All that stress didn’t help when, the next day, I met up with Tara to record her video. On the bright side, if everything went well, it might help with her goal. On the other, darker side, if I messed it up, it might have the opposite effect.

I still wasn’t sure how I had been able to play so well the previous afternoon. The only conclusion possible was that there must have been something in the acoustic of the theatre that made everything sound fantastic.

I followed Tara into the small studio where I had caught her practicing her fouettés before. While she was setting up, I sat myself down at the piano, reminding myself that my performance didn’t matter; it was about her.

She’d borrowed a camera and microphone from someone she didn’t go so far as to call a friend. The mic wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t so crappy either that I would be able to blame my bad playing on the poor sound quality. At least, my name wouldn’t be associated with this.

To my dismay, my hands shook as I lifted the lid. I took a deep breath. It’s not a big deal, I reminded myself to calm my nerves. It didn’t help that Tara took her sweet time. She paced around for a while and marked the movements from the choreography without much conviction.

“Everything’s fine?” I asked.

She shrugged noncommittally. “I don’t know… I feel like yesterday went really well, but I’m scared I won’t be able to do it again.”

Was there some sort of telepathy thing going on between us? I swallowed back my own concerns. “If you did it once, you can do it again.”

“I guess…but what if it didn’t look as good as it felt?”

I didn’t think that brat could be so full of self-doubts. “I saw everything. You were great.”

“You’re just saying that…”

“No, I think it. You were amazing.”

She looked at me to make sure I wasn’t kidding. I didn’t praise Tara to reassure her, I simply stated the truth. Maybe she did have it in her to take on more important roles and even become a principal dancer. Not in a year, but eventually.

Tara stopped stalling. She pressed the record button and took her place in the center. As soon as she moved, all my worries dissipated. I didn’t play the exact same thing as yesterday, since I had improvised quite a bit, but the feelings were there; the magic was there. It was there for me and it was apparently there for Tara as well.

Once we were done, she came over to the piano to look at the video with me. There was the proof that it wasn’t all in our head. Tara seemed surprised by the result. “You want to do another take?” I said.

“No… This one is perfect. Thanks.”

She stared at me with questions in her eyes. I guessed she must be wondering whether her performance was the result of one of my spells. And I thought, what if she’s the one who put a spell on me?

That was too weird.

Her shoulder brushed mine, and I unintentionally shrank away.

“Are you… are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I have to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

There were a lot of things I wanted to do today concerning Tara’s contract, but it could wait until the next day.

For the moment being, I went home and sat at my keyboard. As expected, it… the thing, the magic was gone. Why was it there when Tara was around? How was it even possible, after two years of creative dearth? I had lost this power as penalty for failing to help Odette, so it couldn’t come back just like that. It gave me a bad feeling.

I should never have accepted to work for Tara. The faster she got her dream role, the faster I could return to my usual miserable routine. I needed to focus on the contract and get it over with.

***

The days got very busy, what with having to follow Tara around all day and then teaching on most evenings. I did manage to get a pretty good idea of where Tara stood within the company. It was a bleak picture. The dancers I met the first time I visited the MBT weren’t kidding: she had no friends. Worse than that, even the ballet masters and the director seemed to have given up on her. The situation had grown critical.

The strangest thing was that, as I’ve previously said, while Tara had a clean technique, she often messed up as soon as the attention was on her. For example, she would lose balance when given a correction, or she would forget steps as soon as she felt the ballet mistress’ eyes on her. This suggested that, on top of working on building up Tara’s reputation within the company, I also had to get her to work on herself.

***

I was exhausted when Friday evening came. I headed to the kitchen as soon as I returned home to prepare dinner. In such a situation, my usual reflex was to go for instant noodles, but I was scared I might die if I didn’t eat some vegetable.

Once I was done chopping a carrot, I stopped to listen. I thought I had heard a noise coming from the hallway. Probably my imagination. I got started with the onion and paused again. No, there was definitely something, beside the crunching of the vegetable and the tapping of the knife against the cutting board.

I walked out of the kitchen. I thought the noise came from somewhere around the hallway or the living room. It’s too bad I kept my baseball bat by the door. I had my cutting knife in my hand, so I felt relatively prepared. There was a Chinese sword in my bedroom, however it was an antique and I preferred to avoid damaging it.

The person I found sitting in my living room wasn’t anyone worth getting my stuff dirty for either. Let me introduce you to Tobias, some sort of lanky giant with a deceptive smile. The broader the smile, the greater the trouble. He wasn’t actually a giant, but I considered him taller than necessary.

Based on my observations, I expected some class 1 trouble. “Hey there, Christine.”

“Oh, hey Tobias. Please come in, make yourself at home.”

Here’s the deal: Tobias worked as a disciplinary officer whose work was to keep track of freelancers. Since I hadn’t contacted my professional Order in a while, he’d apparently hunted me down to see how I was doing.

His mellifluous voice filled the whole room with a sticky sweetness. He was like a carnivorous plant. “I noticed that you got a new contract. The first one in a while.”

“Yeah, nothing big though.”

He rose in one elegant movement and smoothed his vest. “It’s been so long since your last contract, we thought you’d retired.”

I thought so too, until Tara sort of forced me to reconsider. “I got a good offer,” I lied.

“Really? I thought you said it was nothing big. A tier C contract, isn’t it?”

That was the worst with Tobias. Despite his innocent appearance, he registered every word, every pause, every twitch of the eyebrow. “It’s an interesting case,” I explained.

“Oh, I see.”

I held the knife a bit more tightly. His chuckle gave me urges.

“I wanted to remind you to be careful. Make sure you’re not intruding on another freelancer’s territory.”

“Another freelancer?”

There was an unspoken rule among freelancers to respect each other’s territory. More successful, older freelancers could claim a greater territory than lesser ones. Two years ago, I had managed to claim the monopoly over the whole city of M. However, because of my two-year period of inactivity, it was more than probable that other freelancers had tried their luck at getting clients nearby.

“I didn’t seek out this client. If anyone complains, I don’t mind handing over the contract.”

“It’s nice to see you’re still so eager to conciliate.” Tobias’s smile became icier. “Well, then, I hope to see you around more often.”

Freelancers weren’t particularly civil with each other; I wasn't too keen on getting in trouble with one. I breathed more easily once he was gone. Had he come here just to warn me?