Vaughn wasn't one to be late, but she ran a few minutes behind in deciding to take the stairs. She'd done so only to ensure that she could smoke the live long way, trying to sedate nerves gone to tuning forks. Although smoking and climbing flights of stairs wasn't mutually inclusive, she managed.
This was going to be a mistake. Hell, it'd been a mistake to even acknowledge Ella for who she was, but Vaughn had been so genuinely shocked at the moment in time that nothing else could have been done. She could have feigned ignorance, but then she might never find out why Ella was here.
There was no such thing as coincidence, Vaughn was certain of that much.
But she wasn't Vaughn anymore. Even in this meeting with her half-sister, in which she was supposed to be Vaughn, she couldn't be Vaughn. She had to be "Call me Leah" now, and.. yes, it was complicated even to her.
The witch hesitated in the stairwell, mentholated smoke became her cloying veil. Tucking a piece of stripped blonde behind one ear, and straightening the hem of a dress that seemed to be three or four slips overlapped for modesty. Fading black and burgundy wine silk, she wore no jewelry and her shoes were simple. In fact, the most extravagant part of her, aside from those ghostgrazed eyes, was the fact that she'd painted her mouth raw and red.
The cigarette met with an untimely end, smashed against the wall of the stairwell before she took to the hallway in a shimmer of anxiety. Knocking on the door whilst pulling a deep breath.