Read Online A Kind of Magic by Shanna Swendson - Free Book Online Page B

she danced in the fairy world, but here in the harsh fluorescent lights of a studio, he could see the hard work that went into it. She’d once compared it to athletics, and that was obvious now. She was tiny, but she was solid muscle.
    Abruptly, she stopped, scowling at something she’d apparently done wrong, though he hadn’t noticed anything that looked like a mistake. She repeated the move a few times, then stopped dancing and headed for the stereo near the doorway. That was when she noticed Michael. “Oh, hi,” she said, not sounding at all surprised as she stopped the music.
    “Emily told me you’d be here. Congratulations. I heard you got it.”
    “Yeah, I did, thanks. I’ll have to get you tickets. Have you ever been to the ballet?”
    “Can’t say that I have, but yeah, I’ll come.” He was afraid he sounded a little too eager, despite his attempt to appear casual. He cleared his throat and added, “So you’ll be staying in town a while?”
    “At least until after Christmas. We’ll see what happens after that. But you didn’t come to talk about my dance career, did you?” Up close, he could see that her face was beaded with perspiration. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her break a sweat, in spite of all the intense situations they’d been through together.
    “No, not really. Is it safe to talk here?”
    “Come on in.”
    She shut the door behind him after he entered, and he sat on the bench of the upright piano at the front corner of the room. She remained standing, swinging one leg at a time back and forth. He found that a little distracting as he kept waiting for her to knock her knee against her nose when her leg swung to the front, and he was amazed by how much her back bent when she swung to the rear. “So, what is it? Some fairy-related weirdness?” she asked.
    “Yeah, I’m afraid so. I wanted to get your take. Kelpie on the lake, with at least one victim. Selkies showing themselves around the shore. Nixie in the park. And more than the usual number of missing persons, including kids. Normal people are starting to notice.”
    She stopped swinging her leg and leaned against the piano to look at him. “Oh, that’s really not good, especially not now.”
    “Yeah, Athena said something about the enchantresses maybe getting edgy.” Her mismatched eyes, one gray and one blue, were a little unnerving when gazing at him so closely and intently, so he glanced down at the sheet music on the piano and absently started playing the right-hand part. As the rust fell away, he added the left hand.
    “I didn’t know you played,” she remarked.
    “It’s not like we know each other that well, outside our respective professional capacities,” he said with a smile. “I imagine there’s a lot we don’t know about each other. But my mom’s a church organist, so I had to start learning from the time I could reach the keyboard. I just haven’t played in a long time.”
    “And yet you’re sight-reading Tchaikovsky. How are you feeling? Are you particularly tired?”
    “I’m always tired. You think one of these leanan things is after me?”
    “Your association with me might draw their attention, so stay alert. Look for the symptoms you’d usually associate with depression.”
    He stopped playing, suddenly feeling oddly self-conscious. “Is there something you can do—not about me, but about this other stuff?”
    “I really don’t have that much power. I suppose I could wander by the affected areas and flash enough aura to let them know they need to back off, but I’m a little worried about doing so while there’s an outsider enchantress in town. Enchantresses see the fae as enemies, so they probably wouldn’t be too keen on me being what I am.”
    It was hard to sit at a piano and not play, so he began playing softly again. “Which would be worse, her knowing that stuff is happening, or her knowing that you’re part fae?”
    “The selkies are odd but benign. The nixie, kelpie, and