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L ondon, January 15, 1812

“Darling, you’re crowding the mirror,” Helene said as she gripped the barre, fixing Celeste with a pointed look.

Celeste, one of her dearest friends, could command all her possessions—Helene’s entire wardrobe, a prime spot on her creaky bed during nightmares, even the eau de cologne she’d gifted herself last season. But the barre and mirror in her garret? Helene guarded those like a she-wolf protecting her den.

Flashing an innocent smile, Celeste leaned closer to primp her strawberry-blonde hair.

“I’ll leave if you promise to come with me to Vauxhall Gardens. The night holds so much promise…” Celeste said. “Don’t you want to live outside the Theater, just this once?”

Helene glared at the tulle flowers whimsically pinned in Celeste’s coiffure. At nineteen, Celeste was the youngest of their band of French émigrés in Covent Garden. And the most persistent. At twenty-two, Helene liked to think she had grown immune to Celeste’s whims.

Well, mostly.

Those pleading hazel eyes made resistance as easy as holding back the tide with a teacup.

“Outside the theater? Why? Was it not the Bard who said all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women are players?” Helene asked.

She knew Celeste couldn’t challenge Shakespeare’s wisdom. In their case, it was not only true, but a ballerina’s first secret. They had no time for the living —that messy, bland existence of common people. Helene reminded herself of this as she extended her leg behind her in arabesque, muscles taut with focus.

Celeste pouted. “You don’t get to use the Bard to justify your stubbornness. Would you go? Please? Think of the lovely music and the fireworks. It’s the beginning of the season at the pleasure gardens.”

“It is the beginning of our season in the theater as well,” Helene said.

And what a debut it would be, with her leg feeling as heavy as a dead rhinoceros. Helene commanded the rebellious limb to go higher. Her toes quivered, her thigh trembling, but she held the pose. And smiled. A ballerina’s second secret was knowing how to smile through pain.

Celeste's gaze followed Helene's leg from knee to foot. "Your lines are wondrous. I wish I had your extensions."

Their eyes met in the mirror for the first time.

Next to her friend, Helene was colorless. While Celeste's beauty dazzled like the fireworks she so delighted in—full of flair and spark—Helene's drifted closer to the earth, a sleek broom perhaps, or a freshly minted alley cat.

All brown hair and bright eyes.

But she had long mastered the art of not truly seeing herself… A ballerina needed the mirror's corrections, but the key was looking through it rather than at it. By focusing just past her reflection, on the flickering candle behind her, the seam of the tulle curtain, the garret's milky glass panes, she could avoid the girl staring back.

The mirror's judging eyes were a necessity of their art, but it didn't mean she had to meet them.

“Compliments will earn you… a chocolate croissant. But only one,” Helene said.

She stretched her leg an inch higher. There. The floor could become a tipsy server’s tray, and she the champagne glass perched atop it, but she would not fall. If she could hold for one hundred counts, she’d be ready for their demanding choreographer.

One, two, three…

While balancing on one leg, her mind latched onto images of stability—an ancient oak rooted for centuries, the North Star fixed in the sky—until Celeste glided forward, eclipsing Helene’s reflection.

“Is this who you want to be? The strict Malvolio from Twelfth Night , scolding everyone’s fun? Or will you unleash the Viola I know you have inside yourself? Free, witty, and full of surprises?” Celeste asked.

Of course, Celeste would invoke Helene’s favorite Shakespearean heroine to strengthen her plea.

“Can’t I be all that tomorrow on stage?” Helene replied.

“What’s the fun in that?” Celeste’s eyes fairly lit the room. “We deserve a night to play. The Swans of Paris, taking London by storm!”

Were they still The Swans of Paris? As children, the name had seemed the height of cleverness. Back then, Shakespeare—The Swan of Avon—had been their closest friend in a city that shivered. His plays had taught them to speak English and so much more… How to make sense of puzzling situations and make light of heavy ones. That laughter could be armor, and wit, a sharper blade than any sword. That in the darkest tragedies, a flicker of light waited to be found… even if it took an eagle’s eye to see it.

And he had taught them to dream about love. Helene’s gaze flicked to Celeste. Some of them, more than others.

They had vowed never to let life or hardship pull them apart. But they had grown up. Yes, they were still Covent Garden ballerinas, but the four refugees from France had drifted. The oldest of them, Sophie de Valois, had abandoned The Swans, caring more for befriending society than socializing with her old friends. Louise Bonchoix was more interested in politics than art nowadays. And Helene? Well, words were no longer enough. She wanted to be . Only Celeste Dubois lingered in the delicate limbo between Shakespeare’s comforting comedies and harsh reality.

“Tomorrow, Langley will attend our rehearsal. Our aloof choreographer will choose the principal parts of his new ballet. Do you want to stay a soloist forever?” Helene asked.

Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two…

Celeste touched Helene’s shoulder. “We’ve only been soloists for a year. Why the rush?”

Helene sighed, avoiding her friend’s hopeful eyes. The third secret of a ballerina? Ballet was everything—and never enough. It made them beautiful, yet relentlessly inadequate. Not enough artistry, not enough musicality, not enough perfection. But once she became a principal? Then, maybe, she would be enough.

Celeste sighed. “Perhaps you will find romance tonight…”

The hope lacing Celeste’s voice made Helene’s chest ache. The fourth secret of ballerinas? Romance existed only in a pas de deux . What could be more romantic than soaring in her partner’s arms, promenaded like a goddess? How could an onion-breathed patron, leering at her décolletage, possibly compare? To gentlemen, the theater was just another hunting ground, and each season, more girls fell to their guiles than foxes to their hounds.

“Perhaps if males were interested in more than how low we bow and how high we lift our skirts,” Helene blurted.

Celeste's brightness dimmed, and she drifted to the window. The firelight flickered, casting shadows over her flawless figure.

Helene cursed her carelessness. Because of her bitter words, Celeste was no doubt recalling that odious Prussian diplomat—the blackguard who turned the most romantic of girls into one who feared men. At thirteen, Celeste had been his target. When Langley refused to sell her, the diplomat had tried to take her by force. Louise had burst into the changing room just in time to stop him. But it had been too late to shield Celeste from the scar he left on her heart.

Helene lowered her leg. Sighing, she leaned her chin over her friend's shoulder.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Helene said. “I’m sure a flock of Prince Charmings is prancing about Vauxhall right now, their silver spurs jingling along the pathways.”

Celeste traced a flower in the frosted window. “I’m not so sure… The fireworks will startle his white horse.”

“His steed doesn’t scare so easily. Fireworks won’t frighten him, nor storms, nor shadows,” Helene said. “He can fight dragons—even the ones we keep locked in our own hearts.”

Celeste turned from the window, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “Do you believe such a gentleman exists?”

For Celeste’s sake, Helene hoped he did.

“He must be out there. Didn’t the Bard say—Jack shall have Jill, and naught shall go ill? You are the loveliest princess I know, and if Shakespeare had been right, then you deserve the most dashing of princes,” Helene said, squeezing Celeste’s hand. “Now let me rehearse. Unless you want me to fall flat on my face in front of the entire company tomorrow. Then what sort of principal would I become? Perhaps of a farce named The Comedy of Terrors .”

After months of training, she danced on her toes as naturally as on the balls of her feet. She was so close. No night fireworks, no waltzes, no romances would distract her.

Helene held the barre again and stretched her leg.

One, two, three…

“Well, if you do fall, Langley might notice you at last,” Celeste said. “Perhaps he will make you the star of… of… The Taming of the Shoe. ”

Helene’s lips twitched, and the mirror rebuked her instantly—the reflection catching the slight drop of her leg. Well, let it try holding a high arabesque while tucking her stomach against a fit of giggles.

Celeste laughed too, her gloom thankfully forgotten.

They were enjoying themselves—at least as much as a woman balancing with her leg high behind her could while sharing in another’s laughter—when the front door slammed against the wall.

For a Swan of Paris, Louise sometimes had the grace of a cannon.

“You have to fix your lock, Helene,” Louise said as she closed the lockless door.

Helene rolled her eyes. “I plan to. At least to keep you from interrupting me.”

Pushing her black hair from her forehead, Louise halted before Helene, arms akimbo. Her new à la Titus haircut—freshly imported from France—suited her, the short curls accentuating the sharp angles of her delicate face. Her silver eyes, ever-intense, flicked over Helene’s practice tunic as if it were a battle standard flying enemy colors.

“Why are you not ready?” Louise asked.

Helene pursed her lips. “Et tu, Brutus?”

Romantic Celeste adored the pleasure gardens, but Louise would sooner skewer an Englishman with her rapier than waltz him under the stars. While Helene and Celeste had grown fond of London, Louise’s gaze remained stubbornly fixed across the English Channel—or La Manche , as she called it. According to Louise, why did the strip of water have to belong to the British and not the French?

“I’m meeting someone there,” Louise said. “A writer. His newspaper has an impressive readership, and his pen is sharper than Voltaire’s. He is doing a venomous article on the war budget.”

“Another radical acquaintance?” Helene asked.

She didn’t care for Louise’s mysterious afternoon outings and clandestine meetings with Whigs and liberals.

Louise fished a speck from her military-cut coat. “Elias Farley has no connections with Napoleon. Sadly, he—”

“Please don’t get involved with trouble,” Helene said.

Though Helene shared several of Louise’s political inclinations, freedom among them, they didn’t need the Foreign Office’s attention. With England waging war against Napoleon, the French living here required more balancing skills than a ballerina en pointe. Helene shuddered to think of Louise in the hands of those uncouth runners. Once had been enough.

Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three…

The third-floor opera singer reached her aria, and the notes vibrated in Helene’s bones. How could a ballerina hope to focus here? The thin walls of her garret offered no protection against the symphony of her neighbors’ lives—the cry of the strings, the rasp of paintbrushes, the whispered hum of a poem’s birth. Most of the residents had artistic ambitions. Thankfully, dreams of fame weighed less than feathers. If they carried the heft of lead balls, their old Soho building would have crumbled to dust long ago.

Helene closed her eyes and exhaled. “Can you two please go? I need to rehearse my pointe. I promise once I’m a principal, we’ll celebrate in the Pantheon.”

“Fine,” Louise said. “Suit yourself.”

Perfect. Now Helene could finish her count. Thank Apollo for that. Her standing leg was burning.

Eighty-one, eighty-two…

Celeste and Louise drifted toward the door. Helene followed them with her gaze.

Eighty-three…

As Louise linked her arm through Celeste’s, their vibrant skirts flapped like wings. Helene’s heart shrank into a fist. They were children again, arriving in London under heavy February hail, proud owners of the coats on their backs and a budding friendship—The Swans from Paris.

“Wait!”

They turned.

Pulse racing, Helene let go of her pose and rushed to her friends, wrapping them in a tight embrace. The fifth secret of this ballerina? Dancing with her corps de ballet topped dancing alone. They clung to one another—three girls cast away by the revolution, yet bound together in London, this cold, unyielding, marvelous island.

“Both of you, please be careful.” Smiling, Helene caressed Celeste’s face. “Try to dance a waltz, just this once? Perhaps Prince Charming forgot his shining armor and won’t crumple your feet.”

Helene turned to Louise. “Promise to avoid the police?”

Celeste’s smile was wobbly. Louise nodded gravely.

As the door closed, a suffocating silence settled in their wake. A less committed dancer might have followed them. But a less committed dancer wouldn’t become a principal of Covent Garden Theater, would she?

Helene returned to the mirror, and after showing her tongue to her judgmental reflection, she lifted her leg in arabesque again.

One, two, three…