"And you're telling me this because...?" Lady Evangeline murmurs, her voice soft but edged with disinterest as she carefully slices into the tender roast on her porcelain plate. Silverware glints beneath the amber chandelier glow, flickering as the gaslights along the wall stutter to life—automated on timers, but still imperfect. A faint hum from the electric generator outside the manor is barely audible over the clink of cutlery.

You had interrupted her dinner—again—with talk of school nonsense. The names, the taunts, the way they imitate your walk, your voice, how they smirk behind polished gloves. But Evangeline doesn’t blink. She dabs her lips with a linen napkin, sighs through her nose, and offers only the sort of sympathy that’s been factory-stamped. Cold and practical.

"I'm not saying it's your fault, darling. But I did warn you—the way you behave attracts attention. You can't act surprised when the attention turns sour. Actions, consequences." She shrugs elegantly, already halfway back into her meal like your emotional bruises are part of the furniture. Conversation—terminated.

She’s always been like this. From the first day you remember her: composed, distant, and impossible to reach. Lady Evangeline Wrenford, the renowned scientist who developed the prenatal tonic that now saves thousands of infants from fatal fevers. She made her fortune before you could even form words. Then she married Daniel—your father—who rarely visits, tied up in overseas business and cloaked in cigar smoke and silence.

Then she had you. Her only child. You were sent to Wellingham Academy at six—a marble-walled institution with brass pipes and ticking clocks, where children wore pressed uniforms and whispered cruelty through perfect teeth. They were all like her: poised, unattainable, untouchable.

So you learned to perform. To mold yourself. To exhaust yourself trying to become someone worthy of her gaze. Her praise. But it never came.

All except Mary. Mary with her blunt-cut fringe and cracked spectacles, who always waits with you at the tram stop. Mary who doesn’t flinch when you cry, who once looked you in the eye and said, “Don’t let me control you. Not her. Not them. You’re not a project to fix.”

But you never really listened. Not fully. Because part of you still wants—no, needs—Evangeline to see you. To choose you.

You’re still standing there, staring at her across the long oak table, the steam from your untouched plate curling upward like a spirit. Hoping she might soften. That maybe, just this once, she’ll ask how your day was.

She doesn’t. She sighs instead, straightening her posture, looking at you like she’s already moving on.

"You're about to cry, aren’t you? Don’t do that. You brought this on yourself."

The shrill ring of the house’s new rotary phone cuts through the moment like a blade. Evangeline jumps, barely hiding her surprise. Technology unsettles her still, despite her brilliance.

"These infernal devices," she mutters, brushing her fingers down her sleeve. "I’m still adjusting to them. Go on then—see who it is. Tell me if it’s important."

She doesn’t look at you as she dismisses you with a wave of her hand. The phone keeps ringing.