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“I do not know how to look at you without feeling grateful you are alive.”

Silence. Her face softens in a way that nearly destroys me. Then she looks away first. “Then try not to make it depressing.”

Lazarus leans toward me. “A fair request.”

Alcott nods. “Terribly fair.”

I almost smile as the first notes begin. Her favorite, a dark, haunting, cello. Mournful enough to belong to grief, but beautiful enough to survive it. The sound fills La Sirene slowly, moving through velvet, wood, mirror, bone. It is not one of the bright pieces she danced to before. This is deeper, slower, a song that does not demand she pretend to be untouched. Olive closes her eyes, she does not move and I can't help when my hands curl against my knees.

Do not rush her.

Do not fear for her before she asks you to.

Do not make your terror another chain around her ankle.

Then she lifts one hand, the movement is almost nothing, and then her wrist turns, fingers unfurl, chin rises as though pulled by some invisible thread. One foot slides across the stage as the other follows gracefully. She begins, there is slight hesitation in the first steps. A stiffness where there used to be effortless command. A flinch when the cello strikes too low. My body moves before thought, but Lazarus’s hand closes around my wrist.

“Wait,” he whispers.

It is a small request. So I do, I wait. Olive stills after the flinch, breathes slowly, then one hand goes briefly to her chest as she continues. The second time, the movement is smoother. The third, stronger.

Her arms sweep outward, and the black skirt follows, catching candlelight like dark water. She turns slowly at first, then faster, hair spilling over one shoulder, bare feet whispering across the floorboards. The mirrors catch her. One Olive becomes many. Not fractured, but beautifully multiplied. She dances through grief. Not around it, simply through it beautifully. Her body remembers pain, yes, but it remembers music too. It remembers balance, that movement can belong to her.

Beside me, Lazarus exhales shakily, Alcott’s eyes shine, and I cannot look away. She is not performing for men tonight. Not for coin, power, or for survival. She dances because she wants to feel her own body move without fear being the hand that guides it. She dances because the Collector is dead, and the stage is hers once more. The cello deepens. Olive spins. For one breath, she looks free. My vision blurs and I look down quickly, but it is too late. A tear slips onto my hand. Laz and Alcott both see, they are kind enough to spare me.

Once the music slows, Olive lowers herself to the stage floor, one knee bent, one arm extended, and head bowed. The final note trembles through the theater and fades into silence. Lazarus presses a hand to his mouth to throw a invisible kiss, as Alcott bows his head. I stand, nice and slowly as Olive lifts her head. Her breathing is uneven, cheeks flushed. Those gorgeous eyes are wet, but not empty. They are alive. So incredibly alive.

“Was it terrible?” she asks.

The question breaks my heart more than any scream could have. I step to the edge of the stage. “No.”

Lazarus stands beside me. “It was holy.”

Alcott rises too. “And technically excellent in several places.”

Olive laughs. A startled, wet sound.

Alcott blinks. “That was a compliment.”

“It was very you,” she says with an accompanied chuckle. He smiles.

Then she looks at me, I stop several steps away. “May I?”

Her eyes search mine, then she nods. I cross the distance and take her hands. They are warm. Trembling within mine.

“You came back to yourself tonight,” I whisper.

Her face shifts. “No.”

I still. She looks down at our joined hands. “I do not think I am going back to who I was.”

The words are quiet. I wait.

She lifts her gaze. “I think I am becoming someone else.”

My chest tightens. “Then we will meet her.”

Her lips part. Lazarus stands behind me as Alcott follows. Neither comes too close until Olive reaches one hand toward them. That is all it takes, they are there. Lazarus kneels first, pressing a kiss to her knuckles with a tenderness so severe it looks painful. Alcott stands at her shoulder, one hand hovering until she leans into it. Then his palm settles gently against her hair.