( he looks better this way, she thinks, with his burnished smile, the polish of it radiating greater sincerity. a shy pride peeks past her parted mouth as her fingers flitter away, dousing themselves back into the bathwater, as if extinguishing the lingering smoke of a candle, despite every atom in her body vibrating with the need to reignite.

it's to be expected — that roil of disgruntled power, unsettled by being set aside like an insect battering itself against the glass walls of a jar for so long, waiting for her to poke holes in the glass so it can breathe. beneath the bubbling surface, alina's fingers furl inward, screwing the lid tighter on her summoning, until it sighs and settles inside of her. )

I am proud. ( a truth, a lie, all tangled up in a complex knot. it leaves her mouth little forcefully — like slamming a door, when she had only meant to slip it closed — for it not to be a sore bruise, defensive over her marriage to power. ) But I'm not stupid. I don't want to give them any reason to think I'm useful.

( she frowns, the corners of her mouth wilting. the truth of the matter is — they might already know. no one sets out to abduct sankta alina without the expectation that they can bleed her dry, dangle her on strings like a puppet queen, a pet grisha. a shake of her head swirls the dark strands of hair around her shoulders, dripping down into the water like inky pools. that isn't the point. the point is — )

You're not different here. ( or, more truthfully: it had been her own effort to bridge a chasm between herself and the rest of the balfours' guests, navigating her way out of her own loneliness, her strange existence as a singular creature. isolated, in her rarity. ) I thought you should know.