us!”
A cheer rang around the room, and a single high note rose above the band. It sounded almost like a siren, but the music swept that warning note away and the dancers swarmed to the center of the floor, swirling around, swinging to the hot new tune.
“Come on with me, Jack,” said my uncle, Lorcan. “Let me introduce you to some people. We’ll let Callie talk with her grandmother for a bit.”
Jack hesitated, but Lorcan had a hand on his back and was already steering him toward a group of young women and men, who I was pretty sure were all fairies. Some of those girls were awfully pretty too. Something made me uncomfortable about letting Jack go away like that, but I was having a hard time concentrating. The music swept over me too, sinking into my skin, making me feel all light and easy. Was it possible to get music- logged like you could get waterlogged from lying in the bathtub too long?
“Aren’t they magnificent?” Grandmother said, her gold-and-midnight eyes sparkling as she looked toward the bandstand. “Mr. Basie is but lately come to our court. I expect he will be invited back again soon.”
“But… why did you bring them here?” Because it wasn’t just the musicians who were humans. Most of the dancers were too. There were some fairy couples scattered among them, but mostly it was humans out there. I could see the difference now. It showed up in Jack as he stood talking and laughing with the pretty girls on the edge of the dance floor. There was something missing from him, and them, or maybe there was something extra with him. I couldn’t make up my mind. But he felt different, and so did the dancers, and so did the band. “And why so many?”
“Bring them?” Grandmother laughed. “We do not bring them. They come to us, my dear.” She beamed proudly across the dance floor. “The makers, the beautiful, the ones cast out because their light was too brilliant for the world beyond. The ones who wish true and deep with their whole hearts for more than they have. They come here, and we love them.”
“We do?”
“Oh, my dear, of course we do, and they need our love. They are so lonely, so unsure, so hungry for the success of the daylight world. They come here and bring that hope and those wishes to us, and we accept all they have to give.”
“Is something wrong, dear?” asked Grandmother.
“I, um… I was wondering… about the music. On the way here, I was listening to the music out on the street and it made me feel kinda funny.”
“Oh, my dear.” She laughed, but nicely. “Yes. Music is strong drink for our kind. It’s so full of feeling and unmet wishes that when you’re not used to it, it can go straight to your head. But you’re home now, dear. You’ll take no harm from the entertainment we have for you. In fact, I think you’ll find it quite… liberating.”
Uncle Lorcan was coming back across the room alone. He bowed to me. “My dear niece, may I have this dance?”
“I can’t dance.” That wasn’t strictly true. I’d danced with Mama in the parlor just for fun. She’d taught me a little swing and how to jitterbug, and every kid at school had to learn how to waltz. But I’d never actually danced in front of, well, people.
“I’m sure you dance beautifully. It’s in your blood, after all.” My uncle held out his hand, and Grandmother smiled and gave me a little push toward him.
I was blushing all over, but I let him lead me out onto the floor. The music had changed, slowing down from the swing time to a slow, country sound. One, two, three, one, two, three. Uncle Lorcan put his hands under mine and began to waltz. It was polite, formal, and easy, a simple rhythm that my feet seemed to know better than my head. All the while, Lorcan hummed under his breath, and I remembered Shimmy’s humming, and remembered how I’d first met this man.
“Why did you try to get me to think you were my papa?” I asked him.
He smiled, small and kind of sad. “It was something in the nature of a test, I’m afraid. I didn’t know what kind of person you were, and I had to find out. I am pleased to say you passed with flying colors.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t have to make that face. You don’t realize how important you are, Callie LeRoux-or I should say Callie deMinuit. Without an heir, the Midnight Throne has been in deep danger.”
“But you were here. You said Papa abdicated. So wouldn’t that make you next in line?”
“If this were a human court, yes. The problem is, you were born before your father completed the ceremony of abdication. He did not know that, of course. But by our laws that makes you the legitimate heir, and me, well, I am second in line.”
“But Grandfather’s the king, isn’t he? He can just change the law.”
“You’re still thinking like a human, Callie. Human laws have no real hold on their people. It is different for our kind. Our laws-the laws of light and shadow-are born into us. If they are broken, our whole world, our very existence, is broken. You are the heir to the Midnight Throne, Calliope, and will be as long as you draw breath.”
I felt like I should say something, although I wasn’t sure what. “I’m sorry,” I tried. “I didn’t want to be…”
Uncle Lorcan shrugged. “We can none of us help being born, my dear niece. That is one thing our kind shares with the likes of your young man.” Uncle Lorcan nodded toward Jack, who was watching me while one of the fairy girls leaned in and whispered something in his ear.
I felt my face flush all over again. “He’s not my young man.”
“Well, you would be the one to know.” Something I couldn’t read glittered in my uncle’s eyes. “But you need to take care, Callie. Not everyone wants you here.”
Fear touched the back of my neck, a cold, heavy feeling like the press of Morgan’s gun.
Uncle Lorcan nodded once. He knew I’d gotten the message. His serious whisper vanished, and he was all smiles again. “Now, you’ve talked enough with your dull uncle. Let me take you back to Her Majesty.”
The music had changed again. No one else stopped dancing, but Uncle Lorcan led me through the swaying, spinning couples. The human dancers seemed to turn pale as we passed, and their faces… they were all smiling, but their smiles seemed strained. There was something shifting and rippling between me and them, like a gauzy curtain had fallen over them. That was familiar too, but before I could place it, I was back beside Grandmother.
“Well, my dear, how do you like your celebration?” She spread her hands out to take in the entire hall.
“I love it, but…”
“And is not Mr. Basie’s music so wonderful?”
“It is, but…”
“I think your friend would like a dance, my dear.”
My tongue froze against the top of my mouth. Jack was coming across the floor, leaving the fairy girls behind. I’d never danced with a boy. I mean, not really. Not one I liked. There was waltz class at school, but that was a lot different. This was Jack standing in front of me in his fine evening clothes, making me feel funny again. He looked so much older dressed like that, with the wonderful music rising up behind him. He could have been Fred Astaire smiling for Ginger Rogers.
Jack bowed to me, just like he had to my grandmother. “May I have this dance?”
I giggled and made a curtsy. It seemed the thing to do. Then Jack took my gloved hand in his and led me onto the dance floor.
“I probably oughta let you know, I can’t actually dance,” he confessed.
“It’ll be okay,” I said. Because now that I was in the middle of the dance and the music, I knew I could dance however I pleased. What’s more, I could help Jack do the same, as easy as breathing. Easy as wishing.
I took Jack’s hands, arranging them so one held mine and the other rested against the small of my back. The current of the music and the magic ran through me into him, and just like that, Jack could dance too.
And he was really good. He could swing and sashay and tango and lindy and jitterbug. He swung me around and lifted me up high. I laughed and came down and whirled around with him. I was swimming in the music like a
