Eyes Like Stars Read Online Free PDF Page B

this time to convince herself.
    “Fool.” Ariel crossed the stage, blazing bright with hunger. “You have the chance to leave, to see the world!”
    “I don’t want to see the world!” She backed away, trying to escape his voice—his beautiful, horrible voice—that tangled around her with streamers of excitement.
    “Think of the places outside these walls, where the buildings aren’t made of cardboard and the sunshine isn’t electric.” Ariel’s words pulled Bertie closer. “You must want to see it, Bertie: the London that doesn’t appear in
Peter Pan
, the Venice that exists outside of
Merchant
.”
    His eyes . . . his eyes! Bertie had never seen them glow so, alight with possibilities.
    I could almost believe his every word when I look into them. . . .
    “You could take me with you,” he said, utterly beguiling.
    Bertie looked up at Ariel, and her next words came with reluctance, for she only wanted to tell him yes, to give him everything he asked of her. “You heard the Theater Manager. That’s not possible.”
    “I heard him.” Ariel’s too-beautiful mouth worked as darkness filled his eyes from corner to corner. Bertie couldsee her face reflected in their liquid black depths. “I also heard the panic in his voice when the Players began to whisper amongst themselves. I heard a man struggling against words, winds, desires, instincts. He’s very much afraid of something, Bertie, and I think it’s you. You’re smarter than all the Managers put together. You could find a way to free me.”
    “Why should I find a way to free you?” Bertie, struggling against the spell of his eyes and his words, managed to take a step back. “You walked away from me a long time ago. You made it clear that I meant nothing to you!”
    “The more time I spent with you, the more I dreamed of leaving.” The butterflies’ wings turned black as the air around them shifted. The muscles in Ariel’s jaw flexed; each time he gritted his teeth, the lights flickered. He was three inches off the floor now, without the aid of wires, without the use of smoke and mirrors. “Now I know why: You’re the key to my freedom, the one who can open the door.”
    Bertie choked on the accusation. “That’s ridiculous!”
    Still rising in the air, he looked at her as he had all those years ago, his face soft with yearning. “I watched you grow, like the flowers I’ve never seen—” But then it tightened again. “If you ever cared for me at all, you’ll leave this wretched place and take me with you.”
    “ ‘This wretched place’ is the only home I’ve ever known!”
    “But there’s something you haven’t thought of yet.”Ariel paused for a perfect three-count. “Your mother is out there, Bertie. Somewhere.”
    Nate caught her by the arm, and the fairies grabbed handfuls of her hair; together, they kept Bertie from launching herself at Ariel’s boots.
    “How dare you use that as ammunition?” She fought against the vise of Nate’s grip. “If I ever get my hands on you, Ariel, I’ll take you apart. The Stage Manager will need more than the ocean set to wash the blood off the stage!”
    “And I tell you that I won’t be imprisoned here, written into the pages of some damned play for all eternity!” Ariel scowled, a thwarted prince with twin storms in his eyes. His hair crackled with static electricity, a shower of sparks poured from his hands, and the lenses in the lights overhead exploded.
    Bertie raised her arms over her face and dropped to the floor as glass shards rained over them. Nate threw himself on top of her, shielding her from the worst of it. The entire theater rattled and reverberated as though in the throes of an earthquake, the noise a standing ovation that wouldn’t end.
    The building shuddered one last time before settling. In the ensuing silence, Bertie tasted dust from the floor and blood from where she’d bit her tongue. Everything smelled of ozone and singed velvet.
    Nate eased off of her