Chapter One: After the Flashbulbs

The music crested. Wen turned into a field of blinding white flashes, her silver skirt rising intact like a fish breaking the surface of a dark sea. Comments flooded the livestream, praising a woman perfect from every strand of hair to each slim ankle. No one knew that inside this perfection was a bone taken from a temp worker's sleeve. Jianwei pushed the lipstick-marked pin into her cushion. It was her eleventh day in Obsidian's styling department and the first time she had been allowed near a major media day. She had been hired to steam costumes for supporting actors. Only when the chief stylist suffered an allergic reaction had Jianwei been dragged in as emergency help.