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“I think we’re going to have a serious problem if you do, and you should know that.”

She presses her lips together, sliding them around against each other like she’s working out what to say. Her eyes are flashing danger signs, and for a moment, I want her to let it all out, whatever she’s feeling, whatever names she wants to call me, whatever she wants to scream into the darkness of the park.

I want to scream too. I want to empty myself into the sounds, clear out all the conflict warring inside me every time I look at her, and then, when we’re done, when there’s just silence, I want to feel her hand in mine again.

For the few minutes her skin sat warm and welcoming against my own, there was no black hole underneath me. There were no cracks in the ground just waiting for me to mess up and swallow me whole.

There was just us, wrapped in the glow of a streetlamp like we’d stepped inside our very own star.

I only want it for a moment, though. As I watch all her warmth get snatched away, pulled back into her and away from me as she gets up from the table, I know I’ve done the right thing.

I went too far. I gave her a glimpse of who I am when I’m not Kenzie the champion dancer, and I can’t let that happen again. The only reason I get to be Kenzie the champion dancer is by making sure every single part of me the highland world sees is perfection.

“You know what? It’s late,” Moira says, the words clipped and hard. She walks to the end of the table and starts shoving books into her bag. “I’m just gonna go home.”

I watch her get all her things together, but I don’t move to do the same. When she’s done, she takes a few steps back from the table and props her hand on her hip.

“Are you just gonna sit there?”

I shrug. The air feels freezing all of a sudden, and I fight to keep from shaking in front of her.

She makes a harsh sound in the back of her throat and shifts her bag’s strap higher up her shoulder. “Whatever. I’m leaving. Just...”

She hovers, shifting her weight from foot to foot, but she doesn’t finish her sentence until I look up and meet her eyes.

They glint in the yellow light streaming down from above us.

“Just get home safe,” she finishes.

My hands twitch, like they want to form the words I won’t say with my mouth, but I keep them steady in my lap as I dip my chin down in a nod. “You too.”

I watch as she turns and makes her way up the path to the edge of the park. I don’t stop staring until she rounds a corner and disappears.

CHAPTER 7

MOIRA

“Great job today, girls!”

I take a swig from my water bottle as I watch my intermediate students plop down on the floor to untie their ghillies, laughing with each other and looking up at me to grin at the praise.

“That Flora is looking beautiful,” I add. “It’ll be a new dance for some of you in exams this year, so we’ll keep working on that a lot until spring.”

A few of the speedier ones start traipsing out of the studio to head for the change rooms. We had class in my favourite room in the whole Murray School, known humbly by the name of Studio B.

The building is a bit of an odd one, but I love every one of its quirks—including the creaky floors squeaking and groaning under my class as they shift around to get their shoes off. The school takes up most of an aged brick building in Old Ottawa South, with four studios tucked in wherever they would fit among the weird angles of our two floor unit. The building was slowly divided up into three rental areas, and the Murray School got the leftovers after a dentist’s office and bicycle repair shop moved in first.

Studio B is narrow enough to make some of the dances I teach tricky, but my favourite feature makes up for the inconvenience: the rounded bay of windows at the end of the room, with old-fashioned sashes and gorgeous semi-circles of ruby red stained glass capping the window panels.

When the sun hits them just right, the whole studio fills with glowing, rosy light that makes you feel like you’re dancing in a fairy tale.

Back when the school was still getting off the ground, my mum would spend pretty much the entire weekend at the front desk downstairs, going over admin tasks she balanced alongside a part-time job during the week. That meant me, my older sister, and younger brother would be here for the whole weekend too.

We’d practice our dancing, watch movies on a clunky portable DVD player that seemed like the height of innovation at the time, and pretend to do our homework, but no matter what we were up to when the sun started going down, we’d all race up the stairs to Studio B.

My mum would abandon her work and jog up behind us. All the Saturday classes would be long done by then, the four of us the only ones left in the school. We’d sit on the floor and face the windows, me and Logan squirming around in impatience while my sister Anna sat poised and aloof in a display of her ‘superior maturity.’

When the light hit the glass, we’d all gasp—every single time. We’d jump to our feet and twirl around in the magical patches of brilliant red light, watching them bounce off the mirrored studio walls. We’d leave behind the rigid rules of highland and move our bodies in whatever wild shapes they wanted to take on.