The burn marks on our wrists were still smoking when she appeared.
The Duchess stepped out of shadow near the Pool's edge, and I almost didn't recognize her. The last time I'd seen her, Luna had been breaking through her porcelain mask, revealing the goddess beneath.
Now she was put back together. But wrong.
Half her face was still porcelain, smooth and perfect and painted with that red smile. But the other half was cracked, pieces missing to reveal something underneath. Not Luna's silver light. Flesh. Actual human flesh, pale and vulnerable and bleeding where the porcelain had broken away.
Her dress was the same silver, but it hung differently now. Like her body beneath it wasn't quite the right shape anymore. Like Luna's emergence had damaged the vessel permanently.
She moved with her usual grace, but I could hear it now. The sound of breaking glass with each step. The creak of porcelain grinding against flesh. The wet sound of blood dripping from the cracks.
