Page 22 of Song of the Heart Scale
I pressed a foundation sponge to her cheek with practiced precision. Angie stood behind me with her arms crossed, radiating the quiet threat of someone who would absolutely drag me out by the ear if I so much as called someone a “peasant.”
“So!” Tiffy chirped, slightly tilting her head as I blended. “How long have you been doing make-up? Your vibe is very, like, serious. Kinda 'Medieval Couture.' I’m into it.”
“I have painted since I was five,” I primly replied. “Though never on faces.”
Tiffy blinked. “Okaaay, love that. So... like, Renaissance portraits and stuff?”
“Precisely.” I dusted translucent powder over her forehead. “I once painted a war widow so lifelike, the emperor mistook her for one of the living.”
Tiffy laughed. Or at least I assumed it was a laugh. It was shrill and abrupt, like a flock of dying birds. “You’re funny. You have, like, total main character energy. Are you an Aquarius?”
“I am Arya Ryder, daughter of the Minister of Rites,” I replied without thinking.
Angie choked on her coffee behind me.
Tiffy tilted her head. “Is that, like, a cult thing?”
“She means her last name is Ryder,” Angie smoothly cut in, stepping forward with a smile so fake it could be melted down into plastic. “She's European. Super... old-money.”
Tiffy nodded like she understood, though of course she didn’t.
“That’s, like,soexclusive. Ugh, I love accents. You kind of sound like a villain in a period drama, but, like,hot.”
“I have no idea what you just said,” I muttered, reaching for the liquid highlighter.
“She means it as a compliment,” Angie whispered.
I moved on to Tiffy's eye make-up, carefully blending bronze into her crease. Her lashes had already been curled and primed. I had learned this part of the process from YouTube videos Angie made me watch at least fifteen times. Apparently, “smoky eye” did not refer to setting the lashes on fire.
Tiffy's phone buzzed on the table.
“Can someone get that? If it's Keith, tell him I want the puppy back by Monday. That isnotnegotiable.”
One of the young men from her entourage picked it up and scrolled across the screen with a sigh. “It’s just your Insta. Trending again.”
Tiffy preened. “Of course I am. What's the hashtag?”
“#LaFlameRedReign.”
“Perfect! Get some b-roll of Arya doing my lips. She’s, like, aesthetic.”
I paused with a lipstick wand in my hand. “I beg your pardon?”
“Aesthetic,” she repeated. “Like, you have that whole ‘I drink tea at dusk and own a cursed mirror’ thing going.”
Angie snorted behind her fist.
I scowled but applied the matte red lipstick with a precision that made Tiffy's phone-handler whisper, “She’s good.”
“What are you doing the rest of the night?” Tiffy asked between puckering.
“Hopefully returning to a place with fewer ring lights.”
“You should totally come to the after-party! They’re renting a fake castle. You’d be, like,soin your element.”
“A fake castle?” I repeated, scandalized. “Why would someonepretendto have a castle when they could simply acquire one?”
Tiffy turned to Angie, wide-eyed. “She’s committed. I love it.”
