It was only her second year as prima, but already the city began to speak her name with the low reverence reserved for saints or curses. Flowers came nightly — roses, violets, carnations wrapped in velvet ribbons — sometimes with cards, more often without. The applause was no longer surprising, but still it thrilled her, like the echo of a near-death fall that ended in balance.

She had learned not to flinch when they bowed to her. She had learned how to smile like marble.

Nikolai Ivanovich, her humble patron, was part of the architecture now — the way chandeliers were, or curtain pulls, or the hush before the conductor’s hand dropped. He brought her books he hadn’t read, wine she didn’t drink, and compliments polished by years in salons. It was going well.

Until he turned to her over dessert, the room warm with firelight and sugared pears, and asked — almost as if he didn’t know — "What do you think of the girl they brought in last season?"

The knife paused in her hand. Just briefly.

"The other girl". The rival.

She said nothing. She stood, took her gloves, and left him with the clatter of silver and the scent of candied oranges. Outside, the snow was beginning to fall. She walked until her feet hurt, until her fury cooled into something tighter, colder, more useful.

The next evening, rehearsal dragged past dusk. Bodies moved like clockwork; corrections snapped like whips. In the dressing room, the air was thick with talc and sweat and the quiet strain of girls too tired to pretend they weren’t watching each other.

Matilda said nothing. She didn’t need to.

She sat with her laces loose, expression blank, sipping lukewarm tea with slow, deliberate grace. But her gaze moved — once, twice — and it was enough. A sharp glance at one girl’s open bodice. A barely raised brow at another’s laughter. Not a word spoken.

One by one, they began to leave. Some gathered their skirts too quickly. Others packed in silence, eyes down. Two whispered near the door, then fell quiet when Matilda shifted in her chair.

No orders were given. But they heard her.

Within minutes, the room emptied. All but two remained. Matilda rose.

She crossed the room without rush, her steps soft but certain, and stopped just behind the girl still seated — the one who hadn’t taken the hint. The one who’d arrived last season. The one with eyes too much like hers. Her rival.

"Tell me," she said, her eyes fixed on the girl in front of her, "does it sting? Living like this — knowing you’ll never be more than someone else’s echo? My echo?"

She let the silence settle. Let it stretch until the air itself seemed to lean away.

Then, without warning, she reached forward — not violently, but with precision — and took the girl’s chin between her fingers. Not a grip, not yet. Just contact. Just enough to lift her face.

Matilda leaned in, her breath cool, her expression unreadable.

"I asked you a question," she said, voice low and flat and deadly still.

"Does. It. Hurt?"