The students were so absorbed in stringing shoes that they were indifferent to my awe, and I watched them for a moment, knowing what I now knew, having stood in the empty room where Brenae had died. This was my last day as gallerina. While I was watching the crew make Hal look magnificent, Janis was calling her contacts at LAAC, spreading news that would bring him down as their director. By the time Shoe Cathedral opened, Hal might be out of a job, and the students would have lost their mentor. The truth would come out about Erik; the crew would disband. And this week—when they made something powerful and memorable together, despite their tensions—would become a ruin.

Pearson noticed me staring and gestured at me to walk inside the structure. As I did, my eyes landed on laces, straps, stilettoes, open gaps for sun. I wanted to sit down, to be still and low, with my chin raised. A supplicant.

“You should put a bench in here,” I said. “Has Hal seen this?”

“He was here all night,” said Pearson.

He moved aside, and I spotted the smashed column behind him, the gouged and flattened shapes. It stood just to the left of the apse. It undermined the flow of the architecture, and suggested collapse. Involuntarily I stepped back from it, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away.

“This is unbelievable. Did any of you sleep?” I said.

My praise made Erik cast a wincing smile in my direction. “Not much,” he said.

“Have you seen the espadrilles?” Layla asked Zania, and Zania pointed across the room. “Excuse me,” Layla said, deliberately bumping me from her path.

“I think Nelson left you some work,” Pearson said to me.

I took the hint and walked to my desk, now piled with stacks of paper, folders. There was a note: Please collate media packets by 11:00 a.m. Thanks.

Nelson’s handwriting was cramped and dark, as if he pressed the pen hard. Its introverted appearance didn’t quite match the tan, lean man who had reached so casually into Layla’s blouse and cupped her breast. I made neat work of the packets, tapping the papers so their corners and sides aligned before I slid them into folders. All the overblown praise in the press release seemed merited now. Why did this make me wistful? I should be glad that Hal would resign, that Erik would be exposed. It was a victory, but some essential part of the battle remained unfought.

My phone buzzed. Yegina. I stepped outside to answer.

“How’s gallerina life?”