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Ayla’s laugh was quiet. “Yes.”

I looked away too quickly. “There’s nothing to ‘oh’ about.”

“Of course not.”

Bianca opened her case before I could answer. Scissors, combs, brushes, bowls, and bottles were arranged inside with surgical precision.

She gestured toward the chair.

“Come and sit. Let me see what we’re dealing with.”

The cape settled over my shoulders with a soft whisper.

Bianca moved behind me, separating my hair with gentle fingers. When she lifted it away from my neck and discovered the bruises there, her hands paused.

Only once. Then she continued.

She didn’t ask any questions or probe or lay claim to a story I wasn’t yet ready to tell.

“How attached are you to the length?” she asked casually.

I looked at the dark strands falling over my chest. My throat tightened. I had worn it this way for years.

Bianca watched me in the mirror. She must have seen something change in my face because she lowered the strand.

“We can keep most of it.”

“No.” My voice sounded distant.

I forced myself to look into the mirror. The woman reflected there had my features, but I no longer knew her. Her eyes were hollow. Bruises darkened her skin. Her hair hung limply around her face like the remains of a life that had already ended. I had spent days trying to preserve her. Perhaps that had been the mistake.

“Cut it,” I commanded.

Bianca met my gaze in the glass. “How much?”

“Enough that it will be hard to recognize me.” The room quietened.

I felt Demitri’s attention settle fully upon me.

She gathered my hair at the nape of my neck. Metal slid through my hair. There was a faint scrape, then the weight released. A long dark section fell into my lap.

I stopped breathing. Somewhere behind me, Demitri moved. Perhaps half a step, as though instinct had pulled him forward before he remembered there was nothing here from which he could protect me.

Bianca laid the severed length on the table.

“Are you all right?”

I stared at it. Days ago, they had been soaked by rain while I ran for my life. Men had grabbed them. Blood had dried in them.

“Yes,” I whispered.

Bianca cut again. Another section fell. Then another. Dark strands slid down the cape and collected around the chair. With each cut, the pressure inside my chest changed. It didn’t disappear; grief was not so easily fooled. But something loosened.

The woman I had been came away piece by piece. The widow. The target. I watched her fall around my feet. It hurt. Beneath the pain was rage. Beneath the rage, relief.

Bianca shaped the remaining hair to my shoulders, cutting soft layers around my face. Then she mixed color in a bowl, the brush circling through copper and brown.

“Chestnut,” she explained. “Warmer than your natural color, with copper through it.”