Lena showed up the next evening with a garment bag the size of a body. She kicked the front door shut with her heel and marched into the living room like she was delivering a subpoena.
“I brought options,” she declared.
“Options?” I repeated weakly, sipping my tea to give me life.
Her grin was pure chaos. “Ball gowns, baby.”
She dragged the bag onto the couch and unzipped it with a flourish. The gown she pulled out first was black, glossy, and absolutely illegal. The kind of dress that made you reconsider your entire personality, and possibly your life choices.
“Oh no,” I whispered. “I can’t borrow that. Lena, this thing probably cost more than my car.”
“I don’t care. Put it on.”
“I’m serious. I’ll spill soup on it. My brain-to-body coordination is not… gown-friendly.”
“Nadia.” She put her hands on her hips. “You are going to look like a goddess. Let me have this.”
I groaned, defeated. “Fine. But if I ruin it, I’ll have to sell a kidney.”
“That’s the spirit.”
She dragged me upstairs before I could flee. My room instantly became a warzone of hair tools, makeup palettes, and discarded bobby pins. Lena worked in silence at first, her movements gentle, precise. It wasn’t lost on me that she’d been quieter since the incident with the Sovereign Court. Shaken. But she was here and brasher than ever. It gave me something steady to lean on.
She curled my hair in soft spirals, pinned pieces back, dusted my cheeks with blush that made me look alive again. She paused halfway through the mascara and said, “You doing okay?”
I nodded. Not entirely a lie. I was tired, shaky in a way I couldn’t explain, but letting her fuss over me helped. My therapist would call it co-regulation. I called it friendship.
“Yeah,” I said softly. “I’m okay. Better now.”
A knock sounded on my bedroom door.
Both of us stilled.
Cristian’s voice filtered through the wood, low and controlled. “May I enter?”
Lena shot me a look—the kind that saidit’s go time.
Cristian stood there in a suit. Asuit.
A perfectly tailored, black velvet suit that made him look like he’d stepped out of a dark, very naughty, fairy tale. He filled the doorway in a way that made my lungs malfunction. His hair was pulled back. His jaw was shaved clean. And his shoulders?—
Holy hell.
“Where did you get that?” I blurted. “You didn’t… own that.”
He looked personally offended. “No. I made Ezra procure one.”
Lena snorted. “You had Ezra buy you a suit?”
“He measured me.” Cristian scowled toward the hallway. “It was… uncomfortable. I do not wish to discuss it.”
Lena burst into laughter. I choked on air. Cristian glared at both of us like he regretted every choice that had led him here.
“I’ll leave you two,” Lena said, backing out of the room with the eagerness of someone escaping a crime scene. “Don’t do anything weird!”
She closed the door behind her.
Silence bloomed.
