Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Venom in the Silk
The dressing room was a cavern of ivory and gold, smelling of hairspray, expensive lilies, and the sharp, metallic tang of anxiety. I sat motionless in front of a three-way mirror that seemed to mock me with three different versions of a woman I no longer recognized. The stylists Alexander had summoned were like a swarm of silent, efficient locusts. They had spent hours stripping away the "Anna Miller" I had carefully constructed. My jagged, home-dyed blonde hair had been corrected to a rich, glossy chestnut that flowed down my shoulders in structured waves. My skin, tanned and roughened from the Oakhaven sun, was now smoothed with shimmering oils and powders until I looked like a porcelain doll.
I was draped in a gown of midnight-blue silk tha
