A man and a woman walked in. The man, lean and graceful, wore the black djigit outfit, his profile hawkish, his dark hair slicked back. The woman wore a silver-white gown that covered her head to toe. Fitted in the bust and the waist, the gown flared at the skirt. She looked like a swan. Her black hair fell in four braids, two over her chest, two down her back, all the way past her narrow waist. A small hat perched on her glossy hair, with a white veil trailing from it to hide her back.

The woman turned, standing side by side with the man. Her face was beautiful. I felt a brush of magic. It felt ancient.

“Thousands of years ago Suliko’s family entertained the ancient kings of Georgia,” Hugh said. “Today she honors us with her presence. She will dance the kartuli for us. Count yourself fortunate. You will not see another dance like that.”

A song started with a solo of some sort of reed pipe, so old it rolled through me, familiar and new at the same time, like an echo of some racial memory buried deep inside me, in the places mind and reason couldn’t reach. The man held his hand out. The woman placed her fingers on his. He led her forward. They bowed.

Magic shifted. The shapeshifters sat, oblivious. This wouldn’t be a normal dance.

“What are you up to?” I squeezed through my teeth.

“You’ve been sleepwalking for so long, you forgot who you are,” he said “This is your wakeup call.”

“What’s going on?” Curran asked.

“Magic,” I told him.

“Yours isn’t the only ancient family,” Hugh said.

Drums joined the reed pipes in a quick rhythm. Suliko and her partner backed up—he moving on his toes in tall leather boots, she gliding as if she had wheels—and split, moving to the far ends of the room. The woman stood, her arms raised, so graceful it was almost painful to watch. The man approached her, drawing a big circle with his feet, one arm bent at the elbow and pressed to the top of his chest, the other extended straight to the side. He stopped, dignified, waiting for the woman to accept the invitation. She did and they glided across the floor, their arms raised, in sync but never touching, a black raven and a white swan.

Magic wound about them in invisible currents. It tugged on me. It was impossible not to watch them.

The dancers split again.

The music quieted, the wild quick notes of the pipes slowing, careful rather than fast. The woman moved with breathtaking grace, gliding backward, turning . . . So beautiful. I couldn’t look away. The magic held me spellbound.

Desandra began crying quietly. At the side tables, closest to the dancers, the people wept.

The music was now a mere breath of sound, delicate and intricate, pulling me in. Suliko turned . . .