Light spilled in soft and golden from the tall windows, brushing over velvet drapes, carved mouldings, and a vase of dead roses on the nightstand. The sheets were silk. The air smelled faintly of lilies, perfume, and old sadness. There was no sound but the ticking of a distant clock, and her own breath.

Aria Callo blinked slowly, eyes adjusting. The ceiling above her was ornate, coffered, impossibly high. She had never seen it before.

Where am I?

She sat up too fast. Pain flared at the base of her skull. The room swam. She clutched the blankets to her chest and forced herself to breathe. This isn't a hospital.

And it wasn't her studio apartment in Queens, either—the one with water-stained walls and a faucet that didn't work. There were no crushed pill bottles on the floor, no secondhand blankets, no ashtray overflowing on the sill. There was no noise, no chaos, no scent of fried oil from the neighbor downstairs.

There was just stillness. And her.

She swung her legs out of bed. Her feet sank into a thick Persian rug. Every instinct told her she should be dead.

The last days had blurred at the edges—pain behind her eyes, bruises blooming in places no one could see, the quiet terror of doors locking behind her. No one had come. No one had called. Her body had given out before her will did.

What had taken her—it hadn't been quick.

But it had been final.

And this... this wasn't the end she'd expected.

There was no hospital. No noise. No screaming.

Only her.

So what was this?

She crossed the room, every movement hesitant, barefoot on marble and silk. The mirror above the fireplace was tall, framed in gold. She saw her reflection—and stopped cold.

That wasn't her face.

It wasn't her skin, or her hair, or the line of her jaw. The woman in the mirror was older than she remembered being—elegant, pale, raven-haired. Haunted.

This isn't me.

But it wasn't a stranger, either.

Aria stared. Her heart stuttered.

It was a face she'd seen a hundred times, in books, in interviews, in grainy opera footage. In the pages of a biography she hadn't meant to finish. She'd listened to those arias late into the night, chasing the grain in the voice that felt like ache made flesh.

Maria Callas.

The voice of the century. The tragedy. The diva. The woman who burned too bright and died too alone.

And somehow, impossibly, it was her reflection now.

She raised her hand. The woman in the glass did too, perfectly matched. She turned her face. So did the image.

This can't be happening.

She reached up and touched her throat—soft, strong, unfamiliar. The vocal cords beneath her skin thrummed like a wire drawn taut.

Tears pricked her eyes, unbidden.

"I'm not supposed to be here," she whispered.

But the voice that answered her—even soft, even cracked—wasn't hers.

It was hers.

It was Maria Callas.