The following morning, House of Solace.
The rain had stopped, but the world still dripped.
Water clung to every eave and ledge, slipping down in slow, deliberate drops. The streets beyond the House of Solace shimmered with it, cobbled bones slick with the night’s memory. Morning sunlight hung behind the clouds like a ghost—present, but unwilling to touch anything too intimately. The scent of rain mixed with the warm perfume of bodies within, and Jasmine stood in the hallway feeling both too clean and too undone.
She had slept poorly, if sleep was the word for it. Dreams had coiled tight around her—half-formed shapes and animal sounds, the kind that don’t sit behind your eyelids but instead crawl under your skin. At some point, she'd kicked her covers off, body flushed. She’d awoken with
