She lowers herself into the chair, her palms sweaty. Her composure is just a veneer, masking the electricity beneath her skin.
Nilas leans back, folding his long fingers into a steeple that resembles a cathedral, solemn and built for judgment. His gaze never wavers. He doesn’t blink, doesn’t soften. He studies her the way a surgeon contemplates an incision point, or a collector appraises an artifact: deciding if the piece before him is priceless or replaceable.
“This year has shaped you,” he begins. “You are no longer the dancer who walked through those doors as an apprentice some years ago.”
Not praise yet not quite criticism. Recognition, at best. She wavers for a moment before landing on “Thank you.”
His hand slices through the air, dismissing her gratitude before it can take root. “The Royal St. Petersburg Ballet Company wants you to join them as a principal dancer.”
“Principal?”
“They approached me directly.” His gaze holds steady on her. “An unexpected retirement from a top dancer created an opening. They need someone with your particular combination of technical ability and stage magnetism…their words, not mine.”
The Royal St. Petersburg Ballet Company. The name alone carries centuries of legacy, whispered in conservatories like a prayer. Principal dancers there become part of ballet’s living mythology.
“What about here?” she asks.
His expression hardens into familiar territory. “No promises have been made here as it relates to promoting you. All very much still up in the air. The company is large, and the competition is only heightening.”
There it is. The blade hidden inside the bouquet. She absorbs the blow without flinching.
“Saint Petersburg operates differently,” he continues, his tone sharpening. “They’re offering certainty. They want you immediately.”
“How immediately?”
“End of this week.”
The timeline feels impossibly compressed, designed to force instinct over consideration.
“And your recommendation?” she asks.
Nilas tilts his head, considering. “The choice isn’t mine to make. But opportunities of this caliber rarely come twice. In fact, they rarely comeonce.”
“I appreciate you telling me.” She rises, sensing Nilas is finished with the discussion. She walks towards the exit of his office.
“Saint Petersburg doesn’t wait,” he says as she reaches for the door handle.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I decide,” she says, then exits.
Outside, the hallway becomes her sanctuary. Saint Petersburg wantsher. Not as an understudy or a promising up-and-comer, but as a principal. The title she’s been chasing, first in her childhood dream and then in her adult dreams, has suddenly materialized and is awaiting her answer.
Her arms cross over her chest, a physical attempt to contain the chaos inside. She’s imagined this moment in countless variations. The euphoria of being chosen, the validation of being seen. But in her fantasies, it always happens here, in New York, in this familiar maze of studios and dreams.
But Saint Petersburg beckons like a siren song. The Mariinsky Theatre, with its opulent stages and centuries of ghosts. She can envision the velvet curtains parting, the orchestra’s opening notes washing over her as she embodies all the principal roles she would finally be able to perform: Odette, Aurora, Giselle, and the Sugar Plum Fairy—the role that planted this obsession in her young heart. It’s everything she’s ever wanted.
Success there would be intoxicating. Failure would be devastating. The Royal St. Petersburg Ballet Company consumes dancers who can’t meet its impossible standards. She’d be starting over in a system that views weakness as unforgivable, surrounded by dancers who’ve been forged in that fire since childhood.
And if she leaves, there will be no going back. Ballet is an ever-present current that moves forward, never backward. Someone else will claim her roles, her progress, her place in this company’s hierarchy. They won’t hold her spot like a saved seat at dinner.
She emerges on the busy Manhattan sidewalk, searching for some type of solace, needing movement to quiet the storm in her head. This company, this city, has been her safe haven, her home. Sometimes brutal, often demoralizing, but undeniably hers. She’s fought for every step and every small victory.
So why does external validation from another ballet company feel both thrilling and somehow empty? Perhaps because she’s spent years trying to prove herself to this company, and now someone else is saying she doesn’t need to prove anything at all. It feels like bypassing a crucial step, like accepting a prize she hasn’t fully earned.
Wind cuts through her coat as she navigates the intersection of Broadway and Columbus, pulling her deeper into contemplation. Saint Petersburg isn’t just a career move; it’s a pilgrimage to her father’s origins. He’d painted pictures of snow-dusted streets and the Mariinsky’s grandeur with such longing that she’d absorbed his nostalgia through osmosis. She’s never seen the city that shaped him before America became his home.
Wouldn’t he have wanted this for her? A chance to dance where his own dreams and life had begun?
Her phone’s buzz interrupts the spiral. Liam’s text on the screen brings her back to the present.
