Calore Dance Academy// Red Queen AU

Chapter 33

Note: I plan on inserting a chapter in Part 2 on Academy logistics next week--there will also be a fouetté contest between Mare and Evangeline, as referenced in this chapter.

Enjoy! :)

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I'm pissed.

If Kilorn were here, he'd tell me that I'm always pissed for one reason or another, but I'm especially pissed today.

Tonight, actually.

It's a Friday night, and I'm sitting in a tufted leather chair, high-backed and creamy white. The cushion beneath me might as well be stuffed with cardboard, and the chairback is no better. Though all of the furniture in this place is probably meant more for decorum than actual sitting. The chair even has clawed golden feet.

See, this particular chair I sit in is part of some designer store on Fifth Avenue, the name of which I've already forgotten. Luminous white lights shine above me, speckled ivory floor tiles are at my feet, and honestly, no walls are in sight. A second—and empty—leather chair is a few feet away from mine, and across from a beige rug rests a long grey futon. This would be a clinical, cold space if not for the racks and shelves of clothing and shoes that face me from every direction as far as the eye can see. Seriously—I can't see any walls from here.

I sit on my hands. I'm not sure what else I should be doing here aside from staring at beautiful dresses hung from oddly-shapen clothing racks or the lights suspended from fixtures that make them look like levitating bubbles. My eyes bugged out when Iris and I first walked in from the street and I was met with a bar that sold shoes instead of alcohol, and my heart nearly stopped beating when we passed through a hallway of purses.

A hallway.

After my third day of choreography for my new role as Giselle, Iris decided to invite me on an evening outing for dresses. Exhausted as I am, as much as I wanted to take the elevator upstairs and not come back down, I couldn't say no to her. Like I've said, aside from Maven, Iris is my only real friend at the Academy, and I have to at least try with her. Though I was unaware that trying would have me walking into a high-end department store on my least-favorite avenue in Manhattan.

Fifth Avenue. I hate it just as much as the Upper East Side, if not more. Everything's sparkling and gorgeous and it drives me insane. The worst part of it all is that a piece of me awakens at it now, just like how I couldn't contain myself when Maven and I went shopping for dance things. That's why I keep my hands under my legs.

"What are you thinking? You like either one?"

I glance up from a floor tile. I was counting its speckles.

Iris stands on the massive rug in front of me, holding two dresses. One's a flamboyant red, and the other's a muted grey. She raises her eyebrows and shakes the dresses on their hangers for emphasis.

I try to be nice. "The red one reminds me of that maid uniform, and the grey one is . . . boring." I give Iris a sympathetic, I'm sorry smile.

It's true that going to a store like this would piss me off. It does, but it's not the root of my anger tonight.

I was informed today by Lucas that I have to attend Tiberias Calore's gala next weekend. Lucas ran away before I could ask any questions or take out my rage on him, but what he told me was information enough. It'll be at Calore Industries' downtown building, not so far off from Wall Street, and all of the Academy's Principal and Soloist dancers are mandated to attend.

Though I'm still not sure what defines a gala, I thought they were about charity, but this sounds like anything but. It'll be a night all about publicity for Tiberias Calore when he invites Manhattan's most elite and famous, in spite of the fact that I haven't seen him step foot in the Manhattan Dance Academy since auditions. The newspapers will be there to cover it, and the rich people will be there to buy season tickets—and to return to their penthouses and tell their neighbors about it. Ex dancers of the Academy will fly in from their retirement homes on the coast to speak, the balcony seats of the Met will be auctioned off, and there's something about a live performance.