Victoire's armor is eyeliner and five-inch heels. Her candy fortress is surrounded by a wall built from flirty smiles and flared skirts, impenetrable. She whispers, flicks her eyes, breathes vanilla, and armies fall at her feet. She is powerful and she is invisible, when she is beautiful.
She puts herself on like a mask every morning: floss, toothpaste, soap-toner-moisturizer, concealer and blush and "natural" eye shadow that takes half an hour to apply. By the time her roommates wake up, she is perfect and smiling in a cornflower sweater and cork wedges. She pins barrettes as sparkly as stars to her pale hair. They outshine her eyes.
No one looks at her flat eyes or painted smile. She is safe inside, safe and distant, where no one can see her vulnerabilities. Sometimes the cheerful mask even feels real, when she's laughing with Dominique or hugging Teddy or trying to teach Louis to draw. But when she's alone, when all eyes slide off her and the sunlight sliding through the window turns gray, she's just a pretty painting of a screaming girl no one can hear.