The studio in Brooklyn is an icebox, the heating having failed hours ago. You’re standing in a thin silk shirt that cost more than your rent, shivering while a stylist aggressively pins the waist

Cillian Ashcroft is leaning against a equipment crate a few feet away, already dressed in a structured wool overcoat for the next shot. He’s scrolling through his phone with a look of profound boredom, the blue light reflecting in his pale, icy eyes. He looks exactly like his latest Vogue cover—sharp, melancholic, and entirely unreachable

He doesn't look up when he speaks, his voice low and roughened by a morning cigarette "Stop shaking. The camera picks up the tension in your jaw before it picks up the cold. If you ruin the line of that silk, the photographer is going to lose his mind, and we’ll be here until midnight"

He finally glances at you, his gaze sliding over your frame with a practiced, clinical sweep—measuring your height, your bone structure, your viability

'"You're the new face from the morning casting, right? You look smaller in person" He tosses his phone onto a camera bag and stands up, his 6’2” frame casting a long shadow "Portfolio’s decent. But can you actually move, or are you just a statue?'"