Chapter 4 The Transformation

ARIA's POV

The gates swallowed the car whole.

I pressed my forehead to the cool window as we crept up the driveway, watching the Laurent mansion sharpen into focus - all pale stone and knife-edge windows, like a jewelry box designed to intimidate. The kind of place that wasn't just built to impress, but to remind you that you didn't belong.

My duffel bag sat heavy on my lap - the last anchor to a life that already felt like someone else's. I caught my reflection in the glass: tired eyes, wind-tangled hair, a freckled face caught in the wrong story.

This is just acting, I told myself. The role of a lifetime. Except the audience was real. And they didn't clap when you got it right - they watched, judged, waited for you to slip.

A woman waited at the entrance, posture so perfect it made my back ache just looking at her. She wore gray like a threat and carried herself like someone who never had to ask twice.

"Ms. Renard," she said, cool and clipped. "Mr. Laurent's associate."

She didn't offer a handshake. Just a glance - fast, surgical - from my rain-frizzed curls to my scuffed sneakers. I saw it happen in her eyes: the exact moment she catalogued every way I wasn't Sophia.

She turned briskly. "Follow me."

The mansion was quiet in a way that wasn't peaceful. It was the quiet of curated wealth - the kind you can't afford to disturb. Every hallway gleamed. Every portrait stared. The air smelled like lemon polish and money.

She led me to a library that looked like it had never seen dust. Waiting on the table was a single folder.

The file was thinner than I expected.

Ms. Renard stood beside me, arms folded, as I flipped through pages of Sophia's life reduced to facts.

Sophia Laurent does not bite her nails.

Sophia Laurent prefers her tea with honey, never sugar.

Sophia Laurent had exactly one friend - Lena Choi, who transferred back to Seoul last semester but still texts every Sunday.

I raised an eyebrow. "No favorite color? No childhood pet?"

Ms. Renard smoothed a cufflink. "Sophia's favorite color is whichever matches her handbag."

Of course.

I kept reading. My pulse picked up around page three. Appointments. Teachers. Her fencing scores. A list of boys she was seen with and notes on how to behave around them. I paused at a sticky note marking a dog-eared corner.

"Who's Elodie Bisset?"

"Your former roommate," Renard said. Her mouth thinned. "She now attends our Paris campus. If she visits, you'll claim a migraine and retreat to your room."

The last page held only two lines.

Jared Kane is to be tolerated, not encouraged.

Remember: You are her now.

My stomach turned.

I closed the folder slowly, as if that might make its contents easier to digest.

Then came the transformation.

They remade me in stages - like I was clay, or a brand being relaunched.

First came the spa.

Hours of strangers scrubbing, plucking, and polishing until my skin gleamed like something freshly unwrapped - or like a rotisserie chicken under boutique lighting.

I sat still under the heat lamps while gloved hands smoothed serum along my cheekbones, muttering in French. I didn't know what they were saying, but the tone suggested I was a salvage project.

A woman with eyeliner sharp enough to slice bread hovered in front of me. She frowned at my freckles like they'd personally offended her.

"These can't show," she murmured, dabbing on foundation like she was covering up a crime scene.

"Cool," I said. "Love being airbrushed into nonexistence."

She blinked. I wasn't sure she got the sarcasm.

Then came the wardrobe.

My clothes disappeared into a black garment bag like they'd never existed. I wasn't even allowed a goodbye.

The stylist - a man who smelled like citrus and subtle judgment - sighed so deeply I thought he might collapse from fashion fatigue.

"Sophia wouldn't be caught dead in denim," he said, giving my jeans the kind of look usually reserved for roaches in five-star hotels.

"Tragic," I deadpanned. "Guess I'll save them for the funeral."

He ignored me, holding up silk blouses in neutral tones that screamed generational wealth.

He shoved a cashmere cardigan at me like it owed him money.

As he turned his attention to a rack of tailored blazers, I slipped my silver locket - the one Mom gave me on my sixteenth birthday - into my bra. The chain was thin. The clasp weak. But it was mine.

The only part of me still here.

Last was the voice coach.

She had me repeat phrases until I sounded like I'd been raised in a penthouse instead of a walk-up over a laundromat.

"Again," she said for the eighth time.

"Library," I said, trying not to choke on the second syllable.

"Sophia enunciates," she said sharply. "She doesn't mumble."

"Well, Aria does sarcasm," I muttered.

She glared. I smiled.

By day three, the girl in the mirror had cheekbones sharper than my survival instincts.

Close enough to fool the world.

Too perfect to feel like mine.

Midnight found me pacing my new bedroom - a cavernous suite with velvet drapes, soft lighting, and no soul. The silence felt staged, like the room was holding its breath.

I paused by the dresser. My own silver locket lay warm against my chest, hidden beneath layers of someone else's life. I touched it briefly. Just enough to remind myself it was still there.

And that's when I saw it - a thin gold chain half-tucked behind a perfume bottle. Not mine. Not new.

I picked it up carefully. The pendant was small, old - the kind of worn, beloved thing money doesn't buy. A tiny charm in the shape of an open book. One corner was slightly dented.

No tag. No note. Just the weight of it in my hand.

I turned it over, unsure what I expected. There were no initials. No clues. But something about it felt... important.

Important enough to leave behind? Or too painful to take?

I didn't have time to decide.

There was a knock - a soft one.

Ms. Renard stepped in, silent as breath. Her heels didn't make a sound on the carpet.

"I trust the wardrobe fits," she said flatly, casting a brief glance toward the garment rack.

Then, "You'll report to the academy office tomorrow at ten. First impressions are everything."

Her gaze landed on my hand, still curled around the necklace.

She said nothing. Just tilted her head once. A subtle, unreadable look. Then she turned and left.

I slipped the book necklace into my bag before she could come back.

Not because I thought it was valuable.

But because it was the first real piece of Sophia I'd touched.

And I didn't know if it belonged to her, or Jared, or both - but I had the strange feeling it was going to matter.

The door clicked shut behind her. I didn't move.

Outside, I could see the silhouette of gardeners trimming hedges under moonlight - shaping them into perfect, obedient lines.

I wondered if they'd carve me next.