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“Have you seen Swan Lake before?”
“I have not, I am buzzing with anticipation. Have you?”
“Last summer when we were in London. Apparently, the amount of fouettes Odette does in Act Three is determined by the audience’s applause.”
“How so?”
“This Italian principal dancer, some thirty years ago, just… decided to do thirty-two fouettes. And then the story goes is the audience went so wild after she finished that she did them again.”
“No!”
“Yes! So now, if the principal dancer feels up to it, and the audience is engaged enough, she’ll do the same. It’s considered a high honor.”
Anya couldn’t help but eavesdrop as she removed her coat at the check. The ladies’ conversation behind her gave her something to focus on, to ground herself, so she didn’t get lost in the overwhelming atmosphere of Palais Garnier or the crowd of leftover aristocrats.
There certainly was a buzz in the air. It had been a while since a Tchaikovsky production had hit Paris (according to these ladies) and it seemed everyone was more than ready to be dazzled by the classic Russian score. Anya tugged nervously on her silk gloves on her way deeper into the belly of the old opera house. A part of her wondered if she would run into the old empress out here, if it would be better to get the introduction over with or if it would damn her chances…
Instead of the dowager, Anya spotted someone else first among the crowd of painted faces that hushed at the sight of her. Someone more recently familiar. Maybe it was just her imagination but it seemed the crowd parted, almost like the sea did for Moses, to provide her a path. He was kneeling down, fixing his shoe. Fondness unfolded in her chest, spilling out of her ribs, and she couldn’t help but smile at the sight.
He cleaned up well. Looking at him now, you would never guess he had been squatting in an abandoned palace a few months ago, living with rats and patches in his elbows and soles falling from his shoes. Now, with his hair combed back and in a sleek tuxedo and white bowtie, he fit right in.
She supposed one could say the same about herself, too.
Dmitry was too busy with his shiny new shoe to notice her at first, which gave her plenty of time to approach him. But when he did, his gaze rose slowly, agonizingly so, before meeting her eyes with wonder and awe. There they remained for just a beat too long.
Funny. The last time she saw him he was on a knee before her then, too.
In spite of it all, in spite of everything, seeing him so dumbstruck made her smile. In all the months she had known him, flustered was not an emotion she saw from him very often. His mouth parted but he spoke no words. Their reverie splintered when the final warning bells rang, and then he scrambled to his feet, fixing his jacket, and held his arm out to her. Ready to play the part of the grand duchess’s escort to her debut in Paris society once more.
“How are you feeling?” Dmitry asked, much too softly.
Anya exhaled. “Like I’m going to be sick.”
His lips twitched, both in amusement at her blunt honesty and in sympathetic reassurance. “It will all be over soon.”
Soon. The pace of it all was too much, too fast. Anya could barely keep up. The revelation that she might actually be— that she was— the grand duchess, the memories that were flooding back in her mind in short bursts, that her grandmother was somewhere in this building, the eyes and ears all aimed in her direction after a decade of being invisible…
And the revelation that the boy next to her was the very same boy who had followed her in a parade, all those years ago.
That was the memory she kept replaying the most, the memory that was clear as day to her, now. Everything else was out of chronological order, puzzle pieces that didn’t quite make sense or match up yet. But that hot summer day was so vivid and bright. She kept catching herself staring at him. She could even see the resemblance, now, especially when he smiled, all teeth and dimples and sparkling eyes. Like nothing had changed.
Only that wasn’t true. Everything had changed.
It wasn’t until now, until this very moment, Anya realized her feelings for him ran deeper than a girlish schoolyard crush, that she was having trouble separating her future from this imperfect and beautiful and caring man who traveled so far to get her here. And last night, the way he was holding her so gently, the way he was looking at her… she had thought— had hoped— he might feel the same…
But then he had withdrawn into himself, actually putting as much distance between them as possible in her room, and averted his eyes, like it physically hurt to look at her. She was pretty sure he hadn’t even looked at her since.
Tonight, though, it was like he couldn’t look away.
It was awfully confusing.
If Anya was nervous, sick to her stomach, wobbly on her feet, Dmitry was steady as a rock next to her, playing the part of gentleman marvelously well. His smile was so radiant it almost blinded her to everyone else in the room. Her hands nested perfectly in the crook of his elbow, and his smile was an anchor, guiding her through the crowd of onlookers. And for a moment nothing else mattered.
The spell broke when, from afar, Vlad called to them, holding his pinky up in both a reminder of the lessons he taught her and a gesture of good luck. Anya’s throat closed up in gratitude.
An usher handed Dmitry two programs, who then gave her the second. She still clung to his arm. “I wish everyone would stop staring at us.”
“I doubt it’s me they’re looking at, Anya.”
He said it with that familiar dry irony, but with a new softness now that surprised her. When she met his eyes they were everything at once: sad, loving, longing; shining like they were gazing upon an open sky of stars, or a stained glass window at sunset, or a train puffing its way out of a station. His smile had faltered into something almost shy.
If it were any other night, if she was still just an ordinary girl exploring Paris, if the stakes weren’t so mountainous, she would love every second of this. The Anya from two nights ago would have studied her program front to back by now and would be anxiously awaiting to hear the famous Tchaikovsky score. She would be enamoured by the grandeur of the opera house, ogling every beautiful gown before her, chitchatting with strangers, tasting the champagne.
On the other side of the coin… Anastasia would be calm, poised, unbothered by the riffraff. This would have been her dozenth visit to the opera house this season. She would enjoy the ballet, sure, be engrossed by the performance, but nothing would rattle her composure.
The Anya now, though… this strange person, mid-transformation, a collection of scattered pieces and broken memories… Anya had no idea who she was anymore.
Dmitry’s hands shook just a little, examining their tickets. It appeared Vlad had different seats away from their box. Or maybe Vlad ran off to sit with his countess. Anya didn’t really care, Dmitry would be enough company.
Actually, well. Her nerves were eating away at her at the thought of being alone with him again, but. What could she do. She had bigger problems.
They found their seats in the last row of the box on stage left, and Dmitry, ever good at playing the part of an aristocrat gentleman escorting a lady, delicately held her fingers, in a manner in which he could kiss her knuckles, and guided her to sit first, careful to keep the train of her gown from tangling at their ankles. A few ladies glanced over their shoulders their way and held their hands over their mouths to conceal their whispers.
With a shiver, Anya realized that if they succeed, these people would be her new— and only— social acquaintance. She didn’t quite know how to feel about that.
“Would you like a drink?” Dmitry asked.
Anya shook her head. “I don’t know if it will stay down.”
He looked concerned, anxious. “Let me get you a water, then—”
“Dmitry,” Anya held his forearm to prevent him from rising. She swallowed when he met her eyes. “Please don’t leave my side.”
He relaxed into the seat more. “Okay.”
The ballet had yet to start. There was a brief moment of awkwardness, neither of them able to find a way to break the silence. Anya flipped through her program but the words didn’t really stick. The orchestra was tuning their instruments, playing notes incongruent to each other. The pair in front of them gossiped endlessly about a disastrous dinner party. Anya lifted her hand to nibble on her thumbnail when she remembered she was wearing gloves, so she lowered it to her lap again.
Dmitry gently turned her wrist and dropped a pair of opera glasses in her palm. “There,” he whispered, pointing to a box across the stage, like he already knew she wouldn’t be able to focus on the actual ballet at all, because of course he could read her like that, “the dowager’s private box.”
Anya scrambled to lift the glasses to her eyes, and he gently guided her gaze in the right direction. And there she was. An elegant old woman in a shimmering dress, black as night, staring disinterested at the stage below. Anya’s gut twisted in anxiety. Her memory hadn’t been entirely restored, she still struggled sorting between what actually happened and what was only a dream or wishful thinking. Mostly it was all mundane things. A hand smoothing her hair. The smell of orange blossoms. The fur of a coat scratching her cheek, a hug goodbye.
Anya wanted it so bad. Wanted it to be true. She was almost choking on it.
“Hey,” Dmitry rasped carefully. She hoped she didn’t look like a wild, panicked animal when she looked up at him. “It will be okay.”
His face was so open and genuine and soft, she couldn’t help but trust him. He seemed calm and composed. Maybe she could be the same.
“Do you want me to quiz you on the family tree one more time?” he asked, his lips slightly twitching.
In spite of herself she smiled. He knew how to make her laugh, even just briefly. “If you think that will help our chances.”
“You’re more than ready,” he said, this time more serious. Wanting her to believe him.
She wanted to believe him, too.
The house lights finally dimmed, and the audience’s chatter hushed in anticipation, and Anya had to tear her gaze away, because for some reason looking at him in the dark felt too dangerous and forbidden.
She tried to focus, she really did. She really wanted to enjoy such a beautiful piece. But her eyes kept drifting across the stage and to the private box opposite to where they were sitting, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe all over again. Her hands were damp as a swamp under all this silk.
Maybe she didn’t understand the ballet, but Anya felt like she was watching herself on that stage. Like she was the one doing endless pirouettes under the spotlights and scrutiny of Paris’s finest. There was a moment where it felt like the principal dancer was looking right at her, like she knew exactly the struggle Anya was enduring, seeking solace in a stranger. Anya saw herself in the girl trapped as a swan, in how everyone’s fate hinged upon hers. She saw her country in the count, a country that hated her now. She even saw Dmitry in the playful hunt for freedom and the devotion of the prince. When her eyes slid up to him at her side at the thought, she caught him watching her instead of the dancers. His gaze flitted away guiltily.
She shifted in her seat, the cushion and wood creaking noisily, earning a glare from the woman in front of her. She felt hot. Itchy. What was she doing here? Did they really think they could get away with this? Did every one here know she had been sleeping beneath a bridge before coming here?
Fingers grazed over the back of hers, light as a moth’s wing. Anya’s eyes dropped to the pair of white gloves on the armrest, one belonging to her, one belonging to Dmitry. It wasn’t the most extraordinary touch. His knuckles were on hers, nothing more. But every nerve in her body locked onto that touch like a lifeline.
And then, with the ease with which he did almost everything, his head dipped near hers, and his breath was on her ear, and that touch, or rather lack thereof, demanded far more of her attention. “Relax,” he whispered. So quiet. Just a breath. “It’s meant to be.”
Anya chewed on her lip, no doubt smudging her lipstick. Her eyes were still stuck on their hands. She leaned into his space before he could tilt away again. “Dmitry.”
“Hmm?”
“Are you worried?”
“About what?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
They were speaking parallel to each other, both facing the stage instead of looking at one another, but she could practically hear him smiling at her biting tone, something she could not tamper even in a whisper, buried underneath violins and cellos and cymbals. “Worrying’s not like me.”
Anya leaned away slightly so she could look at him properly. His eyes turned to hers inquisitively. He was bathed in light spilling from the stage, meant to cast onto the performers but still finding him. “So you don’t care, then,” she challenged.
Instead of taking the bait for a fight, like he would have a month ago, he just shook his head. Sincerity was not what she expected from him. “I care, perhaps too much.” His tongue darted to wet his lips. “But I only meant that— you can handle yourself, no matter what the situation is, so I don’t have to worry about you. That doesn’t mean I don’t care.”
Anya swallowed, trying to wet her throat, so her voice wasn’t raspy. “About what?”
Just say it. Just give her a buoy to cling onto in this stormy sea.
His answer was in his soft eyes, in his silence, in what was left unspoken. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, repeated the silence. Except he was gentler, sadder.
She had to look away, then, even though it took her too long to do so. His gaze was too warm. She was watching the ballet below but they were nothing but blobs of light and color in her vision. All of her focus was on the knuckles still touching her hand.
Heart pulsing in her throat, and without even her knowledge, her hand lifted just slightly, gliding over to the opposite side of his, and now they were palm to palm, fingers intertwining one by one. She half expected him to recoil the way he had last night, to hold himself at an arm’s length out of respect. But he squeezed back. She almost cried with relief; she couldn’t do this on her own. Not with everyone watching and waiting for her to fail.
His thumb brushed over her knuckles. As if he could read her mind, as if he was saying, I’m here, pay no mind to them.
This was the hand that had brushed hair from her face and defended her from strangers and held her tight when she woke from a nightmare. And now he was holding her like their hands were built to fit together.
The orchestra crescendoed, and then the curtain fell with a ripple of applause. Their hands awkwardly fell apart and Anya politely participated. The house lights brightened. While their fellow neighbors in this box chattered and rose from their seats, Anya didn’t dare move, and therefore neither did Dmitry.
He leaned in again, brow serious. “Are you following this?”
She knew it was just a ploy to distract her, but she laughed a little. “Somewhat.” Her gaze drifted across the theatre again. The private box was empty. Her stomach lurched. Where did she go?
Dmitry, perceptive as ever, asked, “Are you afraid she won’t accept you?”
“I don’t know,” she confessed. “You may not be worried, but I’m— I’m worried about everything.”
“Like what?”
She finally looked at him again, incredulous. Where could she begin? “That she’ll hate me, specifically, that I’ll say something wrong or impolite, that we came all this way only to be rejected, that— that we—”
She faltered, not sure how to voice just how worried she was that the opposite would come to fruition. That she’ll be accepted with open arms. That she’ll never see him again.
Dmitry had that patient, kind expression he always did when he was walking her through a problem in her mind, something he had gotten so good at in the last few weeks. “She will love you,” he insisted. “There’s no way she’ll be displeased to meet the woman her granddaughter has grown up to be.”
Her stomach clenched at a memory, one from last night. If I were the dowager, I’d want you to be her.
“I’ve never seen you afraid of anything before,” he said gently.
Anya nearly laughed. “Yes you have. Plenty of times.”
“Distressed, yes,” he conceded. “But that’s different.”
Guests started returning to their seats around them in their box. “There are so many things I’m afraid of,” Anya went on.
She felt his eyes boring into her, seeing right through her. “You’ve accomplished much worse,” he said softly. And then, with an ironic smile, “There are no ruffians here for you to rescue me from.”
Anya rolled her eyes.
“And you’ve stood toe to toe with me plenty of times.”
That made her scoff. “You’re not nearly as menacing as you think you are.”
He raised a disbelieving brow. “How about I do something to irritate you instead?” he asked. “Go on, name it, I’ll do it, and we’ll brawl it out in the lobby for old time’s sake.”
“You’re not so irritating anymore, either.”
The column of his throat shifted. Somehow he always knew how to coax her out of her mind, dissolve her troubled frown into a laugh, provide just the right amount of distraction and encouragement to ease her nerves. His tone softened. “You have everything to win, Anya. I’m sure she’s missed you as much as you have missed her.”
The house lights blinked, a final warning for those who have not returned to their seats. Again, she felt eyes on her, on the strange and nameless woman who appeared in the Paris court tonight, whispering at an intimate proximity with some commoner. “I wanted to find somewhere I belong,” Anya said. “But this… I feel so out of my depth.”
“You’re hiding it well,” Dmitry said, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “But you will. You already do belong.” She must’ve looked disbelieving because he went on. “You’re the one who survived and got yourself here. No one, not even some rich old lady, can take that away from you.”
For some reason this made a lump well up in her throat. How did he always know exactly what to say, exactly what she needed to hear? What was she supposed to do without his steady reassurance?
Before she could say anything else, Dmitry cleared his throat and offered her his program. Confused, she looked down, and it seemed in her distress she had ruined hers, and there it sat in a lump of crinkled paper in her lap. She had been saving these sorts of things, scraps of booklets and ticket stubs, any physical evidence of their time in Paris so far, just to ensure she would cling to these memories as long as she could. Dmitry knew how special this was to her. She accepted the program and set it on her lap, careful not to crease the paper.
“I wish…” Anya started, faltering a little when his pretty eyes flickered to hers, “I wish tonight wasn’t so important. That we were just here to see a ballet, and drink champagne, and nobody was watching me, and… and we could…”
His throat bobbed, and his other hand came up over hers. “Me too.”
The words were both a confirmation and a line in the sand. Yes, he wished it to be, too. But it was not to be. They were here for a reason and one reason only. And that was the reality they could not alter. There was nothing but regret and sorrow in those sad eyes of his.
Dmitry’s eyes were wet. “But you’ll…” He blinked the emotion away and struggled for words for a minute. Like what he was trying to say physically pained him. “Soon enough you’ll have your pick of men who actually deserve to be here with you.”
The pair of chatty ladies in front of them returned to their seats, disrupting the moment and dousing the mood. Dmitry was already looking away. Already slipping from her grasp.
Anya didn’t know why, but it was important to her that he understood, here and now, how wrong he was. “You know you’re— you’re not replaceable, right?”
He laughed, like he thought she was joking. She frowned. “I’m serious, Dmitry, there’s no one who—”
The lights dimmed, the orchestra began its entracte. She tried going on, but a lady in front of them turned around and shushed her so loud some spittle landed on her cheek. Anya glared daggers at the woman’s chignon.
It was hard to focus on the ballet after that, even after the curtain rose. Anya’s mind was all over the place. The dowager empress. The stakes of tonight. The flashes of memories from her life before— stolen sips of champagne, her sisters laughing with ribbons flowing behind them, a little boy playing with his dog, an old woman’s hands that smelled of orange blossoms— all making her buckle at the knees. The boy next to her who genuinely didn’t believe he deserved to be here at her side.
Anya studied his profile. He seemed determined not to look her way. Like he wasn’t allowed to anymore. He had that same inhibition from last night, igniting a familiar frustration and sadness within her.
He had pulled back, had restrained himself. But didn’t he know? Wasn’t it obvious? That she adored everything about him? That she even fucking loved him??
The boy from the parade looked at her once more, finally. The one clarity from her childhood. Dima.
He moved, intending to whisper something in her ear, but Anya’s gut lurched and her face tilted towards his. Dmitry, always able to read her, even now, stopped in his tracks. Let him see. Let him see the want in her eyes.
His lashes flickered down to her mouth. “Anya…”
The word wasn’t even a whisper. He was just mouthing it, the outline of her name softly shaping his lips, like he was warning her, begging her, to leave him be. Or begging her to finish the job once and for all. Maybe both.
So she did. She tilted forward, brushing her mouth over his, tasting her name still lingering on his lips. His response was strained. But his chin dipped, his lips parting for her with the softest of exhales.
It was as gentle as a kiss could be, but it stirred something in Anya all the same. All the anxiety morphed into something deeper, something different. They parted, only briefly, still connected by their foreheads and noses and mingling breaths; Dmitry was still too hesitant for her liking, frozen in place, so she kissed him again to prove her point, and he finally gave in, moulding his mouth to hers with an eagerness that made her stomach flip. Anya sighed against his cheek through her nose. His hand came up to brush the side of her face, slide down her neck. Like he couldn’t believe this was happening. Like he couldn’t believe he was allowed to touch her.
For someone who had been so irritable and ill-tempered, Dmitry could kiss so patiently. Like he had all the time in the world. Like he didn’t mind that she was a little clumsy and out of practice, like they weren’t in a goddamn opera house, like he was sipping a glass of wine instead, savoring the taste. A few months ago, if someone had told Anya that she would be here, kissing Dmitry Sudayev of all people, like this, she would have laughed in their face.
A memory resurfaced. God has a sense of humor, her mother was saying sardonically over her needlepoint. Anya understood the expression perfectly now.
She wasn’t sure of anything at all, she couldn’t even trust her own fragile, broken memory. She didn’t even know who she was anymore. This was the only true constant. Her feelings for him were the one crystal clarity in the tumult her life had become; she trusted him, plain as that. He was here to hold her, safe and warm. She had found the boy from the parade again at last.
And everything else melted away.
There were no people in the theatre, no eyes on her. Even the orchestra had quieted their music. Like the ballet itself was holding its breath, like the building was granting a moment of peace and privacy for the princess and her conman.
What confidence he lacked in himself he made up here. Like he had resigned himself as someone undeserving of her, but in the meantime he would give everything he had, simply because she was here, asking for more. Dmitry’s hand was warm beneath the soft silk of his white glove, his thumb on her jaw and palm on her neck and fingers at her nape. There was a rhythm to his kisses, an ebb and flow, a push and pull. She had to hold onto his lapel because she felt so dizzy. Her hand slid over his chest, under his jacket, needing as little layers as possible between them, feeling his steady heartbeat, the expansion of his lungs at every bewildered intake of breath, every slow and contented exhale. Her fingers curled greedily in his soft hair, earning another delicious sigh.
Their kisses were slow, but there was a warm undercurrent beneath, something Anya couldn’t quite name. Even though this was entirely new between them the push and pull of it was eerily familiar. Forward and back, give and take… it was a dance. A waltz.
A roar of applause startled them both apart. Dmitry looked stricken, reluctant to pull away, his face flushed a bright shade of red down to the bowtie around his neck. Anya probably looked the same. When his hand peeled itself from the side of her neck she reluctantly watched the stage to see what all the commotion was about. Ah. the black swan, the impostor, was turning. And turning, and turning…
The audience roared, the enthusiasm quaking the building, and did not recess one bit even when the principal dancer finished her fouettes and took a bow in gratitude. Still Anya could not bring herself to clap. She raised her fingers to her lips, like she was committing the kiss to memory. Next to her Dmitry shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. Everyone demanded more. So, with the grace of any ballerina, the young lady on stage started turning again.
“Holy shit,” Anya whispered aloud at the sight. There were actual tears in her eyes.
The curtain fell, the house lights lit up. Holy shit indeed. The act was over; Anya’s show was next.
She must have had a look of complete and utter terror in her eyes when she looked to Dmitry again because his face softened. “You’ll be okay,” he whispered. Still whispering, like the show was still going on and nobody was getting out of their seats and chattering noisily.
Her hand tightened around the armrest. Like she would float away if she didn’t cling hard enough. “I can’t breathe,” she whispered back.
“Look at me,” he insisted. “You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”
Somehow she knew he wasn’t speaking to a lost princess, nor some washed up orphan— he was speaking to the strange and new amalgamation of a person she was now, and looking at her like he’d be content to never look away again. His eyes were so open, honest. She let herself get pulled into their depths, wrapped in their warmth. She slowly nodded. “Okay.”
Dmitry rose to his feet first, offered his hand. She let him pull her up and guide her out of the box. Without her armrest to cling onto she clung to his bicep instead, her head spinning, adrenaline coursing through every vein in her body.
“Dmitry,” she asked while they followed the flow of the crowd down the steps. “What happens after… after we…”
His eyes curiously found hers, reading the question she wasn’t quite able to phrase. They stopped on the landing. His hand dipped, holding her palm. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, no?”
Anya shook her head. “We’re already there.”
His throat bobbed. He understood she was demanding an answer now, if not a conversation, but he was at just as much of a loss for words as she was. “Don’t let someone like me get in the way of what you’ve been looking for.”
Anya opened her mouth, needing him to understand, but she never got the chance to reply.
“There you are!”
Vlad was scrambling up the steps, wheezing. “I know where Lily is. It’s show time!”
Anya gathered her skirts and followed him down, careful not to trip, with Dmitry trailing behind her. Her stomach lurched with each step. Jesus, maybe she would actually be sick. They wove between other aristocrats, following Vlad to the opposite end of the theatre, where the dowager’s private box had been.
Vlad scurried forward to talk to a woman standing outside the box curtain, who Anya supposed was Lily. “Is she in a good mood?” Anya heard him hiss. She thought better to linger here and wait to be summoned.
“Anya, I…”
Dmitry’s voice roused her. He had been at her side all night, but now it was like he was determined to remain her shadow. His throat shifted, his fingers ghosting over her wrist. “No matter what happens, you… you’re…”
Anya decided to grant him mercy and interrupt his fumbling over trying to verbalize whatever this was between them, whatever was magnetizing them together. “You can tell me after,” she offered. “On my bridge.”
His eyes shone. “I’ll wait for you.”
Her fingers wove into his, underlining her promise. “I’ll find you.”
They lingered there for just a second too long, but to Anya, it was not long enough. Dmitry’s spine straightened and he offered her his arm, one last time. Ready to present the long lost grand duchess and reunite her with her grandmother. Anya felt her shoulder blades drop, her chin lift; her body remembered how to be a grand duchess before her heart did.
In Dmitry she saw, clear as day, the prince of the ballet, with his eternal devotion and unwavering support and the adoration in his eyes. In herself… she was haunted by the longing eyes of the principal dancer, Odette spinning over and over again, flying home to her love.