Free Chaos Choreography by Seanan McGuire

and I wasn’t going to lie: it felt incredibly good. Lyra had never met Verity Price, would probably be appalled by Verity’s world, but she had been Valerie’s best friend. Even compartmentalized and held apart as my two worlds were, that mattered to me.
    â€œYou asked
Jessica
for contact information for
Valerie
, and you believed one, that she’d have it, and two, she’d give it to you accurately, without being an asshole about it?” Lyra planted her hands on her hips. “Did youfall and hit your head after you were eliminated, or did you just think the spirit of brotherhood would suddenly move her to
not
be a horrible human being?”
    â€œShe’s not that bad,” I said, with no real heat.
    â€œUh, excuse much? She called you a fake redhead on camera when they did alumni week. She tried to sue the show when they let Emily come back after she was eliminated, because they hadn’t let
her
come back. She’s awful. She’s always been awful, she’ll always
be
awful, and the fact that Anders listened to her for like, a second, makes
him
awful.” Lyra directed a glare at Anders, who squirmed. “How dare you get mad at Valerie because of something Jessica did? That’s like, awful squared.”
    â€œValerie still changed her number without telling anyone,” said Anders—a defensive rearguard action if I had ever heard one.
    â€œMy old phone got disconnected because someone blasted the number over Twitter,” I said.
    Anders and Lyra exchanged a look before saying, in unison, “Jessica.” Then they were laughing, and I was laughing, and all was right with the world.
    A chime rang through the lobby, shaking dancers out of their conversations and warmup stretches. I wrinkled my nose and turned to Dominic, who’d been looking increasingly confused during our conversation. He’d just been dropped into a world he didn’t understand, complete with preexisting social connections and rivalries. He was doing the sensible thing and staying quiet. I loved him even more for that. Common sense is less common than you’d think.
    â€œYou can come in for this part; we’re encouraged to bring friends and family to the producer meeting, since it makes the audience look fuller,” I said. The instructions had been clearly spelled out on the last prep email from the producers. “You’ll have to leave after the showboating, but at least this way you can get a look at the judges and our host.”
    â€œI understand,” he said solemnly.
    Lyra grabbed my arm, tugging me toward the theaterdoors. “Come on, come
on
, Val. We want to get good spots on the stage!”
    As if they weren’t going to arrange us according to their own plan? This was all staged. Every bit of it. I was just surprised there weren’t cameras here in the lobby—at least not cameras I could see. I glanced around, suddenly paranoid, and resisted the urge to check my wig.
    Then Anders grabbed my other arm, signaling that all was forgiven, and the two of them lifted my feet off the ground and toted me into the future.

    As I’d expected, the stage was marked with little pieces of tape, each with a name written on it. They were mixing the seasons, turning us from five sets of four into a mob of twenty dancers. We milled around the stage until we found our names. Then we stepped off again, waiting in the wings where the cameras wouldn’t pick us up.
    A statuesque blonde rose from the front row of seats and made her way onto the empty judges’ podium. She walked with the easy sway of someone who’d been drinking since she got out of bed. I knew she wasn’t drunk: she was just tall, wearing impractical shoes, and incredibly loosely jointed. I knew that, but I still held my breath as Brenna Kelly climbed the stairs, waiting for a fall that never came.
    â€œAre we rolling?” she asked, glancing toward a production