PROLOGUE: THE WEIGHT OF RAIN
The rain in Chicago didn’t wash the city clean; it just made the grit slicker. It was a Tuesday evening in November, a raw, biting cold that whipped off Lake Michigan, seeping through the thin soles of cheap shoes and settling deep into the bone.
Elara Vance sat on the ‘L’ train, her small nose pressed against the foggy window. Outside, the city blurred into streaks of neon signs and gray concrete. Beside her sat her mother, Sarah. Sarah was asleep, her head bobbing slightly with the rhythmic clatter of the train tracks. Her hands, resting on her lap, were red and chapped, the skin peeling around the fingernails from years of exposure to industrial bleach and harsh hotel detergents.
Elara looked at those hands. They were the reason she was here. They were the reason she was alive. And tonight, Elara had to make those hands worth it.
Tonight was “The Obsidian Keys.”
For the last six months, every spare dollar—money meant for the heating bill, for groceries, for new winter coats—had gone into the coffee tin on top of the fridge. The Fee. Five hundred dollars. To the families on the Gold Coast, it was the price of a bottle of wine. To Elara and Sarah, it was an astronomical sum, a mountain climbed penny by copper penny.
The train screeched to a halt three blocks from the Grand Metropolitan Opera House.
“We’re here, honey,” Sarah whispered, waking instantly. She smoothed Elara’s hair. “Are you ready?”
Elara looked down at her navy blue cotton dress. Sarah had ironed it three times that morning. It was crisp, but you couldn’t iron away the fact that the fabric was thin, or that the dye had faded to a pale, watery hue around the seams from too many wash cycles.
“I’m ready, Mom,” Elara lied. She was terrified.
They stepped off the train and walked toward the light. The Opera House loomed ahead, a fortress of limestone and marble, glowing like a lantern in the dark city. Black limousines idled at the curb, disgorging children who looked like minor royalty.
Elara tightened her grip on her mother’s hand. She felt like an intruder in a fairytale, a field mouse scurrying into the lion’s den.
PART 1: THE INTRUDER
The backstage of the Grand Metropolitan was a different universe. It didn’t smell like the rain or the subway. It smelled of panic, old money, and suffocating florals. It was a dense, cloying mix of high-end hairspray, imported lavender, and the metallic, copper tang of pure anxiety.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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