She wasn’t a cheap plastic toy. She was a Jade Amor Barbie Rous .

She took the doll to a funeral. An old professor of Lia’s had passed, a kind man who had believed in her when no one else did. As Lia wept at the grave, the doll’s cheek grew wet. Not from rain. From tears.

“Wow, that’s creepy,” he said, laughing. “Jade? Like the stone?”

But when she opened her eyes, there was no one there.

And then she was gone. On the floor, where the doll had sat, lay only three things: a single jade button, a scatter of pearl dust, and a tiny rose-gold bracelet—now empty, but still warm.

“You cannot love him,” the doll’s whisper came, not from her mouth but from the walls. “You are mine , Lia. I have waited ninety years. You promised me a life. A life means everything —including the love you would give to a man.”