Eyes Like Stars (16 page)

Maybe one more sip.

“I thought I might find you here,” said a voice behind her.

Bertie choked. Tears streamed from her eyes as she twisted about, hiding the bottle behind her back. “What do you want, Ariel? Come to gloat?”

“Do you mind if I join you?”

“Actually, I do. I’d like three seconds to myself without noise, chaos, or crisis.”
And you’re all three.

“That’s hardly welcoming.” Ariel treated her to one of his beautiful smiles.

“That’s because it wasn’t an invitation.” Bertie put her nose in the air and tried to look down at him at the same time. “Besides which, Mr. Hastings will be back any second. He doesn’t like you to be in here, you’ll remember.”

“Ah, there I am in luck. Mr. Tibbs has absconded with the asps, and it will take Mr. Hastings at least half an hour to get them back.” Ariel’s gaze drifted along Bertie’s collarbones, over her shoulder, down her arm.

“On what planet would a basket of asps be considered a set piece and not a prop?” Bertie wondered if Ariel could, as his expression intimated, see right through flesh and blood to the forbidden bottle in her hand.

“I think he plans to hold them hostage until Mr. Hastings relinquishes that large armoire in the corner.” Ariel reached behind Bertie, his fingers closing over hers. For a moment, he simply looked down at her. “What do we have here?”

“Nothing.” She twitched, but he didn’t let go.

“Let me have a look.”

Fairly certain she wasn’t shrinking, Bertie nonetheless felt a bit odd as Ariel removed the bottle from her grasp and lifted it to his nose.

I’m probably concussed from bashing my head on that auditorium seat.

“Did you already partake of some of this?” he asked.

“I did,” Bertie said, refusing to sound either guilty for the transgression or scared by the coinciding flare of heat in her stomach. Her sudden, violent hiccup startled them both, and as the echo ricocheted off the farthest reaches of the room, Bertie laughed. “It’s sweeter than I thought it would be.”

Ariel tasted it and handed the bottle back. “It will change you.”

“Exactly what I’m hoping for.” Bertie took another sip. “No need to make it sound all dangerous and forbidden.”

“I suppose Mr. Hastings has far more dangerous items tucked away in here,” Ariel conceded. “Samurai swords and fusion bombs and silly teenagers.”

“Did you come looking for me just to call me names?” Bertie dangled the bottle at him in an unspoken dare.

“It wasn’t my only reason.” He hesitated for half a second before taking it.

Bertie tried not to fixate on his mouth, but as he drank, the muscles in his throat worked, and from his throat, it was only a hop, skip, and a jump to the muscles of his chest. . . .

The record’s single tune started again at the front of the room.

Ariel replaced the stopper and put the bottle back on the shelf. “I think that’s enough for now.”

Bertie concentrated on the music. “Methinks that’s an accordion.”

He tilted his head. “It’s a bandoneón, which is like an accordion, but with more allure.”

“How very European.” Insistent piano trills tempted her feet. Guitar-song chased the wheezing notes of the bandoneón down the aisles in waves, and she followed them on tiptoe.

“Where are you going?” Ariel asked.

Bertie looked at him over her shoulder, noting the danger in every languid line of his body. For a moment, she thought she might indeed be tiny Alice, her sanity and reason shrinking down, down, down until they disappeared with a puff of hookah smoke. “I’m a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. Care to join me?”

A moment passed in which she thought he’d refuse, then—

“How could I resist such an invitation?”

“Glad to hear it,” Bertie said with an unintentional sway. She righted herself even as Ariel’s arms appeared around her. Her right hand sought out his left, and she wrapped her other arm around his neck.

“Just what,” he asked, “do you think you’re doing now?”

Bertie tossed her hair so that it flicked him in the face
before falling over her shoulders in a messy blue tangle. “Dancing with you, unless I’m much mistaken.”

“I think it’s customary for the man to lead,” he said. The only thing that moved was his left eyebrow, which slid up about an inch.

“How did I know you would say that?” Skilled fingers strummed the unseen strings of a guitar. Castanets beckoned, and Bertie wanted to snap her fingers, stomp her feet, clap her hands. “Lead on, pretty boy.”

Ariel gave her a look that contained a lot of something, but he didn’t say a word. Instead, he adjusted her arms with light touches of his hands, all the while keeping his upper body pressed to hers.

“This song comes from the center,” he said. “So we’ll move the center first.”

“The center of what?” The butterflies drifted out of his hair as he leaned over her. They fluttered through Bertie’s already swimming head, brushed over something dark and sleeping, and roused it from slumber.

Ariel tapped her lightly on the small of her back. “The center of you.”

“My cream filling?” she suggested.

There was a moment of complete stillness and silent contemplation before Ariel smiled. “Yes, Bertie. Move your cream filling first, and your feet will follow.”

When the music started again, they joined it with gliding steps and the sensation of being carried along. By the notes. By the wind. She was flying—

With Ariel.

For the first few bars, their movements were inseparable from the melody. Then Ariel placed his foot alongside hers and twisted. The world spun around Bertie. The shelves wavered with the vibrato before disappearing.

She would have blamed his words, his voice for the enchantment, except he was—for once—not speaking.

Ariel snapped her out of the dip and twirled her away from him. Bertie trailed her hand over an ancient wall that should have been protected by shelves. Plaster dust flaked away under her fingertips.

Catching her by the wrist, Ariel led her down an aisle that was now a narrow Spanish alley. They skimmed over cobblestones and under wrought-iron balconies. Bertie didn’t remember a costume change, but her black-heeled character shoes fashioned a rhythm that ran counterpoint to a double bass. Crimson skirts flared around her legs and slapped against her skin after an unexpected and spectacular turn.

Ariel wore black silk now. The minuscule portion of Bertie’s brain that still functioned noted that, on Nate, the outfit would have looked ridiculous, but on Ariel it was liquid night poured over lean muscle.

She missed a step, contemplating his arms.

“Do try to keep up, Beatrice.” Ariel steadied her with one hand as he reached out with the other to pluck a rose from an unseen vine.

“If you put that between your teeth, I’ll die laughing,” she warned.

So he didn’t. Instead, he used it to trace the contour of her cheek, the curve of her neck, and down to the spot where the dress dipped low between her breasts. An azure glow slowly washed over the scenery while a red-gelled spotlight beckoned.

“How did we get here?”

“We haven’t left the Properties Department.” Ariel took her hand. Her heartbeat matched the thrum of blood in his veins, and his midnight eyes followed her every movement. “What you see are but figments of your overactive imagination.”

Bertie instinctively reached for the medallion, but her neck was bare, exposed, the scrimshaw in the pocket of her jeans, which were also long gone. “You’re toying with me.”

“I assure you, I’m not,” Ariel said, leading her in another turn, another dip.

Someone in the lighting booth decided to scatter the scene with white pinpricks of starlight that floated like sequins on strings.

“That effect,” Bertie said, bent completely backward, “is
achieved with a mirrored ball and pin spots. I hope you appreciate it.”

Ariel’s breath met her skin. Bertie raised her head to find his nose level with her cleavage.

“Believe me,” he said. “I do.”

He tucked the rose behind her ear and trailed his hand around the back of her neck. Then she was upright once more, with both arms above her head. Fountain spray drifted over them, dampening Bertie’s skirts and spangling her hair with blue-diamond brilliants.

Ariel circled her. His hand skimmed her collarbones, her bare shoulder, her back. He paused behind her, drew her close so that his lips grazed her ear. “Are you ready for the finale?”

Bertie barely nodded before he led her in a series of turns that left her disoriented and dizzy. The stage lights whirled around them, every point of reference blurring into a shifting kaleidoscope of color. The world fell away until the only thing that remained was his hands upon her. He dipped her back farther—

“Ariel.” Bertie closed her eyes and let herself fall.

He caught her, and as the music reached a crescendo, he covered her mouth with his.

Her first real kiss. Then her second, and third. She lost track of how many there were; she was too busy drinking him in, winding her tongue around his. He tasted of everything and nothing at all as he lowered her onto the grass.

The lights dimmed until only a soft golden glow drifted over their skin. Crimson faded back to denim blue, black silk to white.

The rose remained, as did his weight upon her.

The record player reached the end of the song one last time. The paper speaker hummed and crackled with the absence of music. Then there was a soft click and silence.

Bertie drifted into the blackout with Ariel’s name on her lips.

B
ertie?”

She curled into a ball and tried to pull the covers over her head, but there weren’t any blankets within reach. A tiny hand touched her shoulder.

“She’s sleeping, but she smells funny.”

Bertie’s nerves jangled, her skin crawled, and her eyeballs felt three times too large for their sockets. When she tried to lift her arm, every joint creaked in protest.

Strong hands stood her upright and held her there as someone sniffed at her mouth. “She’s been drinkin’ somethin’.”

The low whir of wings flapping near her ear. “No fair! She didn’t share!”

“We weren’t here, stupid.”

Their voices. So shrill.

“What time is it?” Bertie tried to swallow the fuzz on her tongue, wished for a glass of water, and gagged.

“Time t’ pay th’ piper.” Nate’s voice rumbled through her rib cage, but she still didn’t open her eyes.

“It’s also teatime!” Moth said. “How about a nice fry-up?”

With a moan at the idea of greasy eggs and sausages, Bertie buried her face in the soft cotton of Nate’s shirt, burrowing until she reached warm flesh and short, wiry hair that tickled her nose.

Apparently, it also tickled Nate, as he made a discomfited noise and set her down on the chaise. “Leave off.”

“I must have fallen asleep.” Bertie winced at the late afternoon sunlight slanting through an upper window. The brightness slapped against her cheek in time with her pulse.

“You have to speak with the
Hamlet
Players,” Peaseblossom said. “Call another rehearsal—”

Nate cut in. “What were ye drinkin’?”

Bertie didn’t want to answer, but the edge to his voice demanded the truth. “Just a few sips from Alice’s ‘Drink Me’ bottle. Ariel said—”

Mentioning Ariel was a misstep, as Nate’s glare intensified. “He was here wi’ ye?”

She rubbed her hand under her nose, unwilling to discuss what had transpired.

Nate moved her hair aside and nearly burned a hole in her neck with his gaze. “Where’s th’ scrimshaw, Bertie?”

“In my pocket.”

Nate brought his fist down on the arm of the chaise hard enough to splinter its unseen, wooden bones. The fairies scattered, squeaking with surprise at the unexpected assault upon the furniture.

“I told ye not t’ take it off.”

Bertie held herself stiffly away from him, feeling as prickly as a hedgehog and wishing she had spines for protection. “I was afraid I’d cry on it. Tears are saltwater, Nate. Even a thickheaded pirate should know that.”

“It was meant t’ protect ye,” he said, “from people like him.”

“I don’t need your stupid necklace for protection.” Bertie pulled the medallion out of her pocket and shoved it at him.

“No, ye obviously do!” Nate jerked it out of her hand to contemplate the broken chain.

Every word was like a smack to the head. “Don’t
shout
at me!”

“I’ll shout at ye until some sense sinks into that thick rock ye call yer skull.” He pulled a leather thong out of his hair and used it to tie the medallion around her neck.

“That’s tighter than necessary,” Bertie said.

“Ye ought t’ be thankful I don’t strangle ye wi’ it.”

The scrimshaw’s familiar weight settled against her skin, and though she didn’t mean to, Bertie took comfort in its gentle warmth. Bone-magic seeped into her as though on an incoming tide, filling her with foam and insight. Peering up at Nate, she saw the insecurities that gnawed at his innards and fell out of his pockets like scuttling crabs. “What are you so afraid of?”

Instead of answering, he shoved a carton of something inordinately foul into her hand. “I want ye t’ eat this.”

Bertie’s stomach heaved at the smell of food, and she let go of the scrimshaw. “What is it?”

“Restitution,” he said. “Time t’ start payin’ th’ piper.”

She sniffed at something that gave every indication of being soup.

The rice isn’t so bad. I think that bit is chicken. But shrimp? Pickled something or other? And quite a lot of garlic?

Bertie closed her eyes and wished she would die just to be done with it. “I’d rather eat my shoe.”

“Ye may get yer wish.” Nate handed her a spoon.

“Where did you get this horrible stuff?”

“Th’ galley cook made it fer me.”

“As a remedy or a punishment?”

“Eat.”

“I can’t!” she wailed. “The shrimps still have their heads! Their little eyeballs are staring at me!”