For several seconds after Sienna entered, no one welcomed her.

Not because they did not want to.

Because the room had forgotten how.

The silence stretched beneath the glass ceiling, thin and tense, while morning poured through the walls in golden sheets that suddenly felt much less sovereign than they had a moment ago and Maya still stood near the glass with one hand half-raised from where she had pointed out her hidden home, but every eye had moved to Sienna.

Even Maddie, who had previously cursed at Maya’s house with the fearless vulgarity like she were born to offend both heaven and grammar, said nothing.

Sienna stood near the entrance as if she had walked into an ordinary living room and not caused sunlight to reconsider its career. She wore simplicity like insult, just a slender girl with composed posture, dark elegance, and eyes so completely violet that Phei still felt the echo of those two steps backward in his bones.

The girls reacted first in pieces.

Delilah’s face softened, though only slightly, Victoria, beside Nastya, had gone very still, her gaze fixed on her youngest sister with something sharpened by concern and pride and the uncomfortable realization that the little sister she knew had walked in wearing the presence of something that could make gods lower their voices.

Valentina recovered enough to smile first. "Welcome back, Sienna."

Sierra followed, softer. "We were wondering where you were."

Emily added, "You look... better?"

That was a heroic understatement. One might also call a hurricane "a little windy" and feel proud of one’s restraint.

Sienna’s gaze moved over them, quiet and unreadable. "How observant!"

Maddie’s brows rose. "That is your reply?"

Sienna looked at her. "Yes."

"You disappear, come back looking like you bullied beauty into signing adoption papers, and all we get is ’how observant’?"

"You may also have ’good morning’ if it improves your emotional hygiene."

Maddie stared.

Then laughed once, sharp and bright. "I missed her."

"I did not ask to be missed."

"That is why it is funny."

Sienna’s expression did not change, but her eyes drifted briefly toward the windows, toward the distant white mansion floating above fog and forest. "What were you all staring at with such primitive wonder?"

Maya turned toward her at once, recovering her sweet dignity. "That would be... my home."

Sienna looked.

The room seemed to wait.

Even Phei watched her, curious despite the cold tension still moving beneath his skin.

Sienna’s gaze crossed the impossible distance, took in the white mansion, the fog-buried hill, the forest guarding it like a holy secret, and the illusion of the entire estate floating above the earth.

She realized... the mansion that had been hidden from every eye until Maya pointed it out.

Sienna blinked once,"It is so white," she said.

The room died.

Maddie turned slowly toward her. "It is so white?"

Sienna’s gaze remained on the distance. "Large, also."

Patricia placed a hand over her face.

Valentina’s mouth opened, then closed as if language had failed to justify its tuition fees.

Maya’s smile trembled at the edges. "It is my family’s ancestral home."

"That explains the fog."

Sierra, despite herself, laughed.

Victoria rolled her eyes. "Sienna."

"What?" Sienna asked, still beautifully unimpressed. "Was I supposed to faint? Clap? Offer the hill my condolences for being decorated?"

Maddie pointed toward the glass. "That house was invisible until Maya showed it to us."

"Most things are invisible until people see them."

"That is not what she means," Delilah said dryly.

"I know what she means."

"And?"

Sienna looked back at the mansion. "It hides well."

From Sienna, that might as well have been a standing ovation, a handwritten apology from the gods, and a full architectural award ceremony.

The others seemed to understand this too slowly, but they understood. Maya smiled wider, visibly pleased.

Valentina looked from the mansion back to Maya. "How rich are you really?"

Maya blinked.

Sierra’s gaze sharpened, and she turned fully toward the silver-haired girl. "That is actually a good question."

Patricia leaned her hip against the back of the sofa. "You let us think you were merely from a wealthy family."

"I am from a wealthy family," Maya said.

Maddie narrowed her eyes. "Define wealthy."

Maya’s lips parted.

Then closed, then parted again, which everyone in the room had already learned meant civilization was about to suffer under a paragraph.

"Well, wealth is relative, and because most people measure wealth using liquid assets, land, influence, historical preservation, cultural ownership, military reach, old treaties, spiritual holdings, hidden trusts, family vaults, offshore accounts, old-world metals, art, transportation networks, protection contracts, artifacts, and houses that are not technically on maps, it becomes very difficult to summarize fairly, especially when some holdings are not meant to be counted because counting them would alert people who should not—"

Maddie lifted one finger.

Maya stopped instantly.

"Short answer," Maddie said.

Maya lowered her gaze, cheeks faintly pink. "Very."

The room went quiet again.

Then Maddie laughed in disbelief. "Very?"

Maya nodded.

Victoria’s eyes narrowed. "Very as in rich, or very as in we should all reassess our childhood arrogance?"

Maya’s smile turned soft, sweet and wicked in a way that made Phei look at her with open smile he knew she was about to break them.

"Oh," Maya said, "is that what this is?"

Sierra’s brows lifted. "What?"

Maya clasped her hands lightly in front of her white dress, the picture of moonlit innocence sharpened by quiet mischief. "I was only thinking it is interesting. You all looked so confident for so long, speaking and moving as if your families were the richest and most prominent on earth. It was very cute."

"And here you all were," Maya added, turning from the glass with a sweetness that bordered on lethal, "thinking you were the richest, most prominent families to ever walk the earth. The princesses. The heiresses. The terrifying old names." She tilted her head, eyes shining with gentle, devastating mischief.

"It is adorable. Truly. I did not want to ruin it for you."

Silence.

Phei slowly turned his face away not because he was afraid but because he wanted to smile without being murdered by several women at once.

Maddie stared at Maya.

Valentina whispered, "Did she just call all of y’all cute?"

Maya tilted her head. "Was that impolite?"

Sienna, from the side, said, "Yes."

Maya’s eyes widened.

Sienna continued, "Effective, though."

Maddie burst out laughing first. Sierra followed, softer but helpless.

Phei watched all of it from near the glass, still quiet.

The room had warmed again after Sienna’s entrance, but the warmth was not the same. Something new sat among them. Not hostile. Not even threatening exactly. Just undeniable. Sienna’s presence remained like a dark jewel beneath the sunlight, quiet but impossible to forget.

Phei could feel it even when he was not looking at her. An abyss wearing a seventeen-year-old body; his cousin and a wound pretending to be a girl because the universe had evidently developed a taste for over-complication.

Sienna drifted toward him, her violet eyes rested on him carrying something private beneath the surface.

"Dragon," she greeted.

Phei looked at her.

"Sienna." but her name came quieter than he intended...for a moment, neither of them said anything.

His instincts kept reading her as something vast behind a small door.

Something inside him had not settled since those two steps.

Phei gestured toward the couch beside him. "Sit."

He expected her to refuse but Sienna sat, surprising him more than it should have.

She lowered herself beside him with composed ease, one leg crossing over the other, hands resting lightly in her lap. The movement was elegant, almost bored, but there was something about the obedience itself that made Phei’s chest tighten.

Sienna did not usually accept invitations unless doing so benefited her, annoyed someone, or both.

The others pretended not to watch.

They failed. Badly. Beautifully; subtlety, as always, limped into traffic and died.

Phei leaned back slightly, studying her face. "Where did you disappear to?"