Three more eventually arrived, filling their respective seats.
First was Amethyst.
She was a woman with deep violet hair that hung in gentle waves past her collarbone, and her mask expressed fear—the subdued, inward kind.
In a way, it was a shade more intense than the sadness my own mask was meant to represent. And just like her mask, she acted as though she expected to be told to leave at any moment.
The second was Opal.
He was a man, and his hair caught the minimal lighting in a way that made it difficult to name its color directly, as it shifted between pale silver and soft iridescence depending on the angle, the way certain minerals do when the light moves across them.
His mask read as relief.
And then finally, Jade was the last of the three, and she carried herself with the settled authority of someone who had long since stopped needing to announce it.
Her hair was a deep, saturated green, rich enough that it looked almost ornamental against her skin.
