Chapter 26. The Meeting

Camila Martinez flicked her long, dark hair over one shoulder as she settled into the plush chair behind her desk. The early morning sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows of her studio apartment, painting warm, golden streaks across the room. Dust motes floated lazily in the beams, catching her attention for a fleeting moment before she returned her focus to the task at hand. Her worktable was a controlled chaos of sketches, gemstones, and scattered tools—each item a piece of her creative mind made tangible.

With a deep breath, she opened her laptop and began to compose an email. Her fingers hovered above the keyboard, poised but hesitant, as if the act of typing could somehow summon perfection from the void. Camila often talked herself through her emails before committing the words; she liked to hear the sentences aloud in her mind, tasting the tone and cadence before unleashing them into the digital world