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 Obsidian Keys Piano Competition” was not merely a recital. It was the Super Bowl of the classical world for prodigies under the age of twelve. The stakes were life-altering: the winner received a $50,000 scholarship, a brand-new Steinway grand for their home, and a fast-track acceptance to The Juilliard School’s pre-college division.
For the other children, this was a stepping stone. For Elara, it was a lifeline.
She stood in the wings, hidden in the shadows of a heavy velvet curtain. The holding area was chaos. Mothers were screaming into iPhones, fathers were pacing in Italian loafers, and makeup artists were dabbing powder onto the faces of ten-year-olds.
Elara was a stark, jarring contrast to the other contestants.
To her left stood Preston, a boy with slicked-back blonde hair. He was wearing a custom-tailored tuxedo with a silk cummerbund. He looked bored. He was playing a game on an iPad that cost more than the rent for Elara’s apartment.
To her right was Annabelle. She was encased in a pink silk ball gown that rustled like dry leaves when she breathed. It was covered in sequins that caught the backstage lights, fracturing them into tiny diamonds. She looked less like a child and more like a doll removed from a collector’s box.
And then there was Elara.
Her navy cotton dress hung loosely on her frame. She was small for her age—cheap food had a way of stunting growth—and her knees were knobby. But the most glaring detail was her feet.
She wore white canvas sneakers. They were a generic brand, bought at a discount store two years ago. The toes were scuffed gray. Elara had spent an hour the night before carefully painting over the scuffs with white correction fluid, but under the harsh stage lights, the patch-job was visible. It looked like a scar.
“Oh my god, look,” a voice hissed.
It was Annabelle’s mother. She was a tall woman draped in fox fur, kneeling to adjust Annabelle’s tiara. She didn’t bother to lower her voice. She pointed a manicured finger at Elara’s feet.
“Look at her shoes,” she whispered loudly to another parent. “Did she walk here from the projects? I thought this competition had a vetting process.”
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page to discover the rest 🔎👇
