Chapter 2 chapter 2

The sea stretched out below the cliffs like a sheet of silver. The windows of Madam Seraphine’s office were thrown open to the wind, and pale curtains breathed in and out, filling the room with the taste of salt and sea. Every surface gleamed: glass, brass, and the deep green of marble that caught reflections of the water outside.

Diane stood near the doorway, still in the same clothes she had left home in, creased, travel-stained, the smell of the plane clinging to her hair, still groggy from the drugs injected into her. Her wrists were free now, but that hardly mattered. Two guards waited by the door like pillars, eyes blank.

Behind the desk sat the woman she had only heard mentioned in murmurs back home: Madam Seraphine. Her black dress looked stylish, her dark hair pinned in a smooth twist. A cigarette rested between her fingers, the smoke curling towards the ceiling.

“Sit,” she said without looking up.

Diane hesitated, then sat on the edge of the chair opposite the desk. The leather was too soft; it made her feel like she was sinking.

Seraphine turned a page in the file before her. “Diane Morel. Twenty years old. American.” She lifted her gaze at last, gray eyes cool and assessing. “Your family spoke highly of your education. Piano, languages, some painting. A cultured girl.”

Diane’s voice barely carried. “Where am I?”

“In Greece, Athens.” The woman smiled faintly. “More precisely, in my house. The House of Seraphine.”

The name seemed to echo. Diane swallowed. “Why am I here?”

“You already know,” Seraphine said. She stubbed out the cigarette with style that shows practice and leaned back. “But let us be civilized. When I acquire something, someone, I explain the terms.”

Diane flinched. “I’m not something.”

Seraphine tilted her head, studying her as though the protest were naïve but interesting. “You are whatever you decide to be from this moment forward. The girl you were no longer exists. You owe a debt, quite a large one. Until it is paid, you will work for me, and your name will no longer be Diane but lyra.”

Diane’s throat tightened. “Work? Doing what?”

Seraphine’s smile didn’t change, but her voice cooled. “You will learn what this house requires. Pleasure, Discretion. Grace. Control. Every woman here learns to perform perfection. You will do the same. In time, when you have repaid what was spent to obtain you, you may leave with whatever fortune you have earned.”

“That’s slavery,” Diane said, her voice trembling. “You can’t keep me here.”

“Of course I can, and you may even come to love it here, most of my girls do and they never leave.” Seraphine stood and crossed to the window. The light caught the curve of her shoulders. “You will find the doors locked, the gates guarded, the phones monitored. The world believes you’ve gone abroad to study art. Your family handled the paperwork.”

The words hit like stones. Diane’s breath came fast, shallow.

Seraphine turned back toward her. “You may call me Madam. You will obey the rules I set. They are simple.” She raised a manicured hand, counting them off like commandments.

“One: you speak when spoken to. Two: you never discuss clients or the house beyond these walls. Three: appearances are everything, language, posture, the way you dress. You will be trained until you can pass for royalty. Four: you will make sure you pleasure our clients. Five: debt before freedom.”

She stopped there, studying Diane’s face. “Questions?”

Diane stared at her hands. They were shaking, and she clasped them together to hide it. “What if I refuse?”

Seraphine’s tone softened to a mock sympathy. “Then you’ll find the world outside very small. I hold your passport, your documents, your name. Here, you may be remade. Out there, you will disappear.”

For a long moment there was only the sea wind and the soft ticking of the clock on the wall.

Finally Seraphine came around the desk and stood over her. “Do you know why I succeed, Miss Morel? Because I understand value. People pay for fantasy, not truth. Learn that, and you may yet survive.”

She lifted Diane’s chin with one finger, forcing her to meet those pale eyes. “Remember from now on your new name is now lyra. Forget the other name. It has no worth here.”

Diane pulled back, her voice breaking. “That’s not my name.”

“It is now.” Seraphine’s smile was almost kind. “You’ll thank me later.”

The guards stepped forward as Seraphine signaled toward the door. “Take her to her room,” she said. “Training begins tomorrow.”

Diane rose on unsteady legs. At the threshold she turned once more. “Why do this to people?”

Seraphine’s answer was soft, almost wistful. “Because people do it to themselves, my dear. I simply make it profitable.”

The door shut behind her with a quiet, final click.

The corridor outside smelled faintly of perfume and disinfectant. The guards led her down a spiral staircase into a hall lined with portraits of women, each beautiful, poised, dressed in sheer and revealing cloths, nameless. Their painted eyes seems to mock her as she walked back to her room.

When the guards left her alone in a small, pristine room overlooking the sea, Diane sank onto the edge of the bed and sobbed feeling heartbroken and betrayed by her family. The sheets were silk, the view breathtaking. It might have been paradise, if not for what she has become and the lack of freedom.

She pressed her palms to her face. For a moment she could almost hear her brother’s voice, see her mother’s indifference, Lydia’s pleading. It all felt like a  nightmare. Then she broke down and cried.

Outside, the sun bled into the water, turning everything gold.

She whispered into her hands, barely audible. “They think I’ll break.”

Then she lifted her head, eyes dry now, jaw set. “They’re wrong.” “ I will do what I have to do to survive for now, and then I will take  revenge on the family that betrayed me  even if it is the last thing I do

The sea wind carried her words away, but something inside her steadied, a thin, fierce thread of resolve that would not break.