I came home to the smell of her perfume.

Not mine. Hers. That cloying, too-sweet jasmine that Nyra wore like armor, thick enough to announce her presence three rooms away. It hit me the second I opened the door, and my whole body went still.

She was in my apartment.

I set my bag down slowly. Listened. The bedroom door was open. I could hear movement — soft, deliberate, the sound of someone who knew they had time.

"Nyra?"

She appeared in the doorway, coat still on, hands empty. She smiled. "Hey. Sorry, I didn't think you'd be back yet."

"What are you doing here?"

"Desmond left his charger." She gestured vaguely toward the couch. "He asked me to grab it."

There was no charger on the couch.

She moved past me into the living room, trailing her fingers along the back of a chair, across the edge of my bookshelf. Touching everything. Claiming space.

"You have such a cute place," she said. "So… cozy."

The word landed wrong. Cozy meant small. Cozy meant less.

I watched her pick up a framed photo from the side table — me and Millie at Coney Island, years ago, cotton candy and sunburns. Nyra tilted it toward the light, squinted at it like she was trying to place a face she didn't recognize.

"Sweet," she murmured, setting it down half an inch off from where it had been.

My hands curled into fists at my sides. "The charger?"

"Oh, right." She laughed, airy, unbothered. "I think I already got it, actually. It's in my bag."

She didn't have a bag.

She wandered toward the bedroom. I followed, pulse ticking hard in my throat. She stopped at my closet, pulled the door open without asking, and stood there scanning the contents like she was shopping.

"God, you have so many black things," she said. "Don't you get bored?"

She reached in. Pulled out the quilt.

Time stopped.

She held it between two fingers, the fabric dangling, Millie's careful stitches catching the afternoon light. She wrinkled her nose.

"What is this?"

I couldn't speak. My throat had closed.

"It smells like a nursing home," she said, and she said it lightly, casually, like she was commenting on the weather. She turned, eyes scanning the room, and spotted the black trash bag I'd left by the door — the one I'd been meaning to take down to the trash chute for days.

She walked over. Stuffed the quilt inside.

"Nyra—"

She tied the bag shut. Set it in the center of the living room floor.

"I just worry about you, Wren," she said, turning to face me. Her voice was soft. Concerned. The voice she used on Desmond when she needed something. "Holding onto dead people's things isn't healthy."

Something in me snapped.

I crossed the room in three strides and slapped her.

Hard. Open palm. The crack split the air like a bone breaking.

She stumbled back, hand flying to her cheek. For one perfect, unguarded second, the mask fell. Her eyes weren't wide with shock. They were narrow. Furious. The eyes of something cornered and vicious.

Then she blinked, and the tears came.

"Oh my god," she whispered, voice shaking. "You hit me."

"Get out."

Her hand trembled against her face. She pulled out her phone with the other, fingers moving fast.

"I can't believe you just—" She was already calling him. Already crying into the phone before he even picked up. "Desmond, she hit me. I'm at her apartment and she just — I don't know what to do, I'm scared—"

I grabbed the trash bag. Pulled the quilt out. It was wrinkled now, creased where she'd shoved it in, and I smoothed it against my chest like I could undo the damage with my hands.

"You need help," Nyra said, phone still pressed to her ear, eyes locked on mine. Red blooming across her cheek in the exact shape of my palm. "You're not okay, Wren. Everyone can see it."

I heard Desmond's voice through the speaker, tinny and urgent. Heard him say my name.

Nyra turned away, walked toward the door, still talking, still performing. "I don't know, she just snapped. I think she's having a breakdown. Can you come? Please?"

She let herself out. Didn't close the door all the way. Left it hanging open just enough that I could hear her heels clicking down the hallway, hear her voice fading, hear the elevator ding.

I stood there holding my grandmother's quilt, the fabric soft and worn under my fingers, the small stitched prayers Millie had hidden in the folds pressing against my palms like secrets.

And I waited.

Because I knew exactly what was coming next.