“Thank you,” she began, her voice steadier than she felt. “This book is about a dancer who loses her stage, and a daughter who tries to build a new one with words. It’s dedicated to my mother, Rajeshwari, who taught me that silence can be a kind of music—and that speaking is a kind of dance.”

But her gaze kept drifting to two faces in the crowd.

“I didn’t put your name,” Natasha replied. “I put a part of my own. You earned it. You both did.”

Natasha’s publicist, Meera, tapped the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, the woman of the hour—Natasha Rajeshwari Shaurya.”

Natasha looked at her mother. At her friend. At the names she carried, and the ones she had chosen.

She smiled. “Let’s go home.”