I’m late, and not just a little late. No. The next train didn’t come for ten minutes, and so, I’m late. Very late.
Crisp, November air stings my cheeks. I zip my leather jacket, wrap the end of my scarf around my neck, and tuck my hands into my pockets. When I’m a swan, the weather doesn’t bother me, but as a girl, I get chilled easily. But right now I can’t tell if I’m shaking from the cold or from whatever punishment Henri has for me.
I wish I didn’t have to worry about Henri. I wish I could just leave and never see him again, but I can’t—he ensured that when he clipped our wings. Plus, leaving would mean Lucie would be alone with him, and I could never do that.
Light seeps from the interior of the Opéra as I hurry toward the performers’ entrance. Hopefully, Henri has been too preoccupied with other things to notice my absence.
A shadow descends over me, and I peer up. Henri stands with a hand grabbing each side of the doorway as if ready to pounce. “Where have you been?”
I pause halfway up the staircase. The distance between us doesn’t protect me from him, but I place my hands on my hips and tilt my head to pretend I’m not afraid. “I’m ten minutes late. It’s not a big deal.”
The Ballet Master keeps his stony face locked on me. Once, when I was more naïve, I believed he was the most beautiful man ever, and I was jealous of the compliments he paid Lucie and his devotion to her. It was attention she seemed indifferent to and never sought out, but I didn’t see that. I only saw that a beautiful man was completely enchanted by her.
Now, behind Henri’s chiseled cheekbones and steel-gray eyes, I see a sadistic monster. He punishes us as he chooses and will stop at nothing to keep Lucie and me under his control.
“Many things can happen in ten minutes.” Henri’s hypnotic voice often lulls humans into believing he’s harmless.
“I won’t be late again.” Despite my bravado, I cautiously shuffle toward the door.
Henri blocks my path. “What are you wearing?”
I wiggle my toes in my black combat boots. Over the years, Henri has allowed me to adopt the fashions of modern teens, but he hates when I wear these boots. “They make racing for the Métro easier.”
Henri lifts his hand and points one finger. “And yet you were late.” He stabs at the air between us. “Why is it that you, Madeleine, are always such a problem?”
There’s nothing I can say to defend myself. In Henri’s eyes, Lucie is better than me in every way, which is perfectly fine with me. The less Henri notices me, the better off I am. Unless, of course, it’s for a choice role, then I want him to see me.
“Perhaps . . .” Henri draws an imaginary circle around my body. “I should change a few things about you, Madeleine, to ensure that you think about your behavior.”
A tingle starts in my toes and travels into my calves. Henri and I are alone in the entrance, and the few pedestrians on the street aren’t paying attention. As my toes flatten and web together, I gasp.
“Henri, no. Please. I won’t be able to dance. I am sorry. I’ll throw these away and only wear proper shoes from now on. Please!” My skin pricks beneath my vanishing clothes as tiny feathers form on my skin.
Henri lifts his arm and dismisses me with a laugh. The tingling sensation stops, and I scrunch my normal human toes. “Go,” he says. “You’re making us both late.”
The acrid stench of magic wafts around me as I scurry past him. Lucie may be okay with being a swan forever, but I can’t live like this anymore.
“Did he find you?” Lucie pounces on me as soon as I step into the dressing room. My ashen face gives me away, and Lucie hugs me tightly.
The room hums around us with other coryphées’ mindless gossip. From the way they mill about, you’d never know I was late. Most of them haven’t changed out of their street clothes, although Emilia wears tights as she walks around topless. Out of all the coryphées, she’s the one with the most attitude. Well, other than me, that is.
“What’s wrong with . . .” Emilia stops next to us and draws her brows together. “Is that Madeleine? Why are you upset?”
I bristle. “Nothing, you cow. Leave us alone.”
Emilia grins. “And I thought Lucie was the emotional one.”
I swat at her. “Go away.”
To my surprise, Emilia doesn’t badger me as usual. Instead, she sashays across the room to a group of dancers in various states of undress.
“Henri wasn’t happy.” I peel off my jacket and hang it in my locker. I don’t tell Lucie about his magic threat. There’s no need to worry her.
“Why can’t you be good, Madeleine?” Lucie crosses her arms. “Do you want to start over again?”
“It wasn’t my fault. You know that.” I yank my offending boots off and drop them onto my locker’s floor. “Besides, does it matter? We always have to start over at some point, so why not have fun along the way?”
“Just try to be good. Please.” Lucie studies her reflection in the gilded mirror. Around us, the other dancers chat and laugh and size each other up. “Henri’s letting you be on stage. You should be happy.” She stares at an imaginary spot on her face before turning toward me. “You could be a star this time.”
“Like that will ever happen.” Every time I get close to becoming a soloist, Henri moves us to another ballet in new bodies. We’ve danced across Europe and Russia, but always in the corps de ballet and never in starring roles.
Lucie frowns. “Maybe if you stop poking him, he’ll give you what you want.”
“You never poke at him, and you’ve never had a starring role.” I step closer to Lucie so no one else can hear me. “I want my freedom. I can’t keep living like this.”
Lucie exhales loudly. Like me, she knows Henri will never set us free. Unlike me, she doesn’t even try.
“And besides, I wasn’t trying to be late.” I tug my sweater over my head and throw it on top of my boots.
Lucie snaps an elastic band around her hair. “You were thinking about that boy, and you ended up missing the train.” She smooths her bun. “You can’t let things like that happen.” As she jabs bobby pins into her hair, she continues to enumerate all the ways I’ve sabotaged myself. “You anger Henri too often.”
“I know.” I wiggle out of my skintight jeans.
“You openly defy him.”
“Only sometimes.” From the locker, I remove a pair of freshly laundered pink tights, a pink leotard, cream leg warmers, and pale-pink Repetto toe shoes. Henri may change my appearance every few years, but he always keeps my body the same—lean with a long neck, graceful arms, and well-turned-out hips. I always look like a dancer.
“When was the last time I went against his word?” I ask. Since I’m trying to make a point, I don’t mention my boots. I bought them one night when Lucie was with Henri and couldn’t persuade me against them.
She sticks one last pin into her bun and turns away from the mirror. “Have you forgotten your diet?”
I roll my eyes. Last year, Henri forbade me from eating the heavy carb meals most dancers favor post-performance since I gained two pounds and was no longer growing. He seemed, wrongly, to believe I could survive on bugs and scum alone. “He was being ridiculous. You know that.”
Lucie shakes her head. “I know he said no more pasta, and you immediately went and ate a huge bowl of it. Not to mention how you gorged on cheese and baguettes, too.”
I groan. As punishment, Henri refused to let me dance with the corps for a week until the weight came of, and in addition to extra Pilates classes, I only ate what I caught at the lake. “I wanted real food. Is that wrong?”
Lucie tilts her head and drops her shoulders. “Please try to be good. Upsetting Henri isn’t going to get you what you want.”
“Says the girl who is Henri’s ideal of perfection.” I reluctantly twist my hair into a bun.
“That’s unfair.” Lucie wraps her arms around her torso and stares into the corner. “Let’s not argue. It’s what he wants.”
If anyone understands Henri, it’s Lucie.
The dressing room has emptied out, leaving only Lucie and me. She jerks her head toward the door. “We should go. Can’t be late again.”
As we walk down the hall to the practice room door, she quickens her pace. “Did you hear about the guest choreographer?”
“A guest choreographer? Who?”
“An Englishman.” Lucie’s voice ticks up. She loves a good accent if it’s not American. “Emilia said he’s working with a group of us tonight and is going to make his selection for his new production later this week.”
“A new production?” I ask. My heart flutters. “Who’s dancing the main roles? Do I have a chance?”
“I think you do. You are a far better dancer than Emilia and all the other girls.”
“Except you.” When Lucie dances, time stops. I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as her body leaping through the air.
She holds the door open for me. “You are brilliant, and you know it.”
Across the room, my competition is lined up at the barre stretching. Other than Lucie, Emilia is my main rival, but Marie-Ange frequently surprises me. The rest of the girls are unimportant.
There’s no sign of Henri or any of the other instructors. “Guess I’m not late after all.” I drop my water bottle on the ground with all the others. “Good thing Henri wasted time yelling at me.”
Lucie rolls her eyes and walks quickly to the barre. “I hope it’s not a modern dance,” she says. “What’s the point of training classically if we’re going to run around barefoot and bang on pails.”
“I thought dancing barefoot is how you did it back in the good old days,” I tease.
“We also wore wreaths of laurel in our hair and gave praise to Thor.” She rolls out her left foot before starting on her right.
I raise my eyebrows. For all I know, it could be true. Lucie, despite spending nearly every waking moment with me, remains a mystery. I know little of her history, and she refuses to answer my questions. But sometimes she makes comments like this, and I wonder.
Excitement ripples through the room. Every dancer here dreams about being a star—why else would we push ourselves to a physical breaking point if we didn’t?
When I lift my left leg and place it on the barre, Emilia catches my eye in the mirror and smirks. Good luck, she mouths.
I ignore her and focus on loosening my hamstrings with deep forward folds. As I hang upside down, my breath steadies for the first time since Henri confronted me. Lucie is right, everything is going to be okay. If Henri wanted to punish me, he would have done so by now. He would have let me transform on the steps and left me there.
I slowly roll myself upright to work through a series of tendu. A hush falls over the room when the heavy wooden door swings open. The accompanist strides across the polished wood floor with Henri, the English choreographer, and the Ballet Director—Victoire Cabot—trailing behind.
Nervous twitters surround me, but I stay calm even though Victoire is here. This must be more than an ordinary selection because she rarely comes to rehearsals. Next to me, Lucie continues to warm up.
The bald Englishman claps his hands twice. “Very well, then. My name is John Campbell, and I am the choreographer of Lilah.” He glides to the center of the floor and speaks to us in English. That’s one of the maddening things about my long life. We used to only speak French and, occasionally, Russian or Italian. Then came the Germans. Now we’re expected to understand directions in English. These choreographers come to us. They should speak to us in French.
“Tonight, I will show you the corps choreography. Tomorrow, you will learn the soloist part. We will practice until Monday, and I will choose the soloist then.”
My pulse races. Was Lucie right? Could this be my moment? Would Henri allow it?
“See,” Lucie whispers. “I told you.”
“Let’s begin.” John pivots so his back is to us. His loose-fitting sport pants hide the dancer body beneath, but once he begins moving, there’s no doubt he’s spent years bending and pushing his muscles. He runs through a series of steps before turning to us. “Easy, yes?”
“Yes,” we say in unison. All my decades of practice have made remembering choreography easier.
“Right.” John rubs his hand over his bald head, and it reminds me of a genie. For a second, I wonder if he’s a sorcerer like Henri, but I sense no magic radiating from him. “You, you, you . . .” He walks between us, pointing. “You and you. I want you on this side in first position. The rest of you take a seat for a moment.”
Neither Lucie nor I were selected, so we fold onto the ground beneath the circular windows. The dancers John Campbell selected wait in a neat row. Emilia stands with them. She has tied her blonde hair away from her face, and her black leotard stands out in a room of pink and white. Unlike Lucie and me, Emilia works hard to be noticed.
John performs a series of steps before turning to the dancers. “On my count,” he says. As they dance, he walks between them, correcting as they work. He stops at Emilia and adjusts her posture. Her cheeks flush, and a small sense of satisfaction wells in me.
“Okay. Thank you, ladies.” John turns toward the rest of us. “Can I see the next group?”
I stand and roll my hips from front to back, making sure that I’m good and loose. I’m not going to give Emilia the satisfaction of seeing John correct me.
“Not you, Madeleine.” Henri glares at me from across the room.
“What?”
“You were late for practice. This is your punishment.”
I blink, trying to make sense of his words. “I said I was sorry, and I was at the barre before you were here.”
There’s an audible gasp that rushes through the room, and I realize I’ve been too informal with Henri.
“What was that?” Henri’s cool gaze chills me.
“Ballet Master,” I say, trying to save myself. “Please. I was dressed and at the barre before we started. I wasn’t late at all.” If I can’t audition for John Campbell, I may not dance for weeks since the corps will be focused on his performance, and if I can’t dance, Henri could very well leave me as a swan as he’s done in the past. And for how long? If he wants to punish me, it could be years.
Tears burn my eyes, but I refuse to cry. I won’t give Henri the satisfaction.
“Please, Henri.” Lucie doesn’t bother to use his formal title as she darts past me and toward him. A gossipy murmur surrounds us. Lately, there have been rumors about Lucie and Henri and the way he favors her. She always ignores the nasty glances and whispered innuendo, but now her familiarity with him confirms what so many have suspected.
Lucie falls to her knees at his feet and grabs his hand. He yanks away. “Henri. You—”
“I nothing, Lucie.” Henri’s eyes flash with anger. “Get up. This is unbecoming.”
Victoire leans forward. Her weathered face, brown and puckered, doesn’t hide her confusion. “What’s this?”
“Only two dancers who don’t know their place.” Henri presses his lips tightly together and stares down at Lucie. “Get up.”
“We cannot afford delays.” Victoire flicks her wrist toward the door. “The two of you are excused.”
Tears sting my eyes, but I don’t dare make a larger fuss as I rush toward Lucie. If Henri is angry enough to reprimand her, I don’t want to provoke him any further.
As we scurry from the room, Lucie whispers, “Do not say anything else. I’ll go to him, and I’ll make him change his mind. I promise.”