The Sterling manor felt more like a mausoleum than a home that evening. The air was chilled to a precise temperature, and the scent of expensive lilies was so cloying it felt like a physical weight on the chest. Inside her wing of the mansion, Ivy sat before her vanity, her reflection looking like a ghost haunting a living girl.
The days of playing "Joe" at the crack of dawn and the "Princess" by noon, combined with the crushing anxiety of her secret, had finally broken her body. Her skin was a translucent, sickly pale, stretched thin as parchment over her sharp cheekbones. A cold sweat kept breaking out across her collarbone, dampening the delicate fabric of her chemise beneath the gown.
"You look... unwell, Miss Ivy," her maid whispered, her fingers trembling as she nervously adjusted
