The Music and the Mirror Read online

  Sign up for our newsletter to hear

  about new and upcoming releases.

  www.ylva-publishing.com

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  About Lola Keeley

  Other Books from Ylva Publishing

  Chasing Stars

  Who’d Have Thought

  The Brutal Truth

  The Lily and the Crown

  DEDICATION

  For Kaite,

  Who remains the best possible answer to the most important question I’ve ever asked.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are any number of people without whom I wouldn’t be here, and wouldn’t be doing this. First among them is my best friend, my sister, my person: Lande. The carrot to my pea, if I thanked for her all the ways she’s helped me or made me a better person, I’d need a whole other book.

  My bezzer, who’s been there from the very start and kept me honest and whole for longer than anyone should have to. I’d be lost without her, and she’ll always be in that first clutch of three to share good news with.

  To the friends who talked through this book when it was a few lines in a Slack chat and a comment on who had great collarbones: Al, Luce, Sus, Marissa, Rachel, Rach, and Lil. For cheerleading and encouragement when I thought I’d give up, thank you immensely to Mayka, Ashton, Miko, Gane, and Erin.

  My family, immediate and extended, for encouraging me to love books, and for supporting my enthusiasm for things that they don't entirely understand. Both my parents and my in-laws have looked after me, cheered me on, and given me homes, near and far.

  I owe my Jo a debt for keeping my love of theatre and performance alive, even when it was expensive and far away. Lee, thank you for thinking this story could be a book in the first place, and whipping it into shape. Astrid, thanks for running this whole show and making all your authors proud to work with you. Thank you to everyone else at Ylva for their help in making this particular dream a reality.

  And most of all to my wife, who snagged the dedication but deserves infinitely more. As the “real” writer in our house, she teaches me every day, and respects my opinions even when I don’t respect them myself. She is brilliant, beautiful, and absolutely too good for me, but she made me understand love well enough to want to write thousands of words about it, so I’m happy as long as she’ll have me.

  Finally: to Franklin, Orlando, and Nora. Thank you for the cuddles, the purrs, and the 1am screaming fits when you thought you’d killed a mouse. It’s never a mouse, you idiots, it’s a catnip toy.

  PROLOGUE

  The audience’s murmurs build to a crescendo as the last bell rings. Any moment there’ll be the booming announcement, the weary words of an assistant stage manager who wishes that cell phones and anything wrapped in cellophane could be banished to another dimension. The orchestra hums in the pit, strings still reverberating with the strenuous warm-up scales, the echoes of notes—blown and plucked and struck—fading to ghosts as pages are flicked back to the overture.

  Anna takes a deep breath.

  She wriggles in her seat just a little, hearing the scrunch of her dress against the plush red velvet. Her feet are restlessly flexing inside her first pair of grown-up heels, a birthday present from her foster sister, Jess. The tickets themselves were a gift from Jess’s mother, Marcia, for all of them. Anna hasn’t asked to come to the ballet even once since she moved in with the Gales, because nights at the theater are something she’s always associated with her mother.

  Not even tragedy has diminished Anna’s love of ballet, and when Marcia suggested it, Anna swallowed down the bitter taste of loss and gratefully accepted. Her mom would be whispering in Anna’s ear right now, pointing out interesting facts in the dancers’ biographies, and scouting surrounding patrons for potential troublemakers who might start snoring halfway through the first act.

  Marcia pats Anna’s hand instead, watching her in that quiet, careful way she has. Anna smiles, because some experiences don’t have to be the same as before to be her very favorite thing.

  Besides, tonight isn’t some local ballet school sending sugar-plum toddlers out on stage. This is the Metropolitan Ballet, and their finest prima in two generations has been getting rave reviews season after season, every word of which Anna has meticulously collected, cut out, and pasted into her volumes of scrapbooks. She remembers so clearly how her mother did that religiously, steady hands smoothing pictures and letters into film-coated pages. When they were all lost in the fire, Anna started the tradition anew.

  She’s going to see Victoria Ford—the Queen of Ballet—dance, in the final preview before the biggest opening in Metropolitan history. That they even have tickets is a miracle, and Anna tries to ignore the tug of guilt somewhere around her diaphragm, because Marcia probably cannot afford this.

  The music swells as the curtain rises, and Anna grips the arms of her chair as though she might float away. It’s really happening. She blinks back brimming tears, determined not to miss a second as the corps begin to leap and scurry across the stage. It’s magic. Everywhere she looks something beautiful is happening. These aren’t just dancers; these people are Anna’s heroes and they can fly.

  The wonder she feels for the company pales in comparison as the corps parts like water cleaved by the prow of a ship. It leaves a path through their midst, revelers lining the parade route for their queen to pass. Anna feels Jess clutch her forearm, holding her in place.

  With a leap that seems to hang in the air for countless seconds, Victoria Ford enters the stage. The audience goes as wild as Anna’s heartbeat, decorum thrown off for the night at the arrival of a bona fide star. As Victoria crosses the stage in a series of flawless turns, leading man trailing in her wake, the applause builds and builds.

  Anna’s on her feet with the rest of her section, even though she can hear the grumbles about an ovation coming too soon. Jess and Marcia join her in the fervent applause, thunderclaps between their palms adding to the brewing storm in the room. Anna doesn’t take her eyes from Victoria’s face, grateful that she can see every flicker of emotion.

  At first Victoria seems proud, perhaps even a little humbled by the adulation. Then there’s a twist of irritation to her features, in the scrunch of her nose, and the faintest roll of her eyes. She looks to the conductor, who stops the score from proceeding and repeats a few bars in a vamp instead.

  Anna’s watched the archive footage so many times, but nothing compares to seeing this all play out right in front of her. She can almost feel the heat of the lights beating down.

  Then, with a
flutter of her hands, Victoria silences the audience. The clapping stumbles to a halt, and everyone takes their seat as though thrown by those very hands. A nod, and the theater full of people understands. Their appreciation is noted, but this is Victoria Ford’s show now. Time to sit back and be dazzled.

  The conductor builds up again as Victoria sets her feet in position. When she launches into the choreography again, the audience is held in perfect, rapt silence. Anna doesn’t remember if she breathes or not for the rest of the act, but every step and turn is seared into her memory.

  “The reviews will be insane,” Anna predicts at the interval, grabbing for the ice cream Marcia provides. “I swear we just saw history being made, and it’s going to be a smash tomorrow night.”

  “I’m sure we did,” Jess answers, mocking only a little. “So this doesn’t put you off ribbons and broken toes for the rest of your life, sis?”

  “Are you kidding?” Anna says with a gasp. “How could I ever do anything else?”

  CHAPTER 1

  The Metropolitan Performing Arts Center, squarely in the heart of New York, is everything Anna ever dreamed it would be. She stands on the sidewalk out front, trying to take in the scale of the glass and concrete. With her dance bag on her shoulder and her hair in the neatest bun she could wrangle, she’s ready to make that all-important first impression.

  “Newbie!” someone says, tapping her on the shoulder. A short guy with dark eyes and a kind smile is looking at her expectantly. He has his own dance bag over his shoulder, and his cardigan looks so lived-in, so comfortable, that Anna covets it immediately. “You’re gonna be late,” he says.

  “I’ve still got, like, fifteen minutes,” Anna says.

  “Yeah, you really want to get a head start on the warm-up here. Which means fifteen early is basically late. Ethan Vaughn, by the way”

  “Pleased to meet you. I’m Anna Gale,” she explains as he takes her arm and steers her around the corner of the huge building to what looks suspiciously like a fire escape. “I didn’t think I’d made the company. Richard told me they almost never take anyone from regional tryouts.”

  “Yeah, Victoria thinks not moving to New York in advance shows a lack of dedication. But this is the first year anyone other than her had a say in who dances. I’m just glad I’m still in.”

  “You’re in your second season?”

  “Third, actually,” Ethan tells her as they climb the staircase to where the fire exit is propped open with a couple of bricks. They’re a few floors up and Anna knows she’ll get dizzy if she looks down. “I’m really hoping to make principal this season.”

  “I bet you will,” Anna says with gusto.

  He laughs at her, but it’s not completely unkind. “You haven’t even seen me dance.”

  “I don’t need to,” Anna assures him. “I have a good feeling about it.”

  “Well, Tuesday mornings kick that out of you soon enough,” he says. “Ladies’ changing room in there.” He gestures to a door on the right. “You want Studio C, that’s four along, when you’re done.”

  “Why are you being so nice to me?” Anna asks, remembering her foster mother’s warnings about the pranks of competitive dancers that could sabotage a career in one move.

  “I don’t know,” he says with a shrug. “I guess because nobody ever was to me.”

  Changing at record speed, Anna is stripped to her leotard and tights in less than a minute. She blasts her hair with one last cloud of hairspray and shoves her things in the first empty locker she comes across. Then she heads right back out to the studio, and freezes for a moment in the doorway. It’s just like so many other studios she’s danced in, the smell of Deep Heat and Tiger Balm mingling with stale sweat, not quite drowned out by the morning rush of fresh deodorant, perfume, or cologne. There’s dust high up in the rafters, but the light is sharp and uncompromising, the ceiling of glass making the battered floor a stage with the broadest of spotlights. In here there will be nowhere to hide.

  At the moveable barre in the center of the room stands Delphine Wade, the company’s prima ballerina. Anna knew their paths would cross, but didn’t realize they’d be taking classes together. Delphine is bending and stretching to her own routine, shorter in real life than she seems on stage. Like Anna, she’s in leotard and tights, a wrap around her shoulders for warmth.

  Conscious of time ebbing away, Anna finds a space at the back of the room when Ethan shimmies along to leave enough of a gap. He’s firing through a series of stretches as Anna pulls out her pointe shoes, and the ribbons she at least had the foresight to cut ahead of time. She sits on the floor to make her quick stitches and, despite taking a hammer to them last night, she smacks the toes of her shoes against the floor a few more times to ready them.

  She has to be perfect.

  It’s not hard to work out that people are talking about her. In the changing room she may have tried a sunny introduction, but this room is far too intimidating. Gabriel Bishop, probably the most exciting male principal Anna has ever seen dance, is warming up with Delphine. Tall and broad-shouldered, he shoots Anna a look and she smiles weakly. When she raises her hand in a wave, she actually gets a blinding smile in return.

  Ethan interrupts then.

  “I’ll introduce you around once Victoria has had her way with us,” he says. “We’ve got David afterward, much less scary.”

  “David Jackson?” Anna can’t believe she’s really here, dancing alongside these people whose names litter her programs and magazine clippings, the box left behind under her bed at Marcia’s, sacrificed as a collection of childish things.

  “Try not to look too star-struck,” he leans in to mutter. “They really hate that.”

  “Good note,” Anna says, working her arms up, out, and over in repetition. She’s barely gotten up on her toes for the first time, her muscles slow to wake, when the door flies open with a bang. She lets herself fall into a forward port de bras, clearing her head and getting her blood rushing in one.

  It’s what distracts her from the moment she’s been desperately trying not to fixate on. Victoria Ford is a legend for a reason, and Anna’s been trying to concentrate on almost anything about her new job that will keep her from thinking about working with maybe the greatest ballerina in modern history.

  “Good morning, mes danseurs,” Victoria greets them, striding to the front of the room and receiving the rapt attention of every person without so much as raising her voice.

  Anna is holding her breath, scared that somehow she’ll shatter the moment she’s given up almost every morning, evening, and weekend for over these past few years.

  “Welcome to our new season.”

  A polite round of applause ripples through the room. Anna joins enthusiastically, clapping a second too long and blushing at her own exuberance.

  “Despite certain changes to the selection of our dancers this year, I believe this will be our most dazzling season yet. I’m putting together a program that will be spellbinding, brilliant, and most importantly? Hot.”

  Some of the more established dancers cheer. Anna doesn’t dare, the sound dying in her throat. Victoria fusses with her necklace, a dark metal with a knot as its focal point. It brings her collarbones into sharp relief above the flat neckline of her Bardot-style black top.

  “But for now, it’s Tuesday morning and you are all at my mercy.”

  The laughter is a little more nervous this time. Anna’s already convinced this woman means it. Rolling her ankle, which is still just a little crunchy from the past two days of travel and limited rehearsal, Anna lets her gaze flicker from person to person as they straighten up even more, clearly waiting for instruction.

  “Teresa, if you please.”

  The dark-haired pianist Anna hadn’t noticed until that moment strikes up with the theme from Jaws.

  There’s a burst of laughter, and Victoria fixes her with an indulgent glare. “Something more appropriate, perhaps?”

  The music changes to something
classical. Anna is too jittery to pluck out its correct name.

  “Let’s begin,” Victoria says.

  Anna follows the rest of the class and turns, placing her left hand lightly on the barre. As Victoria strolls past her, she thinks she might snap the wood with how hard she grips in panic, but the barre is still attached when Victoria finishes her circuit of the studio and calls out the first routine.

  “Pliés. In first, demi, demi, full, port de bras front and back. Repeat in second, fourth, fifth. Then reverse.”

  Anna processes the barked command quickly—it’s a fairly standard request. She touches her heels together, feet turned out, and bends her knees in first one demi-plié and then a second. Her knees groan a little as she deepens into the full, but it feels good. She can feel the sneaky glances coming her way, the other women scoping out the competition. It’s not bitchy, per se, but Anna’s felt those same searching glances every time she’s started over in some new school or studio.

  She keeps her neck straight and her eyes fixed on a point on the window wall, making each bend as deep as possible. This needs to be a good first impression. Victoria moves among the company, starting with Delphine and Gabriel, offering muttered criticisms to each dancer she passes. On this sweep she doesn’t bother with the back row, and Ethan and Anna allow themselves a joint sigh of relief when Victoria returns to the front of the room without making a full circuit.

  “Teresa!” Victoria calls, and the music changes up.

  The next sequence is rattled off, but Anna grabs each detail like her life depends on it. She’s never been more grateful to have an ear for detail. This time around, when Victoria passes, she offers only “lift as you descend” to Anna, but poor Ethan gets a sharp tut and “lazy, lazy.” Anna thinks she would burst into tears if that happened to her.

  The repetitive sets are a fantastic warm-up, and they’re all sweating by the time they finish a set of rond de jambe à terre. The room’s earlier tension seems to be settling, and Victoria actually lets a little hint of a smile play across her mouth as she watches them all in the front wall mirrors. Hard work pleases her, it would seem.