The "Castle" of Richmond, in the dead of night, was no longer the prestigious academy where the stars of the global ballet stage were forged. It had become a temple of shadow and stone, where the silence of the corridors was broken only by the labored breathing of those unable to find peace in sleep. Azzurra, curled up in her bed, felt Alfio's pendant pressing against her breastbone as if it meant to pierce her skin. Nonna Anna's departure had left a void, and into that vacuum, fear had wedged itself: the gnawing sensation that while she enjoyed Erica's protection, her mother was drowning in the mud of a Sicily that would not stop trembling.
At three in the morning, unable to resist any longer, Azzurra rose. She did not put on the pink silk tutu Erica had given her for the Christmas showcase, but a black leotard—simple and severe. She slipped out of the dormitory, reaching the manor's central wing. She knew she would not be alone.
In front of the Grand Hall doors, Oliver and Maya were waiting for her. No words were needed. Oliver's gray eyes were darker than usual, laden with a worry he could not hide, while Maya clutched a small portable speaker, ready to shatter the academic silence.
"If Bennett catches us, she'll ship us all home within ten minutes," Maya whispered, yet her eyes burned with the fierce loyalty that had cemented their trio over the last two years.
"Bennett cannot understand," Azzurra replied, entering the hall. "My mother is fighting something that cannot be seen. The pier collapsed because the darkness needs to feed. If I do not transform this pain into movement, we will all be crushed by it."
Oliver approached her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Teach us, Azzurra. Show us what happens in the Strait."
Maya pressed "play." But it was not classical music that filled the hall. It was a soundscape Azzurra had secretly mixed: a sampling of crashing waves, the hiss of the wind through power lines, and a dark, rhythmic heartbeat.
Azzurra took her position in the center of the parquet. She began slowly. This was not classical dance. It was not the geometric perfection she had been taught at Richmond. Her feet, usually light, struck the wood with an archaic force. Every movement was a spiral. Her arms did not seek balance; instead, they simulated the circular motion of the "Draunara"—the hurricane born from the sea to destroy the land.
Oliver and Maya attempted to follow her. Azzurra guided them like a priestess. "Feel the weight of the mud!" she cried between breaths. "Do not leap toward the sky—seek the roots! Sicily is not the heavens; it is rock and abyss!"
As the choreography took shape, something inexplicable happened. The hall's immense windows began to vibrate. The Richmond mist, usually sluggish and grayish, pressed against the glass, assuming sinister forms like tentacles of vapor. Alfio's pendant, beneath Azzurra's leotard, began to emanate a feverish heat.
Oliver, attempting to catch her for an improvised pas de deux, felt an electric jolt course through his arms. "Azzurra, your eyes..." he murmured. The girl's pupils had become two glowing slits, as if she were looking through time and space, straight into the heart of the collapsed pier at Sant'Alessio.
Maya, swept away by the rhythm, began to dance with a ferocity that did not belong to her. The shadows of the three dancers on the castle walls began to move asynchronously, stretching and distorting until they looked like black giants battling the storm. This was no longer a ballet; it was a physical exorcism. Azzurra was summoning all the suffering of her land, all the rage for Samuele's death, all the frustration of her distance from Belinda, and she was channeling it into this "forbidden" choreography.
"Dance for the pier!" Azzurra incited, sweat beading on her forehead despite the chill of the hall. "Dance for those in the mud! If we do not fall here, they will not fall there!"
Oliver hoisted her in an acrobatic lift, but instead of a graceful pose, Azzurra contorted like a lightning bolt in a black sky. In that moment, a true flash of lightning illuminated the hall as bright as day, and for an instant, the three teenagers saw their reflections in the mirrors: they were no longer students of the Royal Academy, but mythological figures shrouded in a dark, violet mist.
When the music ended, Azzurra collapsed to the floor, exhausted. The silence that followed was almost painful. Oliver and Maya sat beside her, gasping for air, their hearts beating in unison.
"What have we done?" Maya asked in a trembling voice, looking toward the windows where the mist now seemed to be retreating, defeated.
"We gave my mother strength," Azzurra replied, clutching her pendant. "I felt her, Oliver. For a moment, I was there with her. The Draunara tried to break our rhythm, but we kept dancing."
Oliver took her hand, and for the first time, Azzurra felt that her London world was no longer a golden cage or an escape, but an outpost. She was the beacon shining in the North, while Belinda was the base holding firm in the South. The dance of the Draunara was complete: the pact between silk and mud had been sealed in the secrets of the castle.