Calore Dance Academy// Red Queen AU

Chapter 32

My heart pounds as Manhattan blurs before me.

Familiar glass, grey pavement, dying sunlight, and electric signs circle back around me with every turn. Those things come and go without fail, again and again until they might as well all be the same, however hard I spot my head. Though it's nothing more than a distant understanding, people walk on the sidewalks below, across the streets. They look like little ants from here. They always do.

A pianist carries on behind me, fingers perhaps as nimble as my feet are right about now. Numbers echo in my mind, and it's only those counts that remind me to come out of my strange turn combination to run.

Straight into a leap.

My legs burn, and my lungs feel about ready to collapse.

When I turn around for the mirror, pleading with my memories to recall what comes next, I look nothing short of insane. But it is the Mad Scene, after all.

It goes on to finish.

Sweat glues my skin to the long-sleeve shirt that I made the mistake of throwing over my leotard this afternoon, but I keep in time with the music. It's a difficult thing to do when time seems to be ebbing and flowing.

Piqué, piqué, piqué. Arabesque.

The notes of the piano reach a crescendo, sad and aching.

Chassé. Tour jeté.

I fall into a deep curtsey, arching my back.

Giselle never comes up, crumbling out of her curtsy to the floor.

I behold the city through the glass, and while I'm not turning anymore, Times Square is still that mess of lights and signs.

If this were an actual show, whatever woman that plays Giselle's mother would have me in her arms and weep over me. Today, though, I just lie limp on the floor.

The final note of Act One—where Giselle has danced her heart to death, quite literally—rings, and I force myself to sit up. My hands go straight to my pointe shoes the moment the ring's echo fades out.

There might be an entire city in front of me, but as soon as I've undone the ribbons and yanked each of my pointe shoes off, I look to the ceiling. Forearms balanced on my head in an attempt to get more air into my dying lungs, I focus on that ceiling. Tiny black spots join the cream paint.

I wiggle my toes, waiting for feeling to return to them.

Throw in another thousand details and you have yourself a two-minute-thirty-second piece.

Giselle never should've fallen in love with that stupid Count Albrecht.

"Lovely job today, Miss Barrow."

What comes from my throat is meant to be a laugh, but it sounds more like a breathless groan once it's out.

Still, I manage to say, "Thanks, Carmadon."

When I've regained enough sense to look away from the ceiling, I find the ballet master leaning against the barre at the studio's side. With his charming smile, Carmadon Green is far less threatening than Rane Arven, though the man knows his ballet just as well. Along with Blonos, Elara, and Arven, he's the fourth and final ballet master of the Academy.

I only met him this morning, barely given the chance to shake his hand before he was spouting out counts and instructions and dancing to his own choreography. In fact, I know very little about my newest ballet instructor, other than that he has the darkest eyes, skin the color of chocolate, and is about fifty years old. And that while Carmadon might smile and has a quietness about him, he's a killer teacher who almost killed me today by shoving the entire First Act in my face.