Mirabel extended a gloved hand, the gesture poised somewhere between desperation and performance. "Eliana, please," she said softly, her voice trembling with carefully measured sorrow. "I've come all this way… we need to talk. Just a few minutes. For old times' sake?" Her lips curved into something that almost passed for tenderness, but her eyes gleamed with something colder—anticipation, control. "Or perhaps," she added, lowering her voice just enough to sound intimate, "for what's to come."
She made no attempt to hide her posture—a subtle blend of pleading and dominance. Around them, the curious students had slowed their pace, whispers rippling as they recognized tension where there should have been none. Mirabel caught their stares and let them linger, using their presence like a weapon. Let Eliana be the one who looked unkind, unyielding. Let the crowd see her rejecting a pleading woman. It was manipulation at its finest—artful, deliberate, and devastatingly effective.
