Chapter 16
Sixteen
“Now we know that, as much as Shakespeare should go over well with a crowd like this, they are not into Romeo and Juliet,” Declan says, stuffing his arms into his shirt and pulling it on over his head as he bounds after me backstage.
The air behind the curtain hums with movement. Musicians tune their instruments, dancers adjust their costumes, a man in full body paint sneezes as he applies another layer of glitter. I swipe a squashed fig from my sleeve and flick it on the ground.
“They threw rotten figs at me, but they don’t like Shakespeare. Make that make sense.” I pick another sticky piece of pulp from my skirt. “Maybe I misremembered the balcony monologue. I don’t know it word for word, but the vibe was definitely right.”
“My monologue was fire.”
“Aren’t you too old to call it fire?”
Declan shakes his head, weaving around a contortionist warming up beside a table covered in masks. “They loved me out there.”
I shoot him a look over my shoulder. “You didn’t need to take your shirt off.”
“Says who?” he asks, brow furrowed. “Do I need to remind you again of how much they loved me?”
“Yes, I know. Your fan club in the front row nearly fainted, and whenever I said any of my lines, I was pelted with fruit.”
He grins that slow, infuriating grin that never fails to find its way under my skin. “All good theater involves a little tragedy, a little longing, and a lot of skin.”
I snort. “That’s not a quote from Shakespeare.”
“Should’ve been.”
Nessa’s blond hair catches my eye as she slips through the jumble, clutching a polished brass torch and a vial of oil. The torch gleams like a trophy in her grip, and her whole face shines, lit from the inside with giddy nerves.
“This is the moment I was born for!” she whisper-shouts, her voice fizzing like champagne. “Song joined with flame—two arts united. The queens will see me at last. And it’s all thanks to you and your teachings, brilliant Story Witch.”
“It hasn’t been that long.” My stomach knots. “Have you had enough time to practice?”
Her smile widens, luminous. “Think happy thoughts, remember? Doubt is poison. Nothing will go wrong if I only manifest love and light.”
“Nessa—” I reach for her, but the Player’s voice is already rolling out across the stage, commanding silence.
“Behold Nessa Ellesmere, the Songbird of Wands, with a voice like warmed honey and a heart as pure as glass. Listen well to her melodies that speak what mere words cannot. Sing, Nessa, sing so your kingdom may be entertained!”
The crowd roars, and Nessa steps into the light with her chin lifted, torch raised above her head.
Applause shakes the stage, and I try to swallow back the dread creeping up my throat with the same affirmations I spoon-fed Nessa and her friends. She’s fine. She’s golden. She’s aligned.
Nessa joins the tip of her torch with another, and it flares to life.
She moves to the center of the stage and sings her first note.
The clear thread of her voice weaves through the hush as she glides across the stage, torch in hand.
For a few moments, she is everything she’s said aloud she would be.
She is incandescent, deserving, untouchable.
She glides across the stage, mellifluous voice ringing out.
She hits a stunning high note, takes a breath, and tips the oil into her mouth.
Her cheeks swell with liquid, ready to spit flame when her toe catches the edge of a brazier.
A stumble, barely there, but enough to slice the rhythm in two.
She inhales a gasp, recovering quickly, but the damage is done.
The sound that rips from her throat is wrong. She doubles over, sputtering and coughing, clawing at her throat, eyes wide and wet. The torch clatters to the stage, sparks spitting across the boards.
Gasps split the audience, and a ripple of horror moves through the court.
Nessa staggers upright, arms outstretched toward the wings. Toward me.
“Nessa!” I crash onto the stage. “I’m here.”
She shoves me back with a wild, broken motion. Her voice is raw, shredded. “Happy thoughts, is that what you’ve come to tell me?”
Her words bleed fury and grief in equal measure, and my own throat closes around the tears rising fast and hot.
The Player’s guards rush from the wings, catching her as she sags between them. She twists against their grip, her gaze finding mine, pinning me to the spot like a spear.
“Tell me, Story Witch,” she croaks, every word edged with fury, “what have you gained from your pretty thoughts alone?”
The Player’s guards carry Nessa away, her broken sobs echoing behind her.
Queen Solara leans forward in her throne and crosses her arms over her chest.
“A pity,” she says, lips curving in something that is not quite a smile. “A spectacle begun in brilliance, ended in ruin.”
“And she has always been one of my favorites.” Zephara pouts. “Alas, a flame that falters is indeed no flame at all.”
A low murmur stirs through the court, and from the corner of the stage, the Player inclines her head, as if the judgment were already written.
Tears burn the backs of my eyes, but I lift my chin and force the words out. “Call it ruin if you like,” I spit, “but you’ll remember her. You’ll remember this. Because it’s not devotion you crave—it’s spectacle. And she gave her voice for yours.”
I rush off the stage after Nessa, world swimming in unshed tears, but Romy and Celine close ranks at the stage’s edge.
“You shall not go near her,” Celine hisses. “Your teachings have cost her enough.”
Her words pierce deeper than any blade. For a breath, I can’t move.
Then the dam breaks. My legs carry me forward, fast and furious, torchlight stretching my shadow long and jagged across the sand.
Declan is practically chasing me, his stride eating up the space I’m trying to put between myself and every mistake I’ve made that led me here.
Dav is planted like a gargoyle outside our tent, arms folded, eyes narrowed.
“I warned you,” he mutters. “Had it been up to me, you’d never have left this tent. And no voice would lie in ruins because of you.”
“I feel bad enough, Dav,” I snap, breath tearing ragged in my chest. “I really don’t need this from you.”
“You need it most of all,” he fires back, stepping closer. “You cannot come into this kingdom with your tricks and infect others with your recklessness. Witch or fraud, it makes no difference if all that is left behind is ruin and regret. Your guilt, Story Witch, is too cheap a price.”
“Dav, back off,” Declan growls, his patience thinning.
But something inside me cracks open, molten and wild. “You think I don’t know what I’ve done?” I scream, every word burning my throat. “You think I don’t have regrets?”
Declan grabs my arm, trying to steer me inside.
“Get off me!” I shove against him, heat prickling up my neck.
Dav steps forward, shadow long in the torchlight. “Do you see now? I told you this path led nowhere but ruin.”
“Shut up.” My hands shake, but I ball them into fists. “I don’t need another lecture.”
“You need truth,” he says, each word precise. “You spilled your empty visions, another paid the price, and now you rage as though you are the injured one.”
“I never—” My throat tightens. The image of Nessa’s wide, panicked eyes sears me raw. “I never meant for it to go that way.”
“Intent won’t heal the girl’s voice—”
“Enough!” I hold my hand up, palms out. “I already hate myself, all right? I know I ruined everything!”
Declan wedges between us, his hand firm on my arm again. “Let’s go inside.”
The fight drains out of me in a rush, and I let him pull me into the tent and seal it closed behind us. The moment he does, I wrench my arm free. “Oh, what, now you’re my handler too?”
“You don’t get to be an asshole to me because you feel like shit,” he bites out. “You messed up.”
“I know that!”
“And you wish there was something you could do about it. But there isn’t.”
That knocks the air from my lungs.
I stumble backward, thighs hitting the bed. My purse lies tossed across the covers where I left it earlier, spilling glittery scraps of my so-called magickal life. My pulse pounds in my ears, and my hands shake as I dig into it, the ritual tools spilling out onto the sheets.
If there’s nothing I can do for Nessa, then I’ll take action for me. I’ll do something to prove the wheel is still turning, that I’m not powerless, that all my affirmations and scripting weren’t just empty words that broke a girl.
I drag out rose quartz, a crumpled affirmation card, and a candle Romy gave me that she said was imbued with the fire energy of Wands. I place them on the sheet, chasing my own version of control like it might stitch the world back together.
My chest aches with the image of Nessa clawing her throat, her voice splintering like glass. My fault. My words. My empty love-and-light bullshit.
I arrange the candle, the card, and the rose quartz into a triangle on the silk sheets, the crystal gleaming at the top point. I step back to admire the symmetry as if neat angles might disguise the shame tangled around my heart.
“I wish my phone wasn’t dead.” I tilt my chin. “This would be cute on my feed.”
Declan, arms folded across his chest, is a dark shadow in my periphery. “Is that really the priority right now?”
Of course it isn’t. Of course I’m being ridiculous. But better ridiculous than shattered. Better cute angles and crystals than the sound of Nessa’s voice tearing apart still ringing in my ears. If immaturity is all I’ve got to keep from unraveling, then fine—I’ll take it.
I blink at him, widening my eyes just a little. “What? I’m making a witchy triangle. It’s literally cute. My followers would love it.”
He watches me for a beat that lasts too long. “You doing this on purpose?”
My smile is soft, practiced. “Doing what?”