//CLARA//
I pressed my palms against the cool marble of the washroom basin and stared at the woman in the mirror. My face. My eyes. The same face I'd seen every morning of my life, staring back at me from a body that wasn't mine.
I'd been so busy cataloguing Eleanor's differences. The curves I'd never had, the softness of a body that hadn't been sculpted by modern gyms—that I'd missed the obvious.
The face was mine. It had always been mine. The same face Eleanor Thorne had worn a century ago, looking back at me from a time that should have swallowed her whole.
But the woman staring back at me had done things Eleanor never would have imagined possible. Had taken a man into her mouth this morning and wasn't sorry about it. Had felt power in his surrender.
"Pull yourself together, Clara," I whispered to the mirror. "You're not some schoolgirl, okay."
I straightened my gown, navy silk with jet beading that caught the light.
Eleanor's dress. Eleanor's century.
