🐾🐱🐾
AS the singer’s final note trailed off, the audience roared with applause. It was finally Rosalind and Alexander’s turn to perform.
Rosalind took another deep breath.
We’ll be fine. We’ve practiced so much.
Every day for the past two weeks, Alexander would suddenly pop up in front of Rosalind during her tiny breaks between classes or after school and practically drag her away for practice. They had lived and breathed this piece.
Rosalind hadn’t even had time to relax and chat with Amy and Letizia. She’d come home every day exhausted. Were it not for the sweets Amy gave her, the teas Letizia urged her to drink, or the comfort Portia gave her, Rosalind would’ve given up on the performance very early on.
Alexander was almost sadistic in his perfectionism, a demon masked by a beautiful face. He had no right to call Sir Dion a demon when he was one himself.
“Go on,” the attendant told her, gesturing toward the stage.
Just as Rosalind was about to walk out, she felt a warm hand against her back. When she looked up, Alexander was smiling down at her.
“It’ll be fine. Your dress matches your dear Portia’s fur, doesn’t it?”
So Alexander was the one who chose the dress, then… Rosalind realized that after this, she’d need to sit him down and thoroughly explain to him just how shocked her guardian’s wife had been when the dress had been delivered totally out of the blue…
“Well, let’s go, Rosa,” said Alexander.
“I’m not so sure about that nickname.”
“Then how about Rose or Rosalie?”
“…I’ll put a pin in it, I guess,” Rosalind sighed.
That point clearly needed further discussion, but all that could wait until after the performance was over.
Rosalind’s shoulders finally lowered a fraction. Alexander smiled, looking pleased.
As she felt her stiff body relax from the warmth of his hand, Rosalind, in her bright orange dress, walked out under the magical light illuminating the stage.
✦ ✦ ✦
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DURING the music recitals, each performer was provided with a waiting room in the order of their appearance. When their performance was over, Rosalind and Alexander went back to their waiting room, relieved, and were greeted by the duke’s butler and several other servants. Edward was the first of their friends to arrive.
“That was a great performance!” he exclaimed.
“Your Highness!” Rosalind cried, hurrying to stand up and curtsy. “Thank you so much for coming!”
After a cheerful wave of the hand to put her at ease, Edward turned to his childhood friend.
“You’ve improved a lot too, haven’t you, Alec?”
“That’s right. I figured Sir Dion would deduct credits from my magic practicum if I gave a sloppy performance.”
“You’re probably right about that,” said Edward. “He was back there listening, but he didn’t say anything afterward, so you’re probably in the clear.”
Alexander only gave a smug shrug when he heard that Sir Dion had indeed been sitting in one of the staff seats.
Rosalind narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Alexander.
“Magic practicum credits… Is that why we practiced so much?”
“Well… Yeah, at first.”
The time period for Rosalind’s music class had overlapped with Sir Dion’s magic practicum. Alexander had been given special permission to be exempted from his magic practicum so he could attend Rosalind’s music classes until the recital.
But Rosalind wasn’t satisfied with that being the reason for all those practices—it was overkill.
Alexander had said it was because he wanted to surprise Amy and the others, but they had far surpassed that—it was like he wanted her to play like a professional musician. Rosalind clearly had it much harder than any of the other students considering both the frequency and rigor of their practices.
“Well, I was able to do my performance as I had originally planned, and judging from the audience’s reaction, I probably got a good score. You did help me get the result I wanted. But dragging me away for practice every day, several times a day, whenever I got a chance to breathe—”
“Hold on, Rosa. That’s why I did it at first, but the more we hung out, the more I kind of enjoyed it. That’s all.”
“That’s even worse, with how hard it was! For the first time in my life, I didn’t have the time to read a single book! And don’t call me Rosa!”
“Rosalie, then—”
“Th-That’s not my name, either!”
Rosalind bristled, and the delicate gold chains around her head that matched her dress jiggled around. Although Alexander tried to soothe her, he remained totally calm, which just seemed to trigger Rosalind’s next complaint.
Edward watched the spat with wide eyes, dumbstruck.
“Not to worry, Your Highness,” muttered the elderly butler. “They get like this all the time.”
“All the time…?”
It was true that they were bickering, but they seemed to be enjoying each other’s banter rather than genuinely arguing. An outsider would probably see the verbal ping-pong match and assume they were friends, even.
With a final glance at the two of them, Edward sat in a chair and accepted the teacup the butler offered him.
“He always has such lively conversations with Miss Rosalind. It lifts my spirits, too, I confess,” said the butler.
“Huh… Those two must have become quite close,”
“Not quite,” Alec said, grinning. “It’s a hard fight.”
“Wha—?!” Rosalind sputtered. What do you even have to fight with?!
But when she saw Edward and Alexander joking around, Rosalind felt a little silly being the only one fired up.
Once she dropped her rebuttal, the butler offered her sweets and ushered her toward a chair, where she sat down. Alexander looked totally at ease taking the seat right beside her, and Rosalind didn’t even notice how natural it felt to have him there now.
“Amy and the others haven’t come yet?” asked Alec.
“You didn’t look at the program, did you?” Rosalind quipped. “There are a few performances after ours, so I think they’ll come after the recital is finished.”
Audience members were free to come and go as they pleased, so many people only came to see their friends and family members perform.
Truth be told, so many people had come to the music hall just to watch Alexander perform that, now that their performance was over, most of the seats were probably empty.
“Amy would want to watch until the end,” said Edward.
“Yes, definitely,” agreed Rosalind.
Amy truly enjoyed listening to music, but she also knew that the other students, like Rosalind, had devoted many hours of practice to prepare for this day. Both Edward and Rosalind knew that Amy wouldn’t watch her friends’ performance only and then call it a day.
Alexander was satisfied with that explanation.
“No one would’ve minded if they left in the middle of the recital,” he said. “But then…that’s just Amy for you, isn’t it? If it were Letizia playing, Jahal probably would’ve come for her performance alone and left right as she walked off the stage.”
“You’re probably right,” conceded Edward.
Rosalind agreed, and the three of them broke out in laughter.
After all, Jahal was studying in Luducia just so he could see Letizia. In the roughly two weeks since he’d arrived, they had gotten a good read on his behavioral patterns.
Time ticked away as they chatted lightly about other topics. Eventually, a knock echoed throughout the waiting room.
Their heads spun to the clock. It was just after the time the recital had been scheduled to end.
The guard stationed in front of the door announced the much-anticipated visitors’ names, and Rosalind got to her feet to welcome them.
As soon as the butler opened the door, however, Amy lunged forward at her, cheeks pink.
“Rosalind, you were so amazing!”
Their bodies collided with a thud as Amy threw her arms around her.
“Amy!” Rosalind yelped.
“Oh!”
Rosalind staggered from Amy’s sheer velocity and the high heels she had worn for the stage, but Alexander had managed to keep her from falling.