The door opened.
Sera came out first.
Her face was composed in the specific way of someone who has made a decision they cannot unmake and has arranged themselves around it. She stood in the sitting room doorway and looked at Calla and felt the knife go in — clean, precise, the specific pain of being protected by the person you have most wronged.
“I’m going with Garry,” she said.
The room went very still.
Then Calla moved.
“Absolutely not.” She stepped forward — past her parents, past the careful social architecture of the room — and placed herself between Sera and Garry with the specific fury of someone who has decided that politeness is no longer a relevant consideration. “He is blackmailing you. I know he is. And I will not stand here and watch you—”
“Everything has been decided,”
