Chapter 6: Getting Ready

The party was about to start. I had spent the afternoon helping Mother supervise the setup downstairs, and now it was time to get myself ready.

I lingered in the bathroom doorway, catching the faint pulse of music and voices from below. My eighteenth birthday had come and gone a week ago, but the word adult still felt like a coat that didn’t quite fit. Seven days, and I still hesitated at thresholds, half expecting someone to tell me I wasn’t old enough for what came next.

Tonight wasn’t about birthdays anyway. It was Halloween, and the air felt charged, as if anything could happen if I just stepped into it.

I turned the shower on full and waited for the steam to roll across the tiles. The first touch of hot water made me gasp, then sigh as it soaked through my hair and ran down my back. For half an hour I let everything slip away, the grimoire, the party, the nervous twist in my stomach, and gave myself over to the simple rhythm of washing, rinsing, shaving. The expensive conditioner Mother kept buying, though I’d told her it was unnecessary, left my hair silky. When I finally stepped out, I wrapped myself in a thick white towel and wiped a clear circle in the fogged mirror.

My reflection stared back, pale and wide-eyed. I brushed my teeth, smoothed moisturizer over my skin, and spent a long stretch coaxing my fine, straight, white-blonde hair into something that would fall just right. When it was dry, it reached the small of my back. A little product through the ends, ten more minutes of fussing, and I decided it was as good as it would get.

Makeup came next: light foundation, a dusting of powder, the faintest blush, highlighter along my cheekbones. I lined my eyes, added mascara until my lashes looked thicker, and finished with a soft pink gloss. When I leaned in to check the effect, I caught myself smiling without meaning to.

Because I was thinking about Lucas Harlan again.

He had no idea what he did to people. Tall, broad-shouldered, his sun-streaked brown hair always falling into his green eyes, always a little rumpled in that effortless way, he listened as if every word mattered. I’d known him for years and wanted him for almost as long. The crush had become a quiet, constant hum beneath everything else.