The Woman in White

She comes backstage like she owns the building.

Maybe she does. Lumenhaus owns a lot of buildings.

It's three-thirty in the morning, and the green room smells like sweat and oranges. Ivy is sitting on the counter with her boots off, drinking water like it's medicine, mascara slightly smudged, glowing the way she always seems to glow after a set. Kit is lying flat on the floor, recovering. Odalys is counting cash. You're coiling cable in the corner because coiling cable is what you do when you don't know what to do with your hands.

Then the door opens without a knock and the temperature drops ten degrees.

"Hello, darling."

Up close, Thessaly Tierney is even more striking. Platinum hair, not a strand loose. Skin like expensive paper. Pale blue eyes, a white suit that has somehow survived a Detroit warehouse without a single smudge. She smells like gardenias and a bank.

Ivy doesn't get off the counter. "Thess."

"You were magnificent."

"I know."

Thessaly laughs as if Ivy has said something charming. She nods to Odalys. "Odalys."

"Thessaly." Odalys doesn't stop counting. "Sixty, eighty, a hundred."

Then those pale eyes find you in the corner, and Thessaly's smile changes into something more interested.

"And who's this?"

"My engineer," Ivy says.

"The new Trevor?"

"An upgrade."

"Clearly." Thessaly crosses the room and offers you a hand with a pale gold ring. "Thessaly Tierney. Lumenhaus. You must be the girl who exploded the Bellweather."

Your face goes hot. "News travels."

"Everything about Ivy travels to me eventually." She holds your hand a second too long. Her palm is cool and dry. "That ugly little mixer you rigged up afterward? That was very clever. I'd have paid to see her face."

"It was a good face," you admit.

Behind you, Ivy makes a small noise, almost a laugh, quickly swallowed.

"I'll be quick," Thessaly says, perching on the arm of the only chair like it's a throne. "Rutger wants you for the Halo Dome residency. Twelve weekends a year. A label deal on our imprint. Global distribution, festival placement, a team."

"No," Ivy says.

"You haven't heard the number."

"I heard it the last four times."

You look up from your cable. Four times.

"The number has gone up," Thessaly says pleasantly. "Considerably. Rutger is a fan."

"Rutger is a fan of anything he can put in a Las Vegas hotel." Ivy jumps down from the counter. Barefoot, she's still taller than Thessaly in heels. "He wants the name. He wants the look. He wants to sand off everything that makes it mine and sell it to bachelor parties at a hundred dollars a cocktail."

"He wants to make you a star."

"I'm already a star." Ivy says it without any arrogance at all. "In a basement in Pilsen. On a Tuesday. For people who have nowhere else to go. That's the job."

The room is very quiet. Kit, on the floor, has stopped pretending to sleep.

Thessaly's face doesn't change. She stands, smooths her jacket, and picks up her clutch.

"Speaking of the basement," she says lightly. "How is Teddie?"

Ivy goes still. "Why?"

"No reason. I heard the building's going up for sale. When the lease ends. September first, isn't it?" Thessaly tilts her head, all sympathy. "Developers love Pilsen right now. Condos, mostly. It would be such a shame."

"Teddie would have told me."

"Would she? Teddie's proud." Thessaly lets that sit. "Anyway. The number has gone up. Considerably. Think about what it could buy."

Ivy's jaw is tight. Odalys has stopped counting.

You don't know Teddie well. You've met her twice. But you remember her hand on your shoulder at the Orchid Room, welcome to the Orchid Room, said like she was handing you a key to her house. You remember the boys kissing against the pillar, the drag queen with the cooler, the two hundred people who lined up on Eighteenth Street like it was church.

"You should go," you say.

Everyone looks at you. Including you, sort of.

Thessaly turns slowly. For a second her eyes are very cold. Then she smiles, slow and delighted, as if you're a stray kitten that has just hissed at her.

"Oh, I like her, Ivy," she says. "She bites."

"She's my engineer," Ivy says, low. "Leave her alone."

"Of course."

You walk Thessaly out, because Odalys gives you a look that says make sure she actually leaves, and because nobody else moves. "Ava, you don't have to," Ivy says, but you're already walking.

The warehouse is nearly empty now, the cleanup crew sweeping up glitter and plastic cups, the broken skylights going grey with the first light. Thessaly's heels click across the concrete. A black car is idling at the loading dock.

At the door she stops.

"How long have you known her?" she asks.

"A week."

"A week." She looks at you with a strange expression, almost pity. "She's going to make you feel like the only person in the room. She's very good at it. She doesn't even know she's doing it. Then one day you'll want something she can't give, and she'll pick the basement over you. Every time."

"Is that what happened to you?"

The question surprises her. For one second, the polish slips, and under it is someone who looks tired and a little sad.

Then it's back.

"I was with Ivy Novak for two years, Ava," she says. "Yes. I know your name. I know everything about her tour. And she has never once picked anyone over that club."

"Maybe you didn't give her a reason."

Thessaly laughs, genuinely this time. "God. She's going to love you." She opens her clutch, takes out a thick cream card, and tucks it into the front pocket of your jacket with two fingers, her nails lightly grazing your collarbone. It's a very deliberate touch.

You become aware that someone is watching. You look back. Ivy is standing at the far end of the warehouse in her socks, half in shadow, arms crossed, watching Thessaly's hand on your jacket.

Thessaly sees her too. Her smile deepens.

She leans close to your ear, close enough that Ivy can see it, and whispers so only you can hear.

"When she burns you, call me."