Aurora

Aurora arrived at midnight. The last guest had already left the ballroom, yet there she stood — midnight silk and hand-sewn black lace, the exact shade of a winter sky just after the stars appear. Her gown was stitched from remnants of a forgotten opera costume and a bolt of cloth that travelled from Vienna to Bratislava in a single wooden trunk.

Magdalena painted her lips the colour of plum wine and gave her eyes a gaze that looks past you, toward a memory no one else can see. Aurora does not speak, but her stillness says everything: she is the woman who stayed until the candles burned down, and then stayed a little longer.