Chapter 5: Voss Names What She Sees

The preparation room smelled of heated metal and something floral that had been engineered to smell like nothing in particular. Maren stood in the center of it in her underclothes and let herself be looked at.

Voss had not spoken since directing her onto the low circular platform. That had been three minutes ago. Maren had counted.

The stylist moved around her in a slow orbit — not the appraising circuit of the other prep team members, who had already finished their work and been dismissed with a gesture so minimal it barely qualified as communication. This was something else. Voss walked the way her aunt walked the length of a finished piece before cutting: looking for the flaw that would unravel everything downstream.