Chapter 8: The Night of a Thousand Feelings (and Possibly More Pills)

The fluorescent lights of "The Gilded Grotto," a bar whose name promised more opulence than its sticky floors and questionable karaoke renditions delivered, hummed a discordant tune. Jecka, bless her impossibly patient heart, was attempting to teach me the finer points of wing-lining. “It’s like… a tiny, elegant bird taking flight from your eyelid, Luna,” she explained, her brow furrowed in concentration as she wielded a mascara wand like a surgeon’s scalpel.

I, naturally, had interpreted this as an invitation to draw a miniature, slightly drunk pterodactyl. “Mine looks more like it’s plummeting to its fiery doom,” I observed, holding up the mirror. A black smudge, vaguely avian in shape, was indeed careening towards my lower lash line.

Jecka sighed, a soft sound that usually preceded her either giving up entirely or resorting to a gentle but firm intervention. Tonight, it was the latter. She gently took the wand from my hand. “Okay, maybe we’ll stick to eyeliner that doesn’t require a degree in aeronautical engineering. How about just… a little smudged definition?”