Nina doesn’t look up from her phone. “He’s coming over.”
“I see him, Nina,” I say, and I try to swallow my laughter. Sometimes it’s hard to forget that we are sisters and grew up in rooms like this.
Armand shakes my hand with the warmth of someone who has never fallen on ice in his life.
“Isabella,” he says. “So good for you to join us.”
“I—,” I reply lightly, completely at a loss for words. This is my hometown, and this is my rink, and this is my foundation. “It would be strange of me if I didn’t, sir.”
He laughs the same way people laugh when they are deciding whether to take you seriously.
“We are very excited about the incoming class skaters wehave here,” he says, lowering his voice just enough that it feels intimate. “Talent development is essential. As long as it aligns with federation structure, of course.”
There it is. The warning wrapped in approval.
“Yes, absolutely,” I say evenly. But I don’t agree with him. And I don’t need to. Not in this room, where the things I’m trying to build are coming to fruition and the effects of my work are very evident in the handful of young athletes from all over the country we are training this session.
“Good.” He nods once. “We can’t be seen favoring athletes outside approved national pipelines, Princess. It complicates international assignments."
Behind him, a young skater, probably in her mid-teens, nearly collides with the doorframe trying to navigate into the room without tripping over her own nerves. Armand follows my gaze briefly and then returns to me. “I understand your parents will be joining us later this week? They’ve always understood the importance of what we’re doing here.”
I smile because the room expects it, because I was trained to. “They understand a great many things.”
He pats my arm as if I’m still seventeen and leaves me with the scent of expensive cologne and institutional control.
Nina exhales softly once he’s out of earshot. “I hate when they use the word align.”
“I know.”
She tilts her chin to the entrance. “They’re here.”
The Argentinian skater walks in first, shoulders slightly too tight in a suit that might have fit him last year but doesn’t quite this one. His badge hangs crooked against hischest. He pauses just inside the doorway like he’s trying to take in the scale of the room without letting it take him over.
Behind him stands his coach.
Blonde hair pulled back. Black trousers and a simple blouse. No jewelry. She looks like she dressed to move, not to be photographed. Her eyes sweep the room once, cataloging everything, including the athletes and the federation officials clustered near the drinks, speaking in hushed tones like they own all the oxygen in this room.
My attention catches on her the way a blade catches on a rough patch of ice. Quick and unavoidable.
For a second, my brain tries to place her somewhere clinical and distant—competition ice, sharp lighting, a worn federation jacket draped around her squared shoulders.
But that version of her is definitely gone.
Time has done something quieter. Softer around the edges, harder at the center. The angles are still there, but they belong to someone who has lived in her body instead of performing inside it.
I feel the recognition low in my stomach.
Nina nudges my elbow. “Don’t,” she murmurs.
“Shut up,” I say quietly, though I’m already walking.
It takes longer than it should to cross the room. Two coaches from Florida intercept me. A giggly skater stops me, blushes bright red, then asks me for a photo. A donor who I don’t remember attempts to reclaim our conversation from last season. I extricate myself with polite nods and promises to follow up, all while Nina nods beside me and takes quick notes on her phone.
By the time I reach them, the boy appears ready to combust.
“Rodrigo,” I say before he can introduce himself.
His eyes widen. “You know my name.”
