Louis left after he had shown her the basics, how to take the metro to work, where she would train, and what door led to which part of the Étoile de Verre building. After that, she was on her own to navigate this new world on her own. The first full day at Étoile de Verre felt nothing like the magazine shoot.
There were no scenic reserve, no soft camera clicks, no encouraging nods from Sabine or reassuring words from Louis. Here, the ceilings were high, the windows filtered sunlight in exact, controlled angles, and everything smelled faintly of starch and polish.
As Ebony stepped through the frosted glass doors, Lin was already wheeling out a silver suitcase.
"You made it?" Lin asked, adjusting her sunglasses. Her voice chirper as always.
Ebony nodded. "Yeah. They gave me a schedule."
Lin's lips quirked into something that was almost a smile.
"Good luck. I'm not exclusive, so this place just borrows me sometimes."
Ebony didn't know what to say to that, so she gave a short nod as Lin pushed through the doors and vanished.
Inside, the atmosphere shifted.
Without Louis to walk beside her, the silence in the lobby pressed down harder. The woman at the front desk didn't glance up. Ebony found her way by memory and instinct, clutching her folder like armor.
Her footsteps echoed into a large, open space, a room with mirrored walls, glossy wooden floors, and a clock that ticked with military precision.
Four other models stood inside.
As Ebony stepped further into the space, Jess turned her head briefly, locking eyes with her. A small, polite nod. Not cold. But not warm either.
"Hi," Ebony offered softly.
Jess didn't reply, only returned her attention to her friend, murmuring something that made Camille chuckle.
Ebony stood still a moment longer, unsure where to place herself. She scanned the studio, finally settling near a mirror where she could stretch and get a sense of the space, trying to shake off the tension coiled around her spine.
She didn't blame Jess. Not really.
In this world, acknowledgment was a currency, and sometimes, just being nodded at was enough to say: You're here. You're not invisible. But we are not the same.
Still, Ebony had promised herself something before she walked in.
She would not cower.
She had spent too many years shrinking, folding herself to fit into places that never made room for her. In all honesty, her expectations of people, of belonging, had been broken too many times to keep track. But what that had taught her, more than anything, was to brace for disappointment and keep walking through it anyway.
No matter how these people looked at her, no matter how many sidelong glances or thin smiles she received, she would not retreat.
The other two were strangers:
One was a striking South African woman, tall and lean with cropped platinum curls and flawless beautiful cinnamon skin. She didn't smile. Her name, Ebony would learn later, was Kemi.
The other was a French-Algerian man with golden-brown skin and high cheekbones, already stretching like a dancer before a stage call. His name was Sami, and unlike the rest, he looked up and gave Ebony a quick grin.
"First day?" he asked.
Ebony nodded. "That obvious?"
"It always is."
Before she could reply, a short, sharp clap echoed through the room. Their instructor had arrived.
She was a severe woman in a midnight-blue turtleneck, angular as scissors, with a face that demanded silence. She didn't introduce herself. She just pointed to the line of tape on the floor.
"Places. Let's begin with a neutral walk."
Camille sauntered to her position effortlessly, like a dancer who'd been born in motion. Jess followed, calm and professional. Ebony took a deep breath and joined them.
She didn't need to be the most graceful, not yet.
She just needed to hold her ground.
Jess and Camille moved first. Smooth and coordinated, with just enough sway to show they had done this before. Kemi followed; fluid, emotionless, perfect.
Sami's walk was confident, expressive, almost too loose. But somehow, it worked.
Then Ebony stepped up.
Her left foot angled slightly inwards. Her posture leaned too far forward. She caught her reflection in the wall and panicked.
"Again," the instructor said sharply. "Chest out. Chin up. You're not looking for change on the floor."
Heat crept up Ebony's neck. She tried again. And again.
On her fifth attempt, her heel slipped slightly on the turn, and she caught herself with an awkward stumble.
"Stop."
The instructor's tone was cold steel. "You're not trained. But you're not here to embarrass us, either. Practice outside hours if you want to catch up."
There was no kindness in the words. Just finality.
At lunch, Ebony found herself at the edge of the long communal table. From her end she could hear the low murmur of the conversations around her.
Jess and Camille kept talking in low, fluent French, with the occasional soft laugh. But Ebony could feel it, that shift in the air when someone's words weren't meant for you, but the tone absolutely was.
She had only just taken a bite into her sandwich when Camille turned slightly in her direction, not looking directly at her but letting her voice carry louder than before.
"C'est fou comme certaines personnes arrivent de nulle part et prennent toute la lumière(It's crazy how some people come out of nowhere and take all the spotlight.)," Camille said, brushing a curl back from her cheek, her eyes flicking briefly toward where Ebony stood.
Jess gave a soft, awkward chuckle. "Camille—"
"I'm just saying." Camille's smile was as smooth as silk, but her tone carried thorns. "Imagine preparing for months and then being told someone new is… 'a better fit.'"
Ebony's stomach clenched.
She didn't speak French fluently—not yet—but she caught the tone, the words nulle part and toute la lumière. From nowhere. All the light.
She didn't need a full translation.
Her sandwich felt unnaturally dry as she tried to swallow the word coming her way, she was still trying to believe she belonged here. But apparently, someone else had already decided she didn't.
That did not matter much, it did leave a sour feeling but Ebony knew what she needed to do, be better, become unstoppable, she had a long way to go and the only way to silence these people was pure skill.
By the end of the second drill, her calves ached and her throat felt dry despite the cool spring air drifting through the high windows of the training hall. The instructor barked out more corrections than encouragements, and Ebony found herself biting down frustration after each pass down the runway-length stretch.
She was the last to leave the room, tying her coat loosely around her waist as she passed through the hallway toward the locker area. That was when she heard it.
"Honestly, that's who Louis had to babysit for two months?" a voice said behind a cracked doorway.
"Antoine's favourite little project," someone else replied, dry and amused. "Did you see her walk? She looked like a baby deer on heels."
They laughed. Not loudly, but just enough.
Ebony kept walking. Her grip on the coat tightened.
She didn't need to look to know who it was; probably Camille's clique, or another pair of older girls who'd been passed over when she showed up out of nowhere.
She turned the corner and exhaled slowly, grounding herself.
She didn't know Antoine had asked Louis to help her exclusively those first days. Louis had never made a show of it. But apparently, it had made the rounds, and not in the flattering way she might have imagined.
She sat on the bench near her locker, pulling off her sneakers slowly. Her reflection caught in the narrow mirror nearby: legs too long, face still unsure, hair puffed slightly from effort. She looked tired.
You're here now, she thought.
They could whisper. Let them.
***
That evening, Ebony returned to the apartment the fashion house provided.
It was cold. Clean. Unfamiliar.
She placed her heels by the door and stood barefoot for a moment, staring at herself in the dark window glass.
No Louis to debrief the day with and miles away from her home country.
Just her reflection and the feeling that she was slowly unraveling.
She picked up a slim book from the coffee table and placed it on her head. Walked a line between tiles.
Again.
Again.
Her calves ached, but she didn't stop.
She would not be the girl who failed when the whispers were already curling around her name.
Wednesday came wrapped in rain clouds and nerves. Ebony stood on the metro, one hand gripping the metal pole, her reflection flickering faintly in the smudged glass.
Her heels were in her tote bag. She wore sneakers and a black wool coat. As the metro doors hissed open, Ebony stepped out into the damp morning, eyes heavy, legs sore from the previous day's training. She didn't expect much from today. Just more drills. More isolation. More whispered judgments she could only half-hear but fully feel.
As she turned the corner, hurrying toward the wide steps of Étoile de Verre, movement caught her eye; bright, enormous, and impossible to ignore.
A digital billboard, half the length of the building, began to cycle through the new campaign.
First: Damon. His platinum hair tousled just so, arms folded across a bare chest draped in silk. A slow-motion turn of his head. His name appeared in cursive: Damon Cross.
Next: Lin in a green velvet sheath dress, looking over her shoulder with eyes that dared the world to come closer. Cool. Remote. Unshakable.
Then Jess, wind in her hair, walking through a mirrored hallway in Étoile de Verre's signature layered chiffon. She winked at the camera.
The screen flickered, just a beat of black, and then:
Ebony.
She gasped.
There she was, in the very same gown she wore on set, gold and bone-white, the neckline sculpted, the fabric cascading like water. The image slowed just as her hand lifted against the wind, her mouth parting as if to speak.
She didn't look like a girl who tripped over her own turn on the training floor. She didn't look like someone barely holding it together between rejection and reinvention.
She looked… right.
Stunning, even. Like someone who belonged on a billboard in the middle of Paris.
The screen shifted again, final frame now. Damon and Ebony, side by side, eyes locked forward. The New Classic, it read in gold serif. The Étoile de Verre logo bloomed behind them like a signature.
Ebony stood frozen for several seconds, watching it cycle again.
It was real. Not a filtered fantasy. Not a daydream in the dark.
She was in it.
Ahead, two teenage girls had also stopped. One wore headphones, the other had a crossbody bag covered in enamel pins.
"Look, Damon!" one said, tugging her friend's sleeve.
"Tu l'as vue? La fille avec les cheveux courts,elle est trop belle(Did you see her? The girl with the short hair, she's so beautiful)."
"C'est la robe que je veux! Si elle la porte, moi aussi(That's the dress I want! If she's wearing it, then me too)!"
They didn't know her. Not really. But they saw her. And they wanted to be her. Or, at least, wear what she wore.
Ebony stood frozen a moment longer, torn between awe and disbelief. She wanted to cry. Or laugh. Or something. But all she managed was to pull her coat tighter around herself and keep walking.
A soft chime pinged on her phone. A new message from Louis.
"Antoine would like to see you. 10 minutes."
Étoile de Verre was buzzing. Assistants moved faster. Designers were louder. There was a pressure in the air, as if something huge had shifted and everyone knew it.
Her palms grew clammy as she stepped into the elevator. The ride to the executive floor felt longer than usual. When the doors opened, Louis was already halfway out of his seat, giving her a polite nod before disappearing back into Antoine's office with a file in hand. He didn't stay.
"Go ahead," the receptionist said.
Antoine's office was light-drenched and severe, minimalist to the edge of impersonal. He stood near the wall-to-ceiling window, his back half-turned to her, arms crossed.
He didn't offer a seat. He didn't look at her.
"The billboard launched last evening," he said simply.
"I saw it," she replied softly.
He turned, finally meeting her gaze. "The entire spring collection sold out in under four hours."
Ebony blinked. "What?"
"Your photo," he continued, "was reposted over 80,000 times overnight. That's not normal for a newcomer. That's not normal for anyone."
He leaned forward.
"That is the power of an image," Antoine said, his tone cool but laced with unmistakable weight. "Of your image. You and Damon closed that campaign. And people responded." He stepped toward her desk, tapping a pile of reports. "You should know the numbers. You're not just a body we dress. You're a face they remember."
Her throat tightened, unsure if it was pride or panic.
"But understand this," he added, gaze narrowing just slightly. "Pictures are edited. Controlled. Safe. Runways are not. You will need to walk. In front of critics. Photographers. Crowds. If you want this to last, if you want to become more than a one-time billboard, then we begin there."
"You were hired for your look, yes. But the day will come, soon, when you'll have to walk. In Milan. Or Paris. Or Tokyo. And when that day comes, they will expect the woman on that billboard to come to life."
A quiet hung in the room.
"Right now," he finished, "she doesn't."
Ebony swallowed. Heat crept up her neck.
"You're saying I'm not good enough yet."
"I'm saying you're not ready yet," Antoine replied. "You'll need to work twice as hard. Fail twice as often. But if you rise, Ebony" he paused, " you rise alone. Understood?"
Ebony stood.
"Understood."
Ebony nodded, barely trusting her voice.
"You may go."
She turned, then paused. "Thank you," she said quietly.
As she left his office, the image of herself on the billboard flashed again in her mind. Not just beautiful. Not just styled. But visible.
She would learn to walk.
She would become the woman they expected her to be and more.
She didn't say it aloud, not really. Not all of it.
Not how she'd been cast out of a home that never saw her worth. Not how she still sometimes looked in mirrors and didn't believe she belonged. Not how the image on that billboard felt like a version of herself she was still chasing.
And definitely not how Antoine, the sharp, cold-eyed man with impossible standards, had been the only person who didn't just give her a second chance, but the very first one that mattered.
She walked back to the elevator with her head high.
There was still so much to learn.
As she reached the end of the hall, just before the elevator, the receptionist called out.
"Wait, he left this for you."
She held out a slim white envelope.
Ebony took it, frowning slightly. She stepped into the elevator, the doors sliding shut behind her, and opened it on the ride down.
Inside: a folded payslip and a handwritten note on thick card stock.
Étoile de Verre
Ebony,
This is just the beginning.
A.
Her eyes flicked to the payslip beneath the card. The amount printed there nearly made her knees buckle. It wasn't just good. It was life-changing. Rent for months. Food. Stability. A real future.
Ebony stared at the note again.
He hadn't said much. He rarely did. But that card, those few words, felt more intimate than a thousand compliments. She ran her fingers over the embossed logo at the top.
For the first time since arriving in Paris, she smiled without hesitation.
The day was worse.
Drills piled high. Corrections sharper. Whispers louder.
Midway through afternoon practice, she sat near the mirror, rubbing her sore ankle. That was when Jess approached, water bottle in hand.
"You're improving," Jess said.
Ebony blinked. "Really?"
Jess nodded, sitting down beside her. "You're under pressure. And it shows. But pressure's not always a bad thing."
Ebony looked down. "Your friend thinks I don't deserve to be here."
Jess gave a soft shrug. "Camille thought she was the face of the spring campaign. And then you showed up. People lash out when their reality shifts."
Ebony let out a breath. "I just want to belong."
Jess gave her a quiet smile. "Then keep walking like you already do."
She stood and walked back to the tape on the floor.
Ebony followed.
This time her walk was straighter. Her steps stronger.