The Rehearsal, as it turned out, was less about practicing a party and more about mastering the art of self-erasure. Under the critical eyes of my mother and Tita Rosa, I practiced reducing myself to a series of pleasing gestures: a dip of the head, a flutter of the fan, a smile that reached the eyes but not the soul.
"Not so much teeth, Ines! You look like you're about to bite him!" Tita Rosa critiqued my smile for the Governor-General.
Maybe I am, I thought, my jaw aching from the effort of not gritting my teeth. Maybe I'll just take a little chunk out of his ego. He's got plenty to spare.
The grand finale of my torment was the jewelry. My mother brought out the velvet case with the solemnity of a priest presenting a holy relic. The sapphire necklace was clasped around my throat, cold and heavy.
"And now, the locket," she announced.
Every muscle in my body went rigid. No. Not that. Don't make it part of the costume. "Mama,it's so old-fashioned," I protested, a note of real desperation in my voice. "With the sapphires, it's just… too much."
"Nonsense. It is tradition," she said, as if that settled everything. And in her world, it did. With deft fingers, she fastened the delicate chain, and the familiar weight of the silver settled against my skin, right over my pounding heart.
I stared at my reflection. The debutante. The jewel. The perfect, empty vessel. And right there in the center, over the heart they expected to remain quiet and still, was the key to everything I truly was. It felt like the most brazen act of rebellion I had ever committed, and they were all too blind to see it.
The rehearsal finally ended. I fled the ballroom, the weight of the gown and the jewels feeling like a prison sentence. I needed air that wasn't scented with my mother's perfume and other people's expectations. I found my father in his study, the door ajar. He was staring out the window, a glass of brandy in his hand, his shoulders slumped with a weariness I knew wasn't from business.
He heard me enter and turned. His eyes took in the full, ridiculous spectacle of my ballgown. A flicker of something—amusement? pity?—crossed his face before it settled into its usual grim lines.
"The rehearsal was a success, I take it?" he asked, his voice dry.
"If the goal was to sand me down into a smooth, unobjectionable pebble, then yes. A roaring success." I sank into the chair opposite his desk, the tulle puffing up around me like a defeated cloud.
He didn't chastise me for my tone. He just took a sip of his brandy. "It is the way of things, Ines. The dance we must all learn."
The frustration that had been simmering in me all day, all my life, finally boiled over. The image of the cartoon in the print shop window flashed in my mind—the farmer, the friar, the whip.
"But why, Papa?" The words tumbled out, sharp and hot. "Why must we dance to their tune? We see what they're doing. We see how they bleed the farmers dry with their taxes, how they treat our people like they're less than human. We're ilustrados! We have a voice! Shouldn't we use it?"
My father's face grew stern. "Mind your tongue, Ines. Those are dangerous words."
"They're true words!" I shot back, leaning forward. "How long are we supposed to just smile and curtsy and pretend we don't see it? '¿Hasta cuándo?' How much longer?"
The moment the words left my mouth, I knew I had gone too far. My father's eyes widened, then narrowed. He set his glass down with a sharp click.
"Where did you hear that phrase?" he asked, his voice dangerously low.
I faltered. "I… I saw it. In the city."
"You will forget you ever saw it," he commanded, rising from his chair. He leaned over the desk, his presence suddenly immense and intimidating. "You will forget you ever thought it. Do you understand the danger you are flirting with? This is not one of your ledgers, Ines. This is not a game of strategy you can win with a clever idea."
"I'm not playing a game! I'm talking about right and wrong!"
"And I am talking about life and death!" he thundered, making me flinch. The anger on his face was suddenly stripped away, revealing the raw fear beneath. "Do you think I do not see? Do you think it does not… eat at me? But I have a family to protect. I have you to protect. If you speak like that, even in this house, and the wrong servant hears… if you breathe a word of this at the ball tomorrow night… they will not just come for you. They will come for all of us. They will take everything. Your mother's happiness, our standing, this house… they will burn it all to the ground to snuff out one spark of dissent. Is that what you want?"
His words weren't a scolding; they were a plea. A desperate warning from a man who knew exactly how fragile our gilded cage was. He wasn't a coward. He was a realist. He lived in the world as it was, not as I wished it could be.
Tears of frustration welled in my eyes. He saw my pain, and his own expression softened. He came around the desk and knelt before my chair, taking my hands in his. His were rough, familiar.
"Ines," he said, his voice gentle now. "Mija. Your mind is your greatest gift. But it is also your greatest vulnerability. Iñigo can whisper ideas about port fees because it makes them money. But a woman, my daughter, cannot shout about justice. Not here. Not now. The world is not ready for your fire. You must bank it. For now. You must be smarter than your anger."
He was right. I knew he was right. But the truth of it was a crushing weight. To be smart was to be silent. To be safe was to be complicit.
I looked down at our joined hands, then at the locket resting against the expensive silk of my gown. The symbol of my secret power, hidden in plain sight.
My father followed my gaze. "Your grandmother was a fierce woman too," he said quietly. "She wore that locket every day of her life. She told me it reminded her to be patient. That some battles are won not with a shout, but with a silent, steady heart."
He kissed my forehead and left me alone in the study.
I sat there for a long time, the silence echoing with his warning. The fire he told me to bank was still burning, but it was changing. morphing from a wild, angry flame into something hotter, more focused. More determined.
He thought I needed to be smarter than my anger. Maybe he was right.
But being smart didn't just mean staying silent. It meant choosing how to fight. It meant using the tools no one else could see.
My fingers closed around the locket. It felt warm, alive with potential.
A silent, steady heart. A hidden advantage.
The decision wasn't fully formed, but it was there, a nascent thing taking root in the rubble of my defiance. I wouldn't shout. I wouldn't rage at the ball.
But I would no longer just be a pebble, smooth and unobjectionable.
I would be a wedge. And I would find the cracks in their world, and I would quietly, carefully, begin to pry them open.