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Clare knew she’d won long before Estrella accepted it. The woman was good, but her performance was a last-ditch resurgence of effort given in an attempt to cling to something she’d lost long ago.
Clare’s performance was a battle cry, a gauntlet thrown down before all of Veralna, daring them not to love her. She wanted everything they were willing to give her, and everything they weren’t, and her words and her voice and the notes she strummed on her guitar were a staggering display of brilliance meant to blind them.
And blind them she did. She could feel it, their bated breath, the way they hung on each syllable that rolled off her tongue. The way each give and take between her and Estrella always came back more heavily to Clare, until the final chair in the auditorium turned to her and Estrella simply quit as Clare’s voice rose in a resonant, haunting note that echoed through the theater and held its occupants enthralled.
The voice crystals held her last strum on the guitar, her final word sung, for a handful of seconds. For a moment after they faded the world hung in perfect stillness, as if the hand of a god had stretched forth and frozen time.
Then movement broke the spell, Estrella striding off the stage, down the aisle. Clare couldn’t see her face with the bright lights still shining in her eyes, but she didn’t need to see it in order to feel the fury radiating from the woman. Didn’t need to see her to hear the vehemence in her voice.
“You fucking bitch.”
Clare lifted her face, her expression schooled into serenity, the kind of expression meant to make her look angelic to everyone around her, and guaranteed to anger her rival even further. Because the only thing that might make her more beloved of the audience right now was if Estrella decided to slap her in an act of unprovoked rage.
But then the occupant of the chair nearest her, that first person to not only turn his chair but walk to her, stood, blocking the other singer’s path.
“Really, Estrella, you can’t want to embarrass yourself any further.” The voice was deep and low and amused, in a bored way, and something about it made Clare wish she could see the speaker’s face. Or see the expression on Estrella’s in response.
Clare did see the woman’s hands curl into fists—but then Estrella’s gaze shifted to the left and she laughed, like she’d won even though she’d lost.
Clare followed her gaze, could just make out three brilliant red uniforms steadily coming toward the rival stage. Her spine steeled, every instinct in her body going on alert, telling her she’d missed something, some danger she hadn’t been aware of, and it was too late to repair the damage.
Hounds, the Song whispered as the red-clad figures approached. Magic hunters.
But then another person was moving, reaching her first, Marquin Arrendon’s large frame entering the circle of light surrounding the rival stage. He extended a hand to her and she didn’t need the Song’s push to act as if she’d expected him all along, didn’t need its urging to place her hand in his and allow him to help her from the stage.
Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the dimmer light. Once they had, she noted that the red-uniformed individuals had halted five feet from Marquin, that the man who’d blocked Estrella’s advance was gone, and that Estrella herself was staring at Clare with a look of tight-lipped fury.
Clare gave the other artist a shallow bow, as if she hadn’t heard Estrella’s earlier words. The woman jerked back like she’d taken a blow, and her gaze snapped to Marquin. “I hadn’t realized the Lords Arrendon were taking in strays again.”
“She is yours, then, Lord Arrendon?” one of the red-garbed figures asked, stepping forward. There was something hard in his gaze, and Clare had the distinct impression that nothing would make him happier than an excuse to cross Marquin.
“Mine, actually.” Verol’s voice preceded him as he approached, and Clare didn’t miss the way Marquin relaxed a fraction, as if he’d been preparing for a battle that no longer needed to be fought.
Mine, Verol had said. His what, exactly?
If Clare had thought the red guardsman looked hard before, it was nothing compared to the dislike that dripped from him at Verol’s approach. “I trust you have her apprenticeship papers and a dispensation for this…performance.”
Verol simply handed the man a roll of papers in response. He took his time looking through them while the theater crowd remained, whispering and speculating on a situation Clare didn’t understand.
When he handed the papers back it was wordlessly. He left with the other guardsmen as if Clare and the theater were beneath his notice.
Chapter Sixteen
A Very Far Thing from Happy
The specter of Clare’s supposed apprenticeship to Verol stole the afterglow of her performance. It was not that she’d expected to bask in the glory of her triumph—her working of the room afterward had always been intended as a calculated thing—but she’d intended to revel in each strategized word and smile and manner that left her lips as she circulated among the theater’s attendees.
Instead, she was looking for quick remarks and easy manipulations, for a way to leave as quickly as possible so she could understand why the word “apprentice” was suddenly attached to her name. Why she had to be grateful that every time someone else asked a similar question about it, Verol was there to answer it.
Even so, she remembered to drop Chalen Mora’s name every other conversation, and by the time she followed Verol and Marquin outside to a waiting carriage, she was certain the tailor’s name would indeed be spread through Hightown by the next day’s mid-afternoon bell. The same driver from the night outside the Hawk and Scepter held the horses’ reins now, his eyes narrowing as she approached.
When she’d traveled with Quin and Verol on the road, they had taken turns driving. But she supposed lords, however nontraditional she suspected they were, didn’t drive themselves in town. Marquin held the carriage door open and Clare got in because yelling at lords in public did not go well with the image she was working to cultivate.
They settled across from her, and as soon as the carriage door closed, she spoke. “Explain.”
“You aren’t registered with the Mages Guild.”
“And?”
