Chapter 18
Eighteen
Canon savored Cadenza’s text from last night as pre-debate bustle swirled backstage.
Hey Canon, I need to talk to you. Actually, I have a favor to ask. Do you have time to talk in person?
His heart had leapt at that. She was asking him for something—maybe she was finally coming around. The fact that he wasn’t there in person to talk, however, had made his teeth grind. He’d come down to Fresno a day early, at Vasilios’s urging, so he’d be fresh and unhurried for the afternoon debate.
I would love to, he had texted back, but I’m in Fresno for a debate. Do you want to call?
She hadn’t answered for five minutes, and he’d thought he’d blown it, but then her answer came.
Text me the address. Reyna and I are going to come down for the debate. I’d rather talk in person.
Canon relaxed back in his seat, a smug smile spread across his face.
“You look like the proverbial cat with the canary.” Vasilios crossed the dressing area and pulled up a chair. “You haven’t won the debate yet, and you left these at the hotel.” He handed Canon a stack of index cards with notes. “Where’s your focus?”
Canon showed him last night’s text thread, and Vasilios’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“I see.” He stared at the phone another moment before handing it back. “Well done. I’ll try to find her in the audience and pull her up on stage at the end, get a good photo. In the meantime, you better get your head in the game, so she doesn’t drive two hours just to see you lose.”
Canon didn’t answer. In the audience. Cadenza and her friend would be in the audience, with hundreds of other people.
Vasilios had told Canon he’d assigned a security team to tail her whenever she left Norroway Auto—Canon brushed aside the guilt over not telling her; it was for her own good—but there would be so many people here, and surely whoever was after Cadenza was also monitoring her movements.
“Vas,” he said, suddenly wary of the chaos and multitude of people backstage. “If Cadenza’s going to be here, I want you to triple check the building. Check the unused rooms in the hallway, check the balcony. Don’t miss anything.”
“Of course, of course,” his mentor said. “I care deeply about the state of Ms. Cavalieri’s welfare.” He looked over his shoulder and leaned closer. “Am I to assume this new development means you were successful with Mr. Learmonth?”
Canon’s elation dimmed. “No.” He busied himself with the index cards. “Thomas refused.”
Vasilios stared at him, eyes narrowed. Canon stopped fidgeting, Vasilios’s gaze pinning him in place. The noise of the green room faded into the background.
“He refused?” his mentor asked quietly.
“He said he had nothing else to give me,” Canon said.
A muscle twitched in Vasilios’s jaw. “He’s lying. He can still make you more. Go back again. Insist.”
“Why? I don’t need more. We have a strong—”
“Thomas Learmonth,” Vasilios hissed. “Guards a seat of power—power I need you to get into.”
Canon blanched, taken aback. Backlit from the dressing table, Vasilios’s face loomed over him, fierce and shadowed.
“You need?” he asked. Power that Thomas guards?
Vasilios’s language in the past had referred to gifts Thomas was able to give, not to things to be guarded, like some dragon hoard.
Much like when Thomas had called Cadenza by her first name, the suspicion that there were plans at work Canon was unaware of—elements of a game he didn’t know was being played—sank into his stomach.
His mentor swiveled his chair, and the dressing table light caught his face fully, erasing the shadows. “Yes, of course, ‘you need,’” he said mildly. “You need every advantage. Politics is a vicious game.”
“No,” Canon said. “You said that you needed me to get to what Thomas has, for you.”
“Canon.” Vasilios smiled at him. “You’re nervous, this is a big debate. You simply misheard me. You know I don’t have the temperament for being in the spotlight myself.”
Canon searched his face, hunting for a trace of the shadows he’d seen. He found none, but the unease in his gut persisted. Keeping his expression neutral, he brought his gift to bear on his benefactor. What did Vasilios want right now?
Success. Victory. Power. Peace. All centered around Canon.
He relaxed. Vasilios was right, he must be nervous to imagine anything suspicious. Vasilios had only ever helped him pursue his dream. No reason to get jumpy.
Vasilios clapped him on the shoulder. “I will go attend to the extra security precautions and assign a volunteer to escort Ms. Cavalieri to the stage at the end. You focus on the debate.”
Vasilios left, and Canon went through breathing exercises. Took a long drink of water. Stared himself down in the mirror. Focus. Crush this debate, then be ready to do whatever Cadenza needs.
He studied his notes until a runner told him he had five minutes. In the wings, he scanned the crowd, searching for dark hair and an extraordinary face. There. He shot off a text.
Hey, thanks for coming.
He watched as Cadenza checked her phone and looked up to the sides of the stage. She took a selfie with Reyna that arrived a few seconds later. Good luck!
The debate flew by. His answers were on point, his rebuttals landed like punches, and three quarters of the way through, his opponent started to lose steam. Canon was in his element, and he stood taller at the thought that Cadenza was here to witness it.
Faster than he thought possible, the moderator was thanking everyone for coming and reminding people where to find their polling location information.
Canon squinted against the spotlights, searching for Cadenza’s face, but the glare blocked his view, then the local reporters started in with questions and camera flashes.
He and his opponent posed for a series of pictures on either side of a large vase upstage, before returning to the front to answer questions.
A runner touched his elbow, and he turned to find Cadenza and Reyna at his side.
“Hey!” Cadenza said. “You did great!”
“Totally crushed it,” Reyna agreed.
“Thanks.” He smiled. “I think we’re doing a few more photos, but it should only take a minute and then we can go talk.”
“No problem, we can wait a minute.” Cadenza backed up to the side of the stage, but Vasilios swept out of the wings and propelled both women forward.
“Nonsense,” he said, ushering them on either side of Canon. “Mr. Richards’s friends should be in the photos with him.”
Canon’s performance high faded a notch. The idea was to make Cadenza comfortable, to be more of who she needed him to be, not to make all the same mistakes.
He did a quick check of what she and Reyna wanted in the situation.
Reyna seemed happy to pose with him—Interesting—but Cadenza, unsurprisingly, wanted to bow out.
“You don’t have to,” he told her, making a conscious effort to put sincerity in his voice. “You can wait offstage if you’re more comfortable.”
She looked at him, surprised. “Thanks, Canon. Yeah, I’ll wait. But you should totally have Reyna in the picture.” She winked and stepped to the side.
“Why are you winking?” His voice trailed off as something glinted in the balcony.
The air next to his face rippled, right where Cadenza had stood a second before, and the vase upstage shattered.
Silence for a full second.
Then pandemonium.
Canon dove for Cadenza, but Reyna was already there, dragging her to cover in the wings. Screams ricocheted through the auditorium as bodies stampeded for the doors. Security flooded the stage, barking orders into walkie-talkies. One of them shoved Canon behind the side curtains.
“The balcony!” Canon pointed wildly to where the shot had come from. His escort signaled to three other guards who stormed off the stage towards the stairs.
“Are you ok?” Canon ran his hands over Cadenza’s arms.
“Yeah, I’m ok.”
He turned to the smith. “Reyna?”
“I’m alright,” she said, eyes following the movements of everyone around them.
The noise lessened in the hall. No more shots rang out. The team must have reached the balcony. But someone hadn’t done their job in the first place, and Canon would make sure they caught hell for that. Sirens sounded in the distance; the police would be here soon.
“This is the third time, Cadenza.” He cut his eyes at Reyna questioningly. How openly could he speak? Cadenza understood.
“Reyna knows everything.”
The sirens peaked outside the building. Canon snuck a glance around the curtains. Vasilios’s head of security met the police at the entrance of the auditorium, briefing who Canon assumed was in charge, while other officers spread out.
Canon gave a short nod. “Good. What do you need?” They had to talk fast. Once the officers made it to them, there’d be paperwork and EMTs checking everyone, and it’d be hours before they could discuss properly.
“Cadenza and I have a plan to help break the curse,” Reyna said, taking her own peek around the corner. “But Taran and his father aren’t on board unless we can figure out what Thomas Learmonth wants with her.”
“With us,” Cadenza corrected. “I’m not the only one at risk here.”
“What Thomas wants?” Canon flipped through the angles of the situation in his mind.
He knew about the curse and everything Taran had told Cadenza that night by the fence.
Drostan, of course, knew now that Learmonth—the man who’d cursed his son—was nearby, but didn’t know Canon had been feeding him information.
Canon had suspected Thomas of having some plan involving Cadenza the other night but didn’t know yet what it was.
More game pieces on the board. But I still don’t know what we’re playing.
“They think he might be the one trying to kill me. Reyna and I don’t.” Cadenza lifted her chin.
Ever defiant, he thought. Watching her then, the set of her jaw, and the fire in her eyes, the admiration he’d held for Cadenza blazed into something more. He felt it physically— muscle, bone, and heart all shifting, a compass drawn to a new north. He loved her.
And she needed him.