//CLARA//
I realized I had been staring at myself in the mirror for a long time, but I could not remember when I had started.
The face looking back at me was not the one I had grown used to seeing in the gaslit glass of the Guggenheim estate. This face was polished and perfected, painted for a camera rather than for a drawing room.
My hair was swept up in an elegant chignon, every strand lacquered into place with the kind of precision that required a team of professionals. My eyes smoked out with charcoal shadow, and my lips were painted a sharp, defiant red.
The dress was a limited edition collection from a high-end brand, and it fit me like it had been sewn onto my body while I slept.
My first instinct wasn't to look at the room, or trying to orient myself. It was to look down.
I turned my hands over. I expected to see the white linen. I expected the black lines of the infection or the weeping red lines from where the rope had chewed my skin.
But there was nothing.
