Page 79 of Unraveling Fate

“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 donetheir 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.