"Hello, dear," my mother said.
Alyssara didn't turn. The crimson thread at my throat held, a single millimeter too tight. Every instinct I own wanted to swing, to burn, to break—everything in me that has ever kept me alive answered with the same truth: 'not here.' Stella's breath was steady against my shoulder. I kept it that way.
Alice didn't touch Alyssara. She didn't need to. The ward along her palm brightened, then settled, as if the sigils in the paint had just remembered who taught them their letters.
"House rule," my mother said, calm as a kitchen fire she had already decided would not take the cabinets. "No blood in my dining room."
Alyssara's smile tilted. "The Nightingale matriarch," she said. "At last. I wondered when the editor would leave the back room."
"I prefer the sink," Alice said. "Less pretense. More work done."
