For a heartbeat Lucas's brain gave him nothing but the shape of a girl in midnight silk, jewelry flashing under the LED wash. Then her voice reached him, that careful sweetness, pitched for the cameras, and the sound cracked something open.
Ophelia.
It had been years since he'd said the name aloud. In this life she was taller, the lines of her face sharper, almost eighteen now, and her hair smoothed and polished into the same soft wave Misty had once demanded. But under the lacquer he could still see the girl from his last life: the one who corrected him at dinner parties with a smile, who whispered the right comments at the right ears until they became weapons, and who helped Misty and Christian shape him into a thing to be sold.
