MIA POV
She dresses like she is putting on armour.
Not because of what she wears she has no control over that, Elena laid out what Elena laid out, and Mia put it on without looking in the mirror longer than necessary. The armour is not the clothes. The armour is the face she builds over her real one. The one that shows nothing. The one she has been constructing since the night she arrived in this house and understood that her actual feelings were the most dangerous thing she was carrying.
She checks it in the mirror. Once.
It holds.
She goes downstairs.
The dining room is different tonight.
Same room, same long table but dressed for something. Candles instead of overhead light. Six chairs instead of the usual two or three. Crystal that catches the flame and throws small lights across the ceiling. The kind of setting that performs wealth without trying, the way everything in this house performs wealth without trying.
Five people are already there when she arrives.
