I looked up at the tiny square window with its four panes of greenish glass, the wealth of moss slicking the walls of our building in this little Covent Garden side street that clung by a thread to respectability. A single errant flower dared to grow between the building’s stones, and I plucked it, spinning that rare show of color between my fingers—beauty amidst poverty. “One day we’ll be dancing together on that stage. I vow it.”

Impossible as it seemed, I ached with a crushing desire for that promise to be true.

When I climbed the stairs, barely remembering to skip the broken one, dear Mum’s warm smile greeted me, then Lily’s sisterly scowl.

Poor Lily was a pretty, dimpled thing two years older than I, who’d been built for a life of pleasure and amusement, but fate had stolen her real mum years ago and left her stuffed with us in this little flat, a life that snuffed her dreams of men and gowns and coquetry. Her mum, a longtime costume designer who’d worked in the theater when mine was dancing there, had once dressed her daughter in fine leftover ribbons and paraded her about London. I was seven when her mother died, and Lily nine. Now here she was with us, stirring her specialty—soup de scraps—in a pot over the fire, charging me with her look for every minute of work she’d had to do in my absence.

I pinched back a grin as I clutched the precious shoes and program under my cloak. I met Lily’s stare with a smile and spun her around with my free arm before bending to kiss Mama. “Happiest of birthdays, Mama. I’ll finish that cake, I promise. But first, a gift for you.”

Grinning so hard my cheeks hurt, I knelt before this gentle woman and placed the sacred shoes in her lap, ribbons spilling down over her knees. Weeks of extra work and secrecy . . . all for this.

And it was worth it. She blinked, mouth falling open and hands framing her face as tears swelled in her eyes. She dabbed them with the corner of her apron and lifted the slippers as if they’d been the crown jewels. “Oh, Ella. Child. Are they . . . ?”

“The very ones.”

“Oh, but how—why . . .”

I shrugged with a little smile. “Merely returning them to their rightful owner.”

Acknowledgments

I’ll admit, this was a difficult book to write. It had a darker, more limiting setting that I had to creatively work around. It would have been more than difficult without lots of brainstorming help from some very important people. Allen Arnold especially helped me “shine the light” on this dark book.