No one clapped.

No one spoke.

Even the air seemed to hesitate.

My coat still draped around my shoulders, one hand resting on the back of the empty chair before me. For a long, suspended moment, I let them look — not in hunger, not in curiosity, but in quiet recognition.

They knew me.

Not as Evelyn Morgan, the wealthy woman with the “interesting face.”

Not as the subject of their whispers — she’s pretty, but you can tell it’s not real.

Not as the woman who’d altered her ...