Saturday came quickly and soon, my worries shifted from Tara to the concert.

I met with Eva in front of our apartment building before we headed together to the opera house. While I had just thrown on some jeans with a shirt, she looked pretty stunning. She wore a straight skirt that stopped just below her knees, along with a knitted sweatshirt.

I mean, her clothes weren’t that fancy, but Eva was stunning in general. A minute earlier, I had felt like I was about to saw off my own leg. The prospect didn’t sound as bad with her around. I guess you could say she acted a bit like a painkiller. Or something similar.

Just as we got down from the bus, my phone started buzzing in my coat pocket. I got a full-body shudder when I saw Tara was calling me. That girl clearly didn’t get the concept of weekends. I ignored her call. Eva shot me an amused sidelong glance, which I ignored as well.

As we crossed the public place to the opera house, I got a notification from my phone. That creep had the nerve to send a text asking me to call her back. Before I had the chance to text Tara, informing her that she wasn’t my boss, Eva hooked her arm with mine.

“It’s a nice evening, isn’t it?” she remarked.

It was a nice evening. I put my phone back in my pocket and tried to enjoy the moment. The weather was cool without being chilly, and the unrelenting rain had given us a break for the day. The lights of the opera house and the cheerfulness of those around us gave the place an air of festivity.

A surprise waited for me at the entrance of the concert hall. I hadn’t really taken a close look at the tickets Jayda sent me until I showed them to the person at the door. Only then did I check the seat numbers and realize that Jayda had put us in a loge.

I tried to hide my shock. Eva didn’t comment until we passed the curtains hiding our compartment from the hallway. Even though the parterre was filled to capacity, we had that goddamn loge all to ourselves.

I contained my mortification as we sat on our cushioned seats. It was spacious and comfortable; it was the closest loge to the stage. The whole concert hall stretched below us in all its red and golden magnificence like some stupid baroque painting. Dammit, Jayda.

“You must be good friends with whoever gave you the tickets,” Eva said, laughing.

“Oh, kind of.”

Let me tell you a bit more about this gig. Even though Jayda, or “Midnight Pirate,” as she liked to call herself, released mostly popular music, she had decided one day that she wanted a collaboration with the symphonic orchestra of M. Nothing was too great for Jayda, apparently.

I reminded myself that I was doing this for Eva and as far as I could tell, she was enjoying the experience. I tried to relax as much as I could before the lights dimmed down. Here’s how it all went: Jayda first showed up on stage, all decked out in a black dress that had a kilometer-long train, and an eyepatch covered in Swarovski crystals. She then pretended to be best friends with the conductor and the performance began. Of course, the audience cheered her on and on like they’d lost the ability to shut up.

The worst thing was, it was pretty amazing. The orchestral arrangements created a fantastic atmosphere, topped with an aura of mystery. It definitely placed Midnight Pirate on a superior level of epic.

Eva seemed to be having a great time and I forced myself to have a great time as well because I didn’t want to ruin the mood, but all I could think about was that it should have been The Black Claws there. I guess it wasn’t Jayda’s fault that we’d disbanded and she shouldn’t waste her talent just to humor me in my misery.

Except maybe she should.

After over one hour of hit after hit, a familiar melody rose from the violins. I listened closely and my heart skipped a beat when I recognized “Black Bird Memories.”

That asshole Jayda even glanced up in my direction. I almost jumped over the bannister to go wring her neck in front of everyone.

The more I listened, the more I felt this was just the way I had meant it to be played when I composed the song. The full orchestra really did justice to its complexity. It had never reached its full potential when it was just us three. I forgot for a moment that I was supposed to hate the whole thing.

“Are you okay?” Eva whispered.

Some weird emotion clutched my throat, so I just nodded.

I had been so focused on the music that it was only then that I noticed a thick cloud of smoke emanating from the sides of the stage. Everybody must have thought it was part of the setting because no one reacted at first. Then, Jayda started throwing looks to the conductor and around her.

Eva and I exchanged a puzzled look and right at that moment, the whole concert hall went pitch dark. The music stopped and a murmur rose from the audience.

“It’s a power outage?” Eva supposed.

“I guess…”

The people on the parterre started moving around. Panic took hold when an alarm resounded throughout the concert hall. A few ushers came in with flashlights and guided the spectators out. It might sound obvious, but I had a bad feeling about this.

I leaned over the bannister to peer down into the darkness and try to see where Jayda was. I caught some movement in a passing beam of light and I made out that she was being accompanied off stage.

Eva grabbed my elbow and pulled me away, “We should go.”

I didn’t insist on lingering any longer. We made it out the nearest emergency exit without any problem. Once we were sufficiently far from the building, I asked Eva, “You’re feeling fine?”

“Yeah, and you?”

“I’m fine. I wonder what happened.”

A few people remained close by and waited, scattered around the public place. Was there a fire? Had anyone gotten hurt? Was it accidental or…?

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Beside a dozen missed calls and unread texts from Tara, a text from Jayda was asking me to come see her. “Do you mind waiting here a few minutes? It won’t be long,” I told Eva.

“You forgot something?”

“No, it’s just Jayda…”

Oh, shit. Me and my big mouth. Eva’s eyes grew at least an inch wider in diameter.

“Jayda? Midnight Pirate?”

I made some vague dismissive gesture with my hand. “Yeah, she’s some sort of acquaintance.”

As usual, Eva caught on the situation quickly and stopped asking questions. “I’ll wait around here,” she said with a mischievous smile. I couldn’t help but admire how unbothered she seemed by the recent events. That girl was unshakable.

***

Whenever you get a text saying, “Meet me in the alleyway. Come alone,” you might feel justified in declining the invitation. For a freelancer, however, these kinds of shady arrangements are the norm, so I thought nothing of it as I headed in the narrow street behind the opera house.

Obviously, because I wasn’t using my stealth spell, I got stopped by about 10 security guards on my way there. They wouldn’t believe me when I said Jayda was the one who wanted to see me. Finally, she had a chat with them through their earpiece and let them know they should lead me to her car.

A mountain troll in a bodyguard suit guided me to a black SUV. It was pretty nondescript apart from the tainted windows. He opened the door to the backseat for me. Jayda sat inside, still wearing her full makeup and costume.

“Why don’t you get in?” she said, her voice like honey, if honey was poisonous and unfit for human consumption.

I did as she said half-heartedly, trying hard not to sit on her dress. The thing was like a sea of shiny black tulle.

The mountain troll closed the door, and I was left alone with Jayda in the back compartment. A pane of Plexiglas separated us from the driver. “I’m glad you enjoyed my version of ‘Black Bird Memories,’” Jayda said.

“I didn’t enjoy it.”

“I’m sure you were practically crying up there.”

I hmph’ed. “Why did you play it?”

“It was a last-minute thing. The idea came up earlier this week and I worked non-stop on the arrangement. The musicians wanted to murder me when I told them I wanted to add it, but I think it was worth it. It’s too bad we didn’t get to the end.”

I swallowed back a mean comment. “You’re okay?”

She studied my face and then leaned back. “Yes. The smoke came from a couple of fog machines. Then, there was an unrelated power outage.”

She put a weird inflection on the word “unrelated.” At least, nothing dangerous had happened. “The fog machines weren’t supposed be on?” I asked.

“No.”

“Then, who set them off? And why?”

She held up a black feather and handed it to me. “I found this in my changing room. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but now I can’t help making a connection. It looks real.”

I gulped. “You think someone sabotaged your show?”

“Who knows?”

One of her over-zealous fans must have acted up. She often attracted a bunch of those. That was the price of fame. Some old fans of The Black Claws were also mad at her for going solo. Unfortunately for Jayda, I didn’t offer any after-service care. If she needed help dealing with the side effects of her success, she would have to ask another freelancer.

I gave her back the feather and opened the door of the car. Jayda held me back a moment. “We could have done this together.”

“You know it’s not possible.”

“Because of your job?”

As a freelancer, I preferred remaining relatively anonymous. Clients don’t like it when you’re too conspicuous. However, as you know, it wasn’t the whole story.

“How long are you going to pretend you can’t play because of Odette?”

“I’m not pretending!”

I said that a bit louder than I intended. The bodyguard who stood by the car shifted. I took a deep breath. “The show was great. Good job, Jayda.”

“I hope you had a good time with your date,” she said before I shut the door.

“It’s too bad she’s got such poor taste in music.”

Jayda must have thought I was joking because she laughed like a maniac.