Isadora:
The dress feels like midnight made flesh as I slip in on. Black lace clings to every inch of me, a whisper of shadow against bare skin. I fasten the crimson-ruby earrings Loralie pressed into my palm earlier, their cold weight a pulse at my throat. The matching necklace settles like a promise—or a threat—above my heartbeat. When I tie the mask, its filigree edges bite lightly into my temples, framing the world in obsidian.
Loralie bursts into my room in a shimmer of rose-gold sequins, eyes already glittering with the night’s intoxication. “Mistress of Moonlight,” she declares, looping her arm through mine. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I breathe, though the air tastes like a storm already brewing.
The corridor outside thrums with distant music and the murmur of gathering bodies.
