The lock clicked and Feng Yilan pressed her back against the door. Her breath came in short, uneven pulls. Through the wood she could still hear the noise of the party below, guests murmuring, the sound of someone's heels on marble, and under all of it the low current of whispers that had followed her out of the garden.
"Yilan! Open this door at once!" Her mother's voice.
Feng Yilan squeezed her eyes shut and didn't move.
How had it come to this. The affair with Ji Hanjun was supposed to be her advantage — a way to finally step out of her sister's shadow, to secure something for herself that Feng Suyin couldn't touch. Now it had been broadcast to everyone they knew on a screen in the palm of their hands, and there was no version of tonight she walked back from.
She dragged herself to the vanity and stared. Her eyes were red. Her hair had come undone at some point and she hadn't noticed. The face looking back at her was not the one she'd been presenting to the world for years.
