Berlin turns her head slightly toward me again, arching a brow. “There are two. Odette and Odile. The White Swan and the Black Swan. Same dancer usually performs both. Not this time.”
“Oh.” I glance at the stage, then back at her. “So, she’s the villain?”
Berlin exhales a faint laugh. “Sort of. It’s complicated. Odile’s not evil for the sake of it; she’s a pawn in someone else’s game. It’s more layered than people give it credit for.”
I glance at the program in her lap. “Is she nervous?”
“Paris?” Berlin shakes her head, just once. “She lives for this.”
“It’s a big role, right?” I ask. “Odile?”
“One of the hardest,” Berlin says without hesitation. “Technically demanding. High pressure. Most girls butcher it.”
I blink. “Sounds brutal.”
She gives a small shrug. “It is. But Paris won’t. She’s better than most.”
There’s no boast in her tone. Just fact.
The lights begin to dim, and the murmur of the crowd quiets. Lilia leans over from her new, safer seat next to Bea and mouths thank you at me.
I nod.
The curtain begins to rise.
***
The performance was… something else.
I’m still not over it.
I sat in stunned silence the entire time, and I hardly know anything about ballet. And Paris Brooks—god. She didn’t just play Odile. She became her.
No wonder Berlin was so calm earlier. Paris was born to be on that stage.
And according to Lilia, this wasn’t even the traditional version of Swan Lake.
“They put a spin on it,” she whispered to me somewhere around act two. “It’s darker this time.”
And she was right.
In this version, Odile wasn’t just some manipulative seductress. Berlin was right, she was a pawn. A weapon crafted by Rothbart to trick Prince Siegfried and keep him from Odette. But somewhere in the middle of all her deceiving, Odile started to feel. Started to want more than just revenge.
Started to fall for him.
Because she couldn’t have both, her freedom and her feelings. So, when she tried to help Siegfried break the curse, Rothbart turned on her too. Killed her for her betrayal.
She dies in Siegfried’s arms, who dies later on as well, with Odette, to break the curse.
And when the curtain came down, there was complete silence for a full five seconds after the lights went dark, but then, the crowd had roared. People were on their feet. Some of them crying. I think even Bea might’ve teared up, but she’ll deny it for the rest of her life.
“Paris was incredible,” Bea says, almost breathless as we make our way down the front steps. “Seriously. That role was made for her.”
Lilia snorts. “Oh, trust me. We all know how much you enjoyed that. Could’ve sworn I saw you tearing up.”
Bea glares at her. “I was not tearing up.”
I laugh under my breath, hugging my coat tighter around me. The quad is still dotted with students, groups chatting in clusters, as they start heading home, or to the Steele house for the afterparty.
