I knelt beside her, stilling her hand before she cut herself. Her gaze swung upward and locked on mine. Tears welled in her eyes.

“Our stomachs will be fine, Célie.” Gently, I took the shards from her and deposited them back on the floor. “We’ll all be fine.”

She said nothing for a long moment, simply staring at me. I looked back at her with feigned calm and waited, though I longed to rise, to seek the ease and familiarity of Coco’s presence amidst this painfully awkward situation. Célie had no such person to comfort her. She had no familiarity here. And though we weren’t friends, we weren’t enemies either. We never had been.

When she spoke again, her voice was a whisper. Barely discernible. “No. I am not in love with him. Not anymore.” Some of the tension left my shoulders. She spoke truth. The waters wouldn’t have allowed the words otherwise. “And I’m sorry.” Her voice fell quieter still, but she didn’t lower her gaze. Her cheeks shone brilliant scarlet. “You aren’t a whore.”

Coco knelt beside us now, a clean robe in hand. She snorted, puncturing the unexpected sincerity of the moment. “Oh, she is, and I am too. You don’t know us well enough”—she extended the robe, arching a meaningful brow—“yet.”

Célie glanced down at herself, as if just realizing she’d been doused with tea.

“Take it.” Coco pressed it into her hands before motioning toward the dressing screen.

Célie blushed again, looking between us. “You probably think I’m a prude.”

“So?” I waved a hand over the broken china set, and the golden pattern connecting each shard dissipated. Sharpness pierced my chest as the pieces knit themselves back together. I lifted a hand to rub the spot, torn between sighing and wincing. Forgiveness was a painful thing. A sacrifice in itself. “You shouldn’t care what we think, Célie—or anyone else, for that matter. Don’t forfeit your power like that.”

“Because who cares if you’re a prude?” Coco pulled Célie to her feet with both hands. She gestured to me. “Who cares if we’re whores? They’re just words.”

“And we can’t get it right no matter what we do.” Winking, I slipped a satin ribbon from the armoire, tying it around my throat before falling into the hammock once more. Reid swayed beside me. I ignored the knot of panic in my chest. He hadn’t so much as stirred. Instead, I flicked his boot and added, “We might as well do it our own way. Being a prude or being a whore are both better than being what they want us to be.”

Célie blinked between us, eyes huge, and whispered, “What do they want us to be?”

Coco and I exchanged a long-suffering look before she said simply, “Theirs.”