I hold the last note longer than I should, long enough that the crowd hangs suspended with me, breathless, waiting for a release only I can give. The Blue Veil is thick with smoke and candlelight, the hush so total I can hear the whirr of one sluggish ceiling fan. Then I let the note unravel, soft as dusk, and the room exhales all at once. Applause hits in a tidal wave, rolling off the velvet walls and the pressed tin ceiling.
But before I can step back and let it flood me, a hand clamps over mine on the microphone stand—cold, deliberate, so much stronger than it looks. Etienne Marchand, owner of the Blue Veil, stands too close. He’s taller than I’d realized, skin pale where his cuff rides up, eyes that refuse to meet mine. He smells like rain just beginning to fall—something green and electric—and the brittle edge of old paper, the kind that crumbles if you look at it wrong.
“Finish the set,” he murmurs, voice so low I feel it more than hear it. “Then walk out through the kitchen and don’t come back.”
He lets go. My hand tingles, numb in the wake of his touch. The applause is still coming, but I can’t feel any of it now. I glance to the bar, searching for Josie’s steady gaze behind the piano, but she’s looking away, fingers poised for the next chord.
And then, from the shadowed curve of booth nine, something else catches me. A silver-haired man, sharp-suited, raises a glass filled with liquid so dark it could be blood. Candlelight flickers in the grooves of his smile. From across the room his lips shape a name—a name I buried the night I crossed state lines. My real name. No one here knows it, no one ever should. But he mouths it, slow and certain, and the chill that trickles down my spine freezes me in place.
Etienne’s warning rings in my ears. I have two songs left before midnight. The crowd is calling for more, but the man in booth nine watches with a serene, predatory patience, as if he’s always known I’d end up here.
I grip the mic until my knuckles ache, breath shallow. Every instinct screams at me to run. But the light is on me, and the set isn’t finished. The Last Set—all the stories whisper it’s not just a performance; it’s a bargain. And tonight, I’m the offering.
My heart thrums like a warning bell. The silver-haired man smiles wider, and Etienne’s words echo, harder this time, in the hollow beneath my ribs. I can’t tell if it’s fear or something darker that roots me to the stage. Midnight is coming, and I have to decide what comes next—the music, or my life.
A cello hums in the intro for the next song. My throat tightens. The eyes from booth nine never leave me.
I take a breath—my last before the next decision.