She tries to pick up where she left off on the day of the avalanche, working to remember short bursts, stringing together one little series after another. The more physically demanding she makes it, the more likely she can clear her mind. There’s no music and no beat. She keeps the count in her head, punctuating with staccato movements, heel-drop-dig-dig-dig-and-lunge, and from there working out wider, moving down to the floor and pressing up again, then letting herself fall. Up on her feet, contract-release-contract-release. And suddenly, she’s ecstatic: the sequence—what she can see of it—is radically unpretty. It looks like work, it looks just the way she wants it to. There’s sweat in her eyes and she drops to the floor again.

On the ground, she notices something new in the glass: they’ve shifted, all of them, to watch her. A quick burst of energy through her muscles, a spark of power. She rises to her knees, spins and arches, turns to face them but then sharply away again. Don’t get distracted. Stay here, stay with this. The next time she spins back, Sadie is slumped in her chair, and Anna, glaring at her, has Justin’s camera in hand. She signals to Maeve, then gets down on one knee, filming.

So there’ll be a record of this, Maeve thinks. If I ever get home to use it.

Sadie now trying to pretend to look elsewhere, but Dan and Sim, not at all. Karo, head tilted in stern appraisal. Anna’s words: She handpicks her artists and then she thinks she owns us. Like Maeve’s mother from the wings.

Maeve closes her eyes to shut them all out. She’s used to an audience at rehearsals, she knows how to use this energy when she needs it. She also knows when it’s time to focus and pretend she’s alone in the room.

Her leg extends, pulls in, extends: she pushes up on her hands and drags her body across the floor.

She flicks her head up. When she looks back, Sim is on his feet, moving slowly around the edge of the room toward her. But this isn’t the same as a remote audience: it feels invasive, as though he might step in or cut her off. She rises and turns away but on her next spin, Maeve finds herself growing wilder, faster, more athletic. Punchy. No—punched up.

He draws closer. She can see him coming in the window glass and for a moment she cannot look away. She is watching him get near, grow larger in reflection. From the corner of her eye, she sees the others in their seats, glued to this new spectacle. Anna on her feet now, changing her angle—Maeve realizes that it is no longer herself alone but the two of them, Maeve and Sim together, on display.