We weren’t allowed to roam around unescorted according to our contracts, but the producers understood that dancers were a weird and temperamental lot, so they didn’t try too hard to force us all to leave the theater on time. Drivers had been assigned to each season, with the understanding that sometimes we would swap cars, and no one would be left behind.

I didn’t feel like hurrying. The first people to get back to the apartments would be the ones starting the after party, and that wasn’t the sort of responsibility I felt like having on my shoulders. Not tonight, not with my complicated feelings about the show warring for my full attention. So I sat at my dressing table and slowly wiped the chalk off my cheeks, listening to the theater emptying out around me.

Lyra lounged on the room’s small couch, filing her already perfect nails. “Are you planning to sleep here tonight?” she asked.

“There was open space in the season one car,” I said, wiping off another streak. Leanne, as the only remaining contestant from season five, had been consolidated into the season four car. It was like Tetris, only with high-strung, over-stimulated dancers instead of colored blocks.

“Oh, because riding with Jessica after that is the sort of thing I feel like doing,” she said, and snorted. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll wait until you’re ready to go.”

“Anders is doing the same cleanup job. You should go find Pax, see if he wants to practice your lifts.”

“Nope. Pax is being standoffish and weird, so I’m giving him the cold shoulder.”

I eyed her in the mirror. “Did you try to kiss him again?”

Lyra’s coy smile was all the answer I needed. I sighed.

“You know that makes him uncomfortable,” I said. My wig itched, but I couldn’t take it off to adjust it in the theater. Lyra knew I wore a wig. So did Brenna. Everyone else would have been shocked and appalled, and it wasn’t like we had actual privacy here. “Flirt with Anders instead. I promise I won’t mind. I might even thank you. David’s twitchy about me sharing an apartment with two men he doesn’t know.”

“Eh,” said Lyra, and kept filing her nails.

Someone knocked on the doorframe. I glanced over my shoulder, and there was Pax, looking shaken and a little ill. “Val, do you have a second?” he asked.

It’s hard to upset an Ukupani. Pax had always struck me as even more unflappable than most. I sat up straighter, putting down my washcloth.

Lyra, meanwhile, was pouting as prettily as she knew how—which was, admittedly, very pretty. She was a practiced pouter. “I have a second,” she said.

“I just threw up in the stairwell and I need someone to help me find a mop,” said Pax. “Do you really want to be here for me?”

Lyra’s weak stomach had been legendary during our season, to the point of keeping a bucket backstage before competition, just in case. She wrinkled her nose and sank back into the couch cushions. “No,” she said. “Take Valerie. She’s good with gross.”

“Thank you for your endorsement,” I said, standing.

She waved a hand magnanimously. “But hurry up, okay? I want to get home before the party winds down. We might start switching partners next week, and I don’t want people to think I’m no fun.”

“Do my best,” I said, and hurried out of the room.

Pax waited until we were halfway down the hall before he said, “I didn’t throw up.”

“I know.” Ukupani were therianthrope sharks. They could eat basically anything, and I wasn’t even sure they had a regurgitation reflex. Not the sort of thing I could ask about in mixed company. “What’s going on?”

Now he looked even more uncomfortable, glancing around himself several times to confirm that we were alone before he leaned a little closer and asked, “Can you smell blood?”

“No,” I said, the first hints of concern seeping into my consciousness. “Human noses aren’t set up for blood detection. More’s the pity. I’d ruin fewer cute skirts if they were. Do you smell blood?”

Pax nodded tightly. “I noticed it when I was walking Malena out to her car. You know she’s a chupacabra, right?”

“I suspected.” Chupacabra were oddly drawn to ballroom dance. Or maybe not that oddly—ballroom dance is awesome. “Did she smell the blood, too?”

“Yeah,” he said. He ran a hand back through his hair. “She’s still here. It’s cool if we cram in five people for the ride home, right? Because we told the season three driver she was going to be riding back with us.”