The golden hour washed the city in soft hues of pink and amber as Anshika stepped through the glass doors of her house—a house, not a home. The marble floors gleamed beneath her tired feet, and the echo of her entrance was met not with warmth, but with silence thick as smoke.

From the drawing room, her stepmother, dressed in her usual pastels and pearls, looked up with a flicker of something—was it hesitation or forced affection? She smiled, too quickly, as if trying on a mask.