oh, hey, Davarius,” JaToya said.

That was code for stop with the hacking talk because her crush was back. She showed me his photo. I knew robotics scientists could be sexy because JaToya was stunning, but was it really fair for him to look like that?

“No, on the project. Call me when you aren’t at work. And if you haven’t eaten yet, eat, or I’ll call your mom.”

“I fed her,” Davarius called.

Oh, my fuck. She didn’t tell me his voice sounded like that. He could literally narrate the periodic table and sound sexy. JaToya gave me a pointed look that she also had a story to tell when she wasn’t at work.

I hung up. I needed to look at the files Leif sent over and I was curious about what Orion emailed. I needed to edit my footage so I could get it online. It was my least favorite thing to do. I had to make myself. I decided to put it off for five minutes and see what Orion had sent me.

It was just a link to two cloud files with a note: Hope you don’t mind. I was a bit inspired. Please don’t be mad. Tag, you’re it.

My mouth dropped when I opened the file. He’d downloaded just my violin from the subway for one of the pieces I’d written and added himself playing the piano. It was better than anything I could have written. His style worked with mine perfectly.

I listened to it twice before I moved to the second file. Tag, you’re it made sense. He’d attached a new piece he’d written. He must have wanted me to add my violin if I was so inspired. And I was. Orion Hart’s music always hit me in the feels, even if his personality might have put me off a bit at first.

The Immortal Nightmare boys were slightly scary. Cullen kept warning me about them. They seemed to have logical explanations for going after the people I’d witnessed them going after. Belinda should be expelled for what she did to Misha.

Orion Hart seemed to want to play a game with me. It seemed harmless and actually a little fun. His music played well with mine. I could hear the violin part as I listened to the piano piece he sent me.

Did I want to play games with Orion Hart?

After forty-five, mind numbing minutes of trying to edit footage of me playing the violin because my dumbass decided to use the massive tip Luca gave me to add a line to my cell phone plan so I could have more than one angle of me playing, I decided I absolutely wanted to play whatever game Orion Hart was trying to start.

It was Monday, and it was weird being at grad school with no classes. Rehearsals were starting back up and I didn’t meet with my advisors every day. I had all day free before rehearsal. I could have booked a practice room and hid in there all day, but even antisocial bat people needed friends and I liked the dancers here.

I showed up to the common room with my precisely ten gallon tankard of coffee and they were there in layers like they always were stretching and talking. Leif was there with them this time and he was clearly a lot more comfortable here than he was at dinner.

“Hi, Harlowe,” he grinned. “We were just discussed why Cullen and Rue didn’t convince me warming up here was better than the studio where Belinda and Harmony won’t shut up about their parts in The Nutcracker.”

I only knew Belinda was one of Mother Ginger’s children because Azriel kept assaulting her on stage. Cullen saw the look on my face and grinned.

“You know the bear that has to stand there and just shake their butt in the big sweaty costume while Paige and Gillian do their duet as the dolls? The Nutcracker has a huge cast and there are a lot of roles that pantomime instead of dance. They usually cast children and parents in those roles.

“The dance department this year is huge, so some of the roles they would have borrowed from the theatre department are cast with dancers. A good bit of the dancers are double or triple cast. Like, they might have an acting role in the party scene, but a good bit of them are snowflakes or flowers, which are challenging roles. The ones that didn’t even try at auditions because they thought they were owed a part because of seniority didn’t. We’ve actually gotten several motivational speeches about it where this was explained to them, but they think Rue slept with someone.”

“You too? Isobel is telling everyone I fucked Faustus.”

“Leif, Isobel is the reason we didn’t try that hard to convince you to warm up here. She can’t get to you in the studio.”