“Ryder, the way you moved…It was like you were guiding the battle the entire time.” Anetta sounded awed.

“Not the battle,” she amended. “It genuinely looked choreographed. Like a lover’s spat in motion, with all the grace of two performers intimately familiar with each other.”

I nodded, looping the coarse, slightly frayed cord around Vianna’s shoulder, feeling the rough texture scrape against my fingertips. I was trying to avoid direct contact with her skin. From what I have seen, her magic didn’t require any chanting, but it did need the specific gestures, and her emotional manipulation grew much stronger with direct bodily contact. It was likely why she hung herself around my neck in the dining hall.

“Vianna is likely a dancer, among other things, a very good one,” I said.

“Not as good as you, though. You pirouetted her around the room. She couldn’t do anything but move as you wanted her to. Where did you learn to move like that?”

I tightened a knot across the small of Vianna’s back and scratched my forming stubble. Wondering how much to share. As public as my professional life has been, my private persona was always something I kept among the few people whom I felt close to, and whom it concerned. So much so that even the constant prying of Anetta’s girls never got much further than scratching the surface.

“You do know who ‘Sanya Lio’ is, correct?” I asked.

“Of course!” Anetta gushed, “The ‘Siren of the stage’ from our own hometown. Her and Fedor took the 3rd place on the last year’s ‘Blackpool Dance Festival’. Would have won the whole thing if not for that slip. There can’t be more than five, maybe ten women world-wide that can even dance in her league. I was the one who badgered mom and dad into sponsoring her through one of our holdings.”

Which was only partially true. I knew that because I was a part of that sponsorship. Reid family was always going to sponsor Sanya. The only reason they held off until the last moment was because they found Anetta caring about the matter so passionately an excellent opportunity to extract a concession out of her. I wasn’t sure how I felt about their need to manipulate their own daughter, but I didn’t know enough about their relationship to interfere.

I closed my eyes, allowing myself a moment of reminiscence. I remembered a young girl, her cheeks flushed with effort, beads of perspiration tracing delicate paths down her neck as she twirled and flowed in my arms with otherworldly grace. I could almost feel the warmth of her hands in mine, the thrill of us getting lost in the music, in each other.

“Did you know that Sanya was abandoned at birth?” I finally said.

“Wait, wha…” Anetta grew quiet mid-sentence, thinking furiously. I let her think, as I was tying Vianna’s legs together.

“She’s about your age,” Anetta said.

“A year younger,” I nodded.

“You two grew up together in Willow Grove.”

I nodded.

“She was your dance instructor!” She accused.

I shook my head, a nostalgic smile tugging at my lips. “Partner. We grew up dancing together whenever we could steal a moment to do so. Her love of dance was so powerful, so infectious, I couldn’t help but fall in love with both her and it. Dancing became the very heartbeat of her existence, while for me, it was a cherished part of a larger whole. Eventually, she had to follow her own path, just as I had to follow mine. Though our journeys diverged, the rhythm of our shared moments still echoes in my heart.”

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“Did you two…” Anetta’s voice was low, almost reverent.

“No!” I said. “She was a beloved friend and a wonderful dance partner. Though it threatened to grow into a romance, it never did. Yet, to this day, I can’t move my feet to a rhythm without hearing my heart echo the beat of hers. Dancing was always ‘the hidden language of our souls,’” I said, remembering Sanya’s favourite quote.

Anetta’s voice grew emotional. “That’s…beautiful.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice to remain steady.

I shook my head, returning to the moment. That was close. For an instant, my eyes began to fog over. There will be time to reflect on my gains and losses, but that time can’t be now.

I turned Vianna’s head to the side, slightly, trying to inspect the damage. I felt an immense relief by what I saw. She didn’t lose any teeth, or even break her nose. While the impact was sure to leave her with a nasty case of black-eye and some scratches on her forehead, maybe a small goose-egg, that was about the extent of it.

“I know you did what you had to do,” Anetta said. “But messing up a face as pretty as hers…I think the girl could rile up an army of indignant men to come after you if she just let off a single tear and pointed in your direction.”

“Probably,” I agreed. “Good thing she won’t, then.”

“She won’t? Do you mean to keep her here forever?”

“No, she just needs us, likely desperately so. I have a decent idea about what her whole deal is, but I’ll have to talk to her to fill in the details.” I laughed, grabbing the cool, slightly heavy water pitcher by the washing basin and spraying her with droplets, the water splashing against her pale skin.

Before long, Vianna stirred, opening her eyes with a pained, unladylike grunt.

“Good morning,” I smiled at her.

As she saw my face, her bleary eyes widened in shock, and she wriggled like a trapped caterpillar. Her entire body was ensnared in a complex web of intricately looped ropes, the bindings crisscrossing her limbs and torso in elaborate patterns, rendering her struggle futile.

“I am Vianna Sol, dancer of…” Vianna spoke.

“No,” I said, interrupting her terrible attempt at lying.

“Fine,” she said, frustration creeping into her voice. “I work for…”

“No,” I interrupted again.

“What do you even want from me?!” she demanded, using her core muscles to heave herself off the floor in a desperate attempt to wriggle free. “Is this not an interrogation?”

“It’s an interview.” I said coolly, making it sound like an important distinction.

Vianna stopped wiggling and relaxed, her shoulders slumping a little. “How did you know what I was going to do?”

“You kept making one mistake after another, that’s how.” I said. “You saw my indignation at seeing Yalla mistreated, so you stoked my anger. That was your first mistake.”

At the mention of Yalla’s name, I caught the briefest flicker of surprise in Vianna’s eyes.

“I didn’t stoke your anger…” she started, but fell silent when I fixed her with an unamused stare.

“My fury is never hot,” I continued. “In truth, I look down on people who let the hot anger drive them to action. Mine is cold, vindictive. You twisted my emotions so unnaturally I immediately knew that someone was manipulating how I felt.”

Though closely monitoring my emotions due to my link with Anetta certainly helped.

“How about my charm? How did you resist it? With how hard I pushed into you, I was expecting you to turn into a drooling idiot, like everyone else. Do you not like women?” Vianna asked, her tone almost challenging.

I thought about her attempts at charming me for a moment. Remembering everything she did while nudging at my emotions. Her pouty, alluring expression as she was hugging me, her grinding against me as I was trying to immobilise her.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you can’t summon emotions out of nowhere. You need something to grab a hold of. Amplify what is already there.”

I could see another lie forming behind her eye, before she let go of it, and nodded. “It helps if you are already feeling a certain way.” She admitted.

“I find women most exquisite. Yet even among the beauties, you stand out remarkably. Every feature of yours is worth a poem…”

Her delicate face was starting to blush as I spoke, almost hiding the black eye that was forming on her face. Seeing her injured and restrained as she was, made my protective instincts roar. I wanted to set her free, I even wanted to help her in her endeavour, and for once, I was sure these emotions were indeed mine. But not just yet, not until we have come to an understanding.

“…but showing yourself, as you did, was your second mistake.” I continued. “By trying to salvage the mess you made trying to enrage me, you just made it clear who was the one trying to pull at my strings. While I appreciate feminine beauty more than you can imagine, I am also wary of it. Many women in my life have tried wielding it against me as a weapon, so I made sure to inoculate myself against it.”

“How does one even train for that?” Vianna grumbled under her breath.

I focused on the copper washing basin behind her, examining its curves and noting a small dent in one corner. I feigned a contemplative expression, trying my best to keep ‘those’ memories at bay. The last thing I needed was my traitorous face betraying me with a blush, or worse, a smirk.

I decided to let that comment go unanswered and pushed on.

“Once your magical manipulation failed, you had two choices: either appeal to me through reason or compel my assistance through more forceful means. So when I presented you with an obvious opportunity for a decisive strike, you seized it without hesitation.” I said, letting a hint of appreciation for her decisiveness slip into my voice.

“Damn, Ryder,” Anetta said, clearly impressed. “I never knew that your dance started before you even met.”

Vianna’s uninjured silvery eye widened in astonishment. “Who are you?” she asked, her voice trembling with a mix of shock and something fonder… admiration, perhaps.

I smiled earnestly and gave her a small bow.

“Ryder Corvo,” I said, “Your new employer.”