Joseph Arnold slipped in so fast, not approaching the bar or her, but Seychelle’s radar went off, so she caught sight of him before he managed to disappear into the crowd. She caught Fatei looking at her face and then doing another slow sweep of the bar as if looking for what or who had caught her attention.
“Hey, girl.” Anya handed her a water bottle. “Big night tonight with you singing. The band’s excited. Maestro’s been bragging for days. He was annoyed when Savage was keeping you all to himself.” She deftly served drinks to three customers leaning against the bar in between the stools.
Seychelle was grateful for the distraction. “I thought none of the other women were coming tonight, but I was wrong. Quite a few are here besides the two of us. I haven’t met everyone, but I recognize them from Savage’s descriptions. At least I think I do. The woman sitting at the table up close to the band with Alena—that’s Scarlet, Absinthe’s wife, right? She’s got that red, red hair. And the table just inside the door, that’s Lana, but is that Lissa? The famous glassblower? She’s married to Casimir, Czar’s birth brother, right? I’ve seen pictures of her. She’s gorgeous. It’s funny that she’s got red hair as well, although not that same red as Scarlet’s,” Seychelle continued.
She knew she was chattering because she was nervous. It was silly. Now that the others were in place, the tension had eased in them. In fact, it was so low, she wouldn’t have realized they expected trouble at all. She spotted Ink moving through the crowd, asking a girl to dance, taking her to the dance floor, but his attention wasn’t really on her, no matter how hard the woman tried to rub her body all over his.
The number ended, and Seychelle slid from the bar stool to make her way to the platform where the band was. It was really only a couple of feet from where she’d been sitting, but Shari and her friend Melinda were obviously waiting to ambush her. Fatei stepped easily between them, and somehow, that smoothly, Alena and Scarlet were there as well, creating a wall, blocking the two women before they could reach her.
Seychelle expected to feel Shari’s emotion at her loss of Savage, but instead, it was an intense hatred for Seychelle. The emotion was raw and passionate. Seychelle glanced down to see the woman’s hands curled into claws, her long nails like talons, ready to rip at her eyes. That was how visceral her feelings were against Seychelle.
No one had ever hated Seychelle before, and it shook her to think this woman, a total stranger, did so now. She kept her head up, ignoring the woman, smiling at Alena and Scarlet, murmuring hello to Scarlet as Alena introduced her.
“You okay?” Alena whispered. “I don’t know why she won’t leave him alone. I can throw her out.”
“She’s no threat to me. I actually feel sorry for her,” Seychelle said. “I’m good.” She was. Savage loved her, and she was secure in that knowledge. She nodded to Fatei, not wanting him to think she hadn’t noticed that he’d put his face on the line. Shari was capable of ripping his eyes out if she got angry enough. Seychelle did think the anger at her was strange. Especially as it was so strong. It didn’t make sense. Seychelle was all about puzzles, and she wanted a little time to figure out why Shari was so focused on her, even more so than she was on Savage.
Maestro and Player greeted her. Keys and Master flashed grins at her. She took the microphone and faced them for a brief moment. Maestro indicated she had better signal them if anything went wrong. She nodded and they immediately swung into a fast, upbeat song that had the crowd going instantly.
She poured her magic into it, sending golden notes climbing up the walls and building webs across the ceiling. She spread those golden notes throughout the bar, beyond Preacher and Anya, so they moved along the ceiling down the long hallway behind the bar as well as the one beside it. It didn’t matter that the door was closed; the notes found their way inside, climbing the walls and moving up the ceiling, an invisible golden net that was everywhere throughout the entire building by the time the last note of the song faded away.
The second song was slower, dreamier, but still with a dance beat, one that allowed her to sync with the crowd. It was so much easier to get a feeling for the emotions of individuals in the bar when she sang. If someone was very ill, that interfered, and then her ability to feel emotions would fade, but she’d already gone through the crowd, and no one had come in with an overwhelming disease that called to the healer in her. As she sang, she could touch on an individual and subtly change their mood.