She Turned On the Lights

I’m under so much pressure.”

He turned and walked out.

I looked down at the deep red handprint blooming on my wrist, and I did not feel fear, and I did not feel hurt.

I felt something cold and almost grateful, because Percival had just given me, freely, the last piece I needed.

He had put his hands on me the way he put his hands on Yvaine, and he had done it three days before a wedding in front of no one — but the mark was real, and I photographed it, and it would keep.

Standing there looking at the handprint, I understood that I had just watched the beginning of the exact process that had turned Yvaine Thornquist from a textile heiress into a woman eating cold rice in the dark.