"Who gave you the right?" Annalise snapped, silver scissors open in her hand, the metal flashing under the ballroom lights. The question landed like a verdict. Conversations skidded. Forks stilled halfway to mouths. Someone's live stream hiccuped into silence. Autumn Roussel froze in the center of the room, soft light clinging to the train of a gown built to turn a room into an audience. It was Annalise's gown—no doubt about it. The seamlines, the custom embroidery of Powell crest worked into the bodice, the way the silk folded in a practiced fall—every detail screamed bespoke, Powell, mine. Fionn Chase stepped forward because he always stepped forward when a moment needed polishing. His smile was a practiced thing: warm, effortless, a balm sold separately. "Annie—" he began, voice smooth enough to cut tension like butter. "Don't 'Annie' me," Annalise said. She planted her feet in the marble, the scissors lowering as if to take a measure. "You wear my dress, you borrow my name. You decide you own my night." Autumn's hands fluttered at her sides. She smiled—small, luminous. "Annalise, it's my honor to be here. I thought—" "Thought?" The room leaned in. Annalise moved and the crowd moved with her. "You thought? You didn't have the courtesy to ask the designer, to call, to do the thing that decent people do when they're invited into someone else's life." A shout of outrage came from a table by the