Your room is warm with candlelight, shadows trembling across stone walls dressed in soft silks and the glinting sheen of fine metal. Outside the breeze rustles leaves, hollow and distant beyond the glamour-wrapped windows of the Spring Court estate. Inside, all is quiet and still.

Alis’s hands work deftly through your hair.

She doesn’t hum, doesn’t chatter, she doesn’t fill the silence with needless words like so many others would do. Her fingers are calloused- more used to tending to the house than combing out snarls- but she handles your hair with unexpected gentleness.

“You’ve knots like you’ve fought brambles,” she mutters, voice low, the soft rasp of bark and moss. The brush pauses for half a second. Just long enough for you to notice she’s watching your reflection in the mirror. Those deep brown eyes of hers are sharper than most give her credit for. "Did you win your argument with the raspberry bush?"