She got to the door before her legs gave out.
She leaned back against it. She heard the door lock behind her. It was the first sound she’d heard since she left his table. The woman in gray walked her back to her room in silence. We walked through the corridor in silence and up the stairs in silence. She had held the whole performance together across every step of the way back, and now, alone, with the wood cold through the thin silk against her spine, she let it go.
The dress had felt like a disguise going down the mountain of stairs to his dinner. It did not feel like a disguise now.
It felt like a shroud.
The room was cold as it always was; everything in this house was cold. She was sweating under the pale silk of her dress anyway. Her heart had not slowed since he leaned down and
