The Red Hours

The problem with eternity is that it makes the most exquisite things feel like a rehearsal, " Elara murmured, her voice a low vibration that seemed to hum against the champagne flute in her hand. She wasn't looking at the crowd, but at Mira, whose presence felt like a sudden drop in atmospheric pressure. They stood in the gilded periphery of a party that smelled of old money and fresh sweat, two predators dressed in silk that clung to their skin like a second, more expensive layer of oil