TIER TWO: CONFOUNDED IN HEART
The Cage of Mirrors & The Blood-Tear Code
The air in Selina's salon was thick as syrup. Stella stood before the three-way mirror, ice-blue gown falling from her shoulders, fabric shimmering under lights like frozen flame.
Her mother sat in a Louis XV chair behind her. A curator assessing a restoration.
"Take the waist in another centimeter," Lin Yawen said, eyes fixed on the reflected image. "I want the suggestion of fragility, not the reality of slackness."
The seamstress murmured assent, mouth full of pins. Stella kept her breathing even. The phone hidden in the gown's lining vibrated once—a short pulse, three intervals. Hunter's signal. Success.
She didn't react. Her gaze wandered among her three reflections: frontal her, left-profile her, right-pr
