It looked amazing—there was no way to deny it. The golden tone highlighted my skin and brought out the warmer colors in my hair. Even my eyes looked brighter.

“Just so you know,” I called. “I hate you.”

“I know. Get your ass out here.”

Padding back into the room, her jaw dropped. “Holy shit, Esme.”

“Have I mentioned I really hate it when you’re right? I’m going to need to borrow make-up, though.”

She gestured to her cluttered vanity. “Have at it.”

Most of the time Eva’s team did her make-up and hair, but for smaller events like this she gave them time off. I was glad tonight, since it meant the reveal of the dress was limited to only her. You know, before all of Slate City’s paparazzi saw me.

Fine. If I was going to do this? Then I was going to do this. I leaned into the look of the dress, making my eyes dark and smoky with a hint of metallic gold at the inner corners. Just enough gloss on my lips to make people wonder what I’d been doing, and I ran some hairspray through with my fingers, attempting to corral the flyaways in my waves.

“What do you think of this?”

Her dress was white, falling to her knees. It had a similar neckline to mine, so we wouldn’t look completely out of sync, but it was a much more toned-down, wholesome version of what I was wearing. “It’s pretty.”

She sighed. “I would kill to wear what you’re wearing right now. I’ve been begging Jasmine and Brian to let me go a little edgier, but the whole team thinks it’s a bad idea.”

“Why?”

“Because I still have three more Summer Saga movies coming up, and they don’t want to piss off the studio. Which is one of the reasons we’re going to this party.”

Grabbing an overflowing jewelry box, I picked through the jewelry until I found some dangly gold earrings which matched.

“Hold on, I have something else perfect for that.” She disappeared into the closet again and reappeared with her shoes, gold heels for me, and a gold wire armband that twisted into swirls and rested on my bicep. “God, you’re such a badass.”

“Remind me why I’m going to this party again?”

This was at the core of my problems with the packs who had come to court me. I wasn’t Eva. I didn’t love parties, preferring silence or my own music to rooms filled with pounding bass and people. I wasn’t afraid of people, but most of the time they exhausted me. On the whole, I was built for a different life than this one.