Chapter One: The Mirror Remembered Him Before the Applause Did

Tang Li looked down, her expression briefly vacant. “I… don't know. Wardrobe's, maybe.” The corridor speakers carried executive director Gu Chenzhou's calm announcement: twenty-four dancers had advanced. Lin Wu counted the people in the lounge three times. There were only twenty-three. No one thought anybody was missing. At two in the morning, after the studio cleared, Lin Wu returned to the mirror wall. She breathed in Shen Yan's rhythm: four counts in, four out. The first beat was not music. It was breath. A fingertip mark appeared in the misting glass. It had been pressed from the other side. When Lin Wu touched it, cold passed through her bones and distant waltz music filled her ears.