After the call, I lunged into work as if I were competing for the million-dollar grand prize in a reality show called House Packers. But every time I laid something on the “give away” pile, my heart hurt. I wanted to keep everything simply because it’d been Violet’s. Sadly, I had room for nothing.

Pare down. Can you live without it? Is it absolutely necessary?

I only stopped to dash over to the grocery store, and then for an actual break when Strena showed up with three models and invited me upstairs.

I was too curious to say no. Also, my back, unused to heavy lifting, needed time to recover.

While the models—wearing only tiny bikinis—waited patiently in the middle of the fourth-floor studio, Strena heated sugar in a copper pot on an electric plate on a cart in the corner, stirring with what she called her “wand,” the pointy tool I’d mistaken for a dagger the day before.

“You can help with the video cameras. Just click the red button.”

I did.

She pushed her cart over to one of the models. “Ready, Monique?”

She stirred the melted substance, then lifted her wand, pulling a fine rope of sugar into the air, swirled it, broke it off, and placed it on the model’s shoulder.

“Doesn’t that burn?”

Monique kept motionless. “Cools enough by the time it touches the skin.”

“Why sugar?”

Strena was creating more ornamentation. Once again, the model responded. “The sugarworks represent the sticky ties of the past that can be a trap like a spiderweb. Or we can turn it into armor. Or wings.”

Strena looked up, but only for a second. “Being a strong, independent woman who speaks the truth is a revolutionary act in this world. And then there are echoes to the sugar trade that started large-scale slavery.”

Strena built a golden structure around Monique that was at the same time armor and a cage. Breathtaking. Then she worked on the others. One moment, they were the three goddesses, then the three graces, then three harpies from Greek myth, depending on how she lit them and from what angle I observed.

She lost herself in her work. I thought she forgot I was even there, until she turned to me. “This is practice for a show I’ll be doing soon. Want to feel what it’s like?”

“Sure?”

“Give me your arm.”

I rolled my shirt above my elbow.

“Oh.” The first touch made me jump. The sugar was uncomfortably hot, but then quickly cooled.

“I won’t burn you. I use special additives.” Strena drew patterns reminiscent of henna art, and then small, standing loops that solidified, turning her creation three-dimensional. “How is that?”

“Stunning. Why doesn’t it fall off?”

“Secret recipe.” She went back to her models.

“Is it edible?”

She laughed. “Go ahead.”

Tasted like caramel.