Into the Spotlight: A Little Mermaid Remix

Chapter 26

A/N: Final picture of Kayden and Liam. ^^My cuties! (Which picture was the best of the Kayden/Liam ones?) ((I like the second one best, from Chapter 19))

Two weeks later... (As in, 2 weeks after Arianna's wedding)

Kayden grabbed his makeup bag, carefully setting his songwriting notebook inside despite the rush he was in.

Liam was undoubtedly pacing in the rebuilt palace entrance by now, waiting for him to come down the stairs so they could drive to the Raquel Theater together.

And Kayden would not be late this time. Lizzie would kill him.

She'd dyed her hair black recently, a sign that she was severely stressed and needed to find inner peace and control.

The only other time it had been black was when she'd broken up with the boyfriend she'd had before Ivy.

In other words, Lizzie was not in a forgiving frame of mind.

The only reason Kayden was late was because he had been forced to be creative with his mask. His black mask had gotten caught in his spiral-bound songwriting notebook, and when he'd pulled it free, it had ripped in half.

He'd have to buy a new one.

In the meantime, he'd settled for painting the mask on his face instead.

He'd used mostly black but had also added swirling features and a few stray lines to create a complex design of midnight blue.

He glanced down at his black converse high tops, their actual color, and shrugged.

I'll illusion them in the car.

He slung the bag over his shoulder and skidded when he tried to attempt a sharp turn down the hallway leading to the main palace entrance.

After nearly tripping over his feet on the stairs, he gracefully half-staggered, and half-tumbled into the entrance hallway, almost colliding with Liam, who was indeed pacing back and forth in front of the doors.

"Kayden! I thought you said Lizzie would kill you if you were late." Liam steadied himself and did a double-take when he saw Kayden's face. "And where's your mask? Not that this isn't nice, though."

"I'll tell you on the way." Kayden promised, taking the steps two at a time and waving over his shoulder at Liam. "It wasn't dramatic, but it'll take me a while anyway."

*v*

A dramatic retelling of the mask's destruction, with a very long explanation for how many pairs of converse he actually owned, took Kayden fifty minutes.

The amount of time it took to drive to the Raquel Theater.

Kayden said goodbye to Liam after walking through the doors and headed to the backstage area, where Lizzie was talking away furiously on her phone.

"No! I can't do that! Princess Luna, I told you, I only work for artists. Find your own backup doppelganger!"

She hung up, and tilted her head in Kayden's direction seemingly subconsciously, her black-dyed hair swinging in front of her face.

"You! Why are you late?"

Kayden flashed his locked phone screen under her nose. "I'm not late Lizzie. There's two minutes."

Her mouth opened and closed multiple times before she groaned and rubbed her temples.

"This is too much. Just too much."

"...Do you want to talk about it?" Kayden almost slapped himself the second the words left his mouth.

He was not good at comforting people. He'd likely make Lizzie feel worse.