Chapter One - Lira
The gravel keeps catching my heel. I shift again, trying not to wince, but the shoe’s already done its damage. I can feel the blister blooming beneath the skin like punishment. My toes are curled inside shiny and cruel cheap patent leather.
The dress I’m wearing looks expensive from a distance. Up close, it tells the truth—fabric that snags on chipped nails and smells faintly of dust from the store rack. I keep tugging at the side seam like it’ll magically fall right. It won’t.
I bring the cigarette to my lips. My fingers tremble a little—just enough to make the flame waver when I light it. I inhale sharply. The smoke hits the back of my throat and burns. Good. At least it’s something I can feel.
The mansion looms ahead, silent and watching. I’ve been here before, but tonight it feels… different. Bigger. Like it’s grown teeth. The lights inside glow warm, but the windows stay black. I can’t see anyone watching me. That doesn’t mean they’re not.
The door creaks open.
A man steps out—tall, thin, polished. His suit probably costs more than everything I own put together. His eyes land on the cigarette first. He doesn’t hide the way his mouth tightens.
“You may come in, Miss Falco.”
His voice is smooth. Like glass. Or a knife.
I force a smile, awkward and thin. “Right. Sorry.”
I drop the cigarette and crush it under my heel. The gravel grinds beneath me, but the sound feels louder than it should. Embarrassing.
The man watches the whole thing with a look I can only describe as disgust dressed up as manners . Then he pulls something from his coat pocket—a small silver spray canister—and mists between us. Then me.
I blink at the scent. It clings to my skin like a veil I didn’t ask for.
“House protocol,” he says. Cold. Impersonal.
I nod—no, I sort of half-bow, stupidly—and move toward the entrance before I make it worse. My heartbeat’s up. I try not to look like someone who notices.
Inside, the air shifts. Cool, expensive. The kind of air that tells you to mind your posture.
The floors are marble—so polished I catch flashes of myself as I walk. Chandelier above. They tinkle faintly like they’re laughing.
The last time I came here, I didn’t let myself see any of this.
Now it’s unavoidable. The ceiling arches high above, coffered and carved with strange patterns—leaves and snakes and roses tangled into each other.
Paintings line the walls, eyes stern, frames heavy.
Everything smells like money and lavender.
Not real lavender. The kind that comes bottled, processed, curated.
I don’t know where to look, so I look straight ahead. My legs are stiff. I can already feel sweat collecting at the base of my spine, but I don’t dare reach back and adjust the dress. It’s clinging tighter now. I should’ve worn something else. I should’ve—
I watch the back of his suit as he walks ahead of me, stiff and upright. His posture says this is routine. That I’m forgettable.
My shoes pinch harder with every step. I try to focus on the sound they make. But my mind drifts.
It used to be so loud in my head. Music. Notes. Endless rehearsals. I’d fall asleep hearing arpeggios loop under my dreams. I practiced until my fingers split. I missed parties. Missed sleep. Missed being a teenager.
All for the violin.
I was good. God , I was good.
Got into the Sydney Conservatorium on a full scholarship. The dream school. The place where prodigies are turned into legends. They told me I had something rare. Called me “a storm in silk.” I used to believe them.
I was preparing for the Apex Concerto Finals—the competition every student kills themselves over. One performance. One shot. And I was ready.
But then…
everything stopped.
I blink and the memory fogs. Not the moment the bow slipped. Not the judges' faces.
Before that.
Something broke.
And then I unraveled.
I bombed the qualifiers. Couldn’t focus. Couldn’t breathe without wanting to scream. Couldn’t sleep, so I started taking things to help. Then I needed other things to fix what those broke. My professors stopped calling. Friends stopped checking in. My scholarship vanished. No second chances.
I still remember packing my things into a secondhand suitcase, my fingers numb. My violin case tucked between hoodies and empty pill bottles.
They sent me to rehab. One year. A white-walled place with ocean views and motivational quotes taped to mirrors. I counted tiles to keep from shaking. I learned how to smile so the nurses would mark “stable” on my chart.
When I came back, the world had moved on.
The bills didn’t. The shame didn’t.
Now I pour drinks for strangers who tip in winks. I serve coffee to women who look at me like I remind them of a version of themselves they narrowly escaped. And on weekends, I tutor violin to rich kids whose biggest fear is boredom. Their mothers always smile like they’re doing me a favor.
Nicola, my best friend, found this job. She’s the only one who’s stayed.
I owe her more than I let myself admit.
But walking through this house, this museum of cold money and legacy— I feel who I could’ve been pressing against the cheap rhinestones on my dress.
And the blister burning on my heel suddenly feels like the least painful thing about tonight.
We round the corner, and I nearly collide with her.
Tall. Silk-draped. Red-lipped and perfectly timed, like she’d been waiting for the exact moment the hall turned quiet. Her heels are thin and echoing on the marble like a metronome gone smug. Bolina.
She stops when she sees me. Her face softens, then bursts open like a champagne cork.
“Lira, honey, you’re here! ” Her voice is warm, theatrical, and loud for the hallway.
I inhale slowly. Deeply. Pretend the scent of perfume doesn’t make my stomach curl.
My smile blooms on command— wide, bright. “I’m here.”
She glides toward me in a floor-length cream dress that clings to her body like devotion. A slit up the thigh. Nails glossy and blood red. Her hair is platinum and perfectly set—no roots, no stray strands. The light hits the diamond at her throat and throws tiny prisms across the floor.
Bolina looks like wealth curated by a stylist. I look like a bar girl who got lost in the wrong neighborhood.
“Oh my God,” she breathes, clutching her pearls like I’m a long-lost cousin. “I have so much to tell you. August, fetch some wine—Chateau Margaux, please, not the local horror Conrado insists on saving for guests he dislikes.”
The man—August—tenses. Barely. Just the flicker of a jaw muscle. But I see it.
He bows without speaking and turns away, disappearing into the shadows like a reprimanded butler.
Bolina doesn’t notice. Or maybe she does and doesn’t care.
She reaches for me, both hands out like she’s reuniting with a friend she’s missed dearly. Her fingers wrap around mine—cool, smooth, forceful.
I want to recoil, but I hold a smile. Just long enough.
“Oh ma’am,” I say, injecting forced fondness into every syllable, “I missed you too. But Angelina must be waiting for her lesson, I shouldn’t keep her—”
“Oh, please, ” she says, waving her hand as if batting away a fly. “You know Angelina. She doesn’t listen to anyone. Went off to some party in Toorak, left her phone behind. Her father’s been in Russia for three days and now she thinks she’s in charge.”
She lets out a light, melodic laugh like it’s all terribly amusing. “She doesn’t care or listen to me…”
Her voice trails off as she starts walking—no, gliding—toward an arched doorway on our right, dragging me by the hand.
I stumble slightly as the heel catches the seam of the runner rug, but she doesn’t notice. Or pretends not to.
We pass through into a sitting room that belongs in a magazine—white marble fireplace, velvet fainting sofa, a mirror the size of a wall framed in blackened gold leaf.
There are books on the shelf with spines too perfect to have ever been read.
A sculpture of a bird with a broken wing sits on the mantle, probably worth more than my debts.
I’m trying not to breathe loud. Trying not to let the scent of her perfume and money crawl into my lungs. I’m just trying to survive the next ten minutes without falling apart.
She gestures for me to sit beside her. I hover instead, plastering on another smile like duct tape over a crack in the wall.
Bolina is still talking—something about her dress tailor using much starch—when August returns.
He moves like a shadow, quiet but perfectly timed. A silver tray balanced in his gloved hands holds a dark green bottle and two crystal glasses. Chateau Margaux. Of course. Nothing touched by normal hands.
She barely glances at him. “Thank you, August. That’ll be all.”
His mouth tightens again. Barely. But it’s there. He sets the tray down on the glass table between us, nods stiffly, and walks out.
I stay standing. Still smiling. Muscles locked into something that looks like pleasant attention.
Bolina exhales dramatically, like even lifting her hand would be beneath her. “Darling, be useful. Open it, won’t you?”
I pick up the bottle. My hands tremble just enough to make me nervous, but I manage to twist the cork free without incident. It makes a soft pop. The smell—deep, spiced, earthy—rises immediately.
I pour her a glass and hold it out. She takes it with a flourish, like we’re in some Parisian salon.
I don’t pour one for myself. My stomach’s still raw from the last cheap espresso I downed before my shift ended.
“God, thank you ,” she breathes, taking a sip and then curling her legs beneath her like some elegant housecat. Her dress spills over the edge of the couch in a soft pool of silk.
“You know,” she says suddenly, eyes twinkling like she’s about to tell me a secret the wallpaper might be scandalized by, “I invited him here last week.”
I blink. “Him?”
She leans in, lowers her voice like a schoolgirl sharing gossip. “ My lover, darling. Twenty-nine. Spanish. Uncut. The kind of man who looks at you like he knows what you taste like before you’ve even said your name.”