I forced myself to concentrate and carved out my figure eight, my blades curving and gliding. I wasn’t known for my finesse, but that was because jumps were way more important and fun to practice. This was dull.

Manon nodded. “Très bon, Theo. You’re such a natural.”

It was true—I’d taken to the ice like a duck to water as a kid tagging along to my sister Veronica’s skating lessons. She was two years younger than me, and I was supposed to have been playing hockey in the rink next door, but I’d kept sneaking into the back of the figure skating class.

Even in hockey skates, I’d been able to spin and jump. The instructor had told my mom I could be great, and that was that. Sometimes, I wondered what my life would be like now if I’d never put on skates, but I did love it. Kind of. Most of the time.

Henry stared at my perfect tracing with his usual blank expression. He was such a freak, going back to do three more figures in a row with precision. I’d competed against him since we were kids, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard him string together more than three words outside press conferences.

The session ended with each of us performing the element we were going to especially focus on that week. Manon called it “setting our intentions.”

The junior skaters went first, the girl skating down the rink on her spindly legs and launching into a triple Lutz-triple toe. With the top women—who were all teenagers these days—doing quads and triple Axels, I wasn’t surprised to see a kid doing what used to be the hardest jumping combo for women.

Everyone applauded her, and I joined in. The younger Canadian man, Julien, fell on his quad toe, but we all clapped anyway and Bill told him how close it had been.

It went on like this until Henry stormed down the rink and launched off his toe pick into a quad Lutz, which he’d struggled with last season. This was the hardest jump for men these days, and he squeaked it out, the rotation questionable.

I couldn’t lie—I was relieved he hadn’t nailed it over the summer. My arsenal of quads—loop, flip, Lutz, toe, and Salchow—were my ticket to Olympic gold. I’d tried the quad Axel, which was four and a half revolutions since the Axel was the only jump that took off going forward.

I’d managed a few in practice, but the risk of hurting myself wasn’t worth it. Landing a jump on practice ice was still miles away from landing it in a program in competition. Unless I had eighty percent consistency in practice with a jump, it wasn’t going in.

Before I’d moved to Mr. Webber, I’d had a tendency to rush into jumps. Mr. Webber said it was because I wasn’t focusing and concentrating through every moment of the program, and he wasn’t wrong. I’d needed patience. He’d beat it out of me—metaphorically—and my quads had launched me to the top of the podium.