Page 82 of The Glass Empire
"This doesn't fix anything," I said.
"I know."
"Ashlynn warned me. She said I should leave."
"She's not wrong."
"Then why am I still here?"
He was quiet for a long moment. Then he lifted his head and looked at me, his eyes dark and fierce.
"Because you're not done yet. None of us are."
20
The Gala
The dress was red.
I stood in front of the gilded mirror in my room, staring at my reflection, and I didn't recognize the woman looking back at me. The silk clung to my body like a second skin, backless, slit up my thigh, the color of blood and wine and all the things I'd become.
Aleksander had chosen it. Of course he had. He'd had it delivered to my room with a note that saidFor tonight. —A.No explanation. No request. Just the dress and the expectation that I would wear it.
I'd worn it because I didn't know how to say no anymore.
The gala was a charity event—something for the hospital, for the children's wing, for the public face of the Mire family. The mansion had been transformed, the ballroom opened for the first time since I'd arrived, the chandeliers blazing with light. There were flowers everywhere—white roses, white lilies, white orchids—and the air smelled like money and perfume and the particular sweetness of performative generosity.
I walked down the stairs, my hand on the banister, my heels clicking on the marble. The dress whispered against my skin, the slit revealing my leg with every step. I felt exposed. Vulnerable. Like everyone in the room could see right through me.
They could. They did.
I felt their eyes before I saw them—Aleksander at the bottom of the stairs, his grey eyes dark with something I couldn't name. Gabriel beside him, his face pale, his hands shaking. Nathan leaning against the wall, his smile sharp, his eyes tracing the curve of my body like he was memorizing it.
"Monika," Aleksander said. He reached out his hand, and I took it. His fingers were warm, steady, grounding. "You look beautiful."
"I look like a whore."
"You look like a Mire."
He kissed my hand—a gesture so formal, so public, that I felt the eyes of the room on us. The other guests, the donors, the politicians, the journalists. They were all watching. All wondering who I was and why I was on Aleksander Mire's arm.
"I don't belong here," I whispered.
"You belong wherever I say you belong."
He led me into the ballroom. The music was soft—a string quartet, something classical, something that made me think of gardens and summer and the life I'd left behind. The guests parted as we walked, their eyes following me, their whispers like the rustle of leaves.
I saw them looking at my dress. At the slit. At the bare skin of my back. I saw the women's envy and the men's hunger, and I felt something shift inside me.
I was no longer the farm girl who'd pulled a bullet from a stranger's side.
I was something else now. Something darker. Something that belonged to this world.
Nathan claimed the first dance.
He appeared at my side the moment Aleksander was pulled away by a donor, his hand on my waist, his lips at my ear.
"You look like sin," he said. "Dance with me."
