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She began painting the color through my hair.
Ayla stayed nearby, talking enough to fill the room without demanding anything from me. She and Bianca exchanged stories about Zeno’s impossible standards and his obsession with keeping her safe from harm.
Zeno had left before the cutting began, claiming he had work to do. Ayla informed us he had actually left because one severed lock of hair had landed near his shoe and unsettled him more than gunfire ever could.
“He once watched a man bleed across imported marble without blinking. But heaven forbid his wife cut her hair.”
The affection beneath Ayla’s complaint made me ache.
“He likes things where he left them,” Bianca remarked. “People included.”
When Bianca stepped away to prepare more color, my gaze drifted toward the doorway.
Demitri was speaking quietly to one of Zeno’s guards. He should have been in bed. Instead, he remained within sight of me.
Bianca returned and caught me watching him. Her gaze settled briefly on Demitri.
“That man is going to crack a tooth if he clenches his jaw any harder.”
“He’s worried about security.”
“Is that what we’re calling it?”
My heart tightened. I looked down at my hands beneath the cape.
“He would do that for anyone.”
Ayla and Bianca exchanged a glance in the mirror.
“He’s a priest,” I added, as though that resolved the situation.
“Not in those clothes,” Bianca countered.
Heat climbed my neck.
“The clothes don’t change what he is.”
“No,” Ayla said softly. “But sometimes they reveal what a person’s trying to hide.”
I looked at her. There was no teasing in her expression now. She understood what it meant to discover violence beneath a man’s careful surface. Perhaps she also understood how terrible it was to find safety there.
My eyes returned to Demitri. As though he felt them on him, Demitri glanced into the room, his gaze meeting mine in the mirror.
Bianca rinsed the color from my hair behind the folding screen. Warm water flowed over my scalp as I closed my eyes and listened to the murmur of voices beyond the divider.
When she finished drying and styling my hair, she turned the chair toward the mirror.
I stared.
Soft chestnut waves brushed my shoulders. Copper caught beneath the lamplight whenever I moved. The warmer color changed the shape of my face, bringing out my eyes and drawing attention away from the bruises.
The woman in the mirror still looked tired, frightened. But she didn’t look like the woman who had stumbled bleeding into Demitri’s church.
Bianca rested her hands lightly on my shoulders. I searched the reflection.
“I don’t know who that is,” I gasped.
“Meet the new you,” she exclaimed.
