Page 1 of Unveil

Ten years ago

“You did what?!”

At the sound of my momma’s shout, Lucy and Brylie fall out of their pirouettes. I stutter mid-fouetté, forcing my adopted cousin, Benoit, to catch me for the billionth time.

I growl my frustration, but he chuckles.

“It’s okay,cher. We’ll try again later. Rest for a minute.”

He’s a saint for putting up with me while I figure out this new turn. I’m almost twelve, and my teacher says I’m not ready, but IswearI nearly have it. Kind of.

As much as I want to try again, my momma’s still yelling. My twin, Nox, and I exchange confused glances as he straightens in his seat in the corner. All five of us stare at the closed stage curtain, where my dad’s voice echoes from the auditorium beyond.

“Ma muse, I was drunk, young, jaded, and so fucking foolish. I never dreamed I’d have you, let alone a family. None of us did.”

“Don’t you ‘ma muse’ me, Sol. I can’t believe you’d gamble your daughter’s life away! I can’t believe any of you did! Especially you, Kian. I thought you were a romantic!”

Lucy stills at the mention of her father.

“Obviously, it’s no fecking excuse, but in our minds, we were betting house money that night,” Uncle Kian answers.

“Cazzo,I thought my vendetta would kill me sooner rather than later,” my Uncle Sev, Brylie’s dad, adds.

“Exactly,” Uncle Kian agrees. “What does it matter to lose something you thought you’d never have?”

“Well that’s funny,” Lucy’s mom snaps. “Considering you claim you were in love with me before we even met. Where wasthatenergy, hm?”

“At the bottom of a liquor bottle,” Lucy’s dad grumbles. “Tine, there’s a reason I quit drinking.”

I motion for us to sneak closer to the curtain. There’s no way we’ll finish practicingSwan Lakewith this as our background noise, and we’re all too curious to keep going anyway. At least, I knowIam.

“What if we get c-caught?” Lucy’s so nervous her stutter’s back, even after a year without it, and she’s twisted her strawberry-blonde ponytail tightly around her finger, turning the tip purple.

Nox snorts. “Never have before. We’ve gotten too good at it.”

Lucy’s eyes widen. “You d-do this a lot?”

“Of course not, Loose,” I whisper.

She’s younger than the rest of us, and her kitten, Dinah, is braver than she is. When my friends are here at Bordeaux Boarding School from their real homes—Lucy from Las Vegas and Brylie from Italy—we try to convince Loose to join in on our fun, but our skittish little rabbit would sooner read about adventures than have them. She used to be wild like us, but ever since she was kidna?—

I close my eyes.

We don’t talk about that.

When I open them again, I lean around her so she can’t see me stick my tongue out at Nox for worrying her. He smirks and shrugs. Butthead.

Momma’s yelling again, but there’s a sadness in her voice too. It tugs my chest forward, leading me to push aside the curtain?—

“What’re you doing?” Brylie hisses, yanking me back by my practice tutu before I can reveal our hiding spot.

I know she saved me from blowing our cover, but I still glare at her. She gives me a sassy look back, and I sigh before peering out, opening the heavy curtain enough for her to look beside me, with Nox and Benoit sneaking in above us.

My parents are in box five, where they take business meetings and hear updates from Daddy’s shadows, the people who secretly work for him. They’re the ones who help with his “dirty work,” as Momma calls it. He says they’re a “necessary evil.” Whateverthatmeans.

There’s a bunch of people up with them now, crowding the not-so-big space. Uncle Ben—who I haven’t seen since his family moved to New York—the McKennons, Lucy’s parents, and the Lucianos, Brylie’s. Both their families flew in for our end-of-summer recital, but why are they up there now?

I squint until I make out a man and woman standing apart from them in a dark corner at the back of the box. I can’t see their faces in the shadows, but my dad isn’t wearing his mask, which only means one thing. They’re either friends… or enemies.