Daisy scanned the shifting bodies in their shared state of beautiful ruin, her gaze darting from face to face. Hadrian Welles was nowhere among the crowd.
The morning light cast long amber shadows across the marble as the great hall slowly emptied, bodies bottlenecking by the double doors.
“Daisy!”
She turned sharply at the sound of her name just as Maggie rushed out of the crowd. Relief exploded inside of her, and she smiled. “Maggie!”
They collided in a fierce hug. Maggie’s dress was damp and reeked of forest, her dark hair loose and wild around her face, but her arms were strong, and her laughter was real.
Jack’s hand slipped from Daisy’s back as a hunter clapped his shoulder, pulling him into conversation. She registered his departure but didn’t have a chance to say anything as Maggie gripped her arms and pulled her in the opposite direction.
Looking back, Daisy made a note of where he moved—just a few steps away—and turned back to her friend. “Are you okay?” She scanned Maggie’s arms and face for injuries. “I’m so sorry I never made it to the grotto.”
Maggie laughed, breathless. “I never made it either. I could only get to the safe zone on the other end.”
“Were you...” Daisy hesitated. “Captured?”
“Twice.” Maggie’s cheeks flushed. “My heart was beating like a rabbit the first time. But once I got past the shock, it wasn’t that bad.” She laughed. “Honestly, it was good. Afterwards, I had a rest, ate something, and then went back out. Everyone at the safe zone was so nice.”
Daisy exhaled with relief. “And the second capture?”
“The second hunter was better than the first! We actually hung out for a while…after.” Something flickered behind Maggie’s big eyes. Not trauma. Something warmer, more private. She didn’t elaborate, and Daisy didn’t want to pry.
Only then did Maggie’s gaze drop, traveling from Daisy’s plunging neckline to her satin train and back up again. “But look at you. You look...” She blinked. “Wow.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I bet it is.” Maggie grinned, but didn’t press.
Her dark mane framed her face in tangled waves that punctuated her big eyes. They burned with a livewire energy that hadn’t been there before.
“I feel like this was the longest night of my life,” Maggie admitted with a stunned laugh.
“I feel the same.”
“We’re going to sleep for days once we?—”
A blur of red slammed into Maggie from behind.
“There you two are!”
Trisha materialized like a fierce hurricane, her blunt American accent cutting through the noise as if she were screaming in the stands of a football game. She radiated the manic energy of someone who just robbed a casino and got away clean, her hair a tangled disaster and her face flushed as red as her dress.
She snapped her fingers at them. “Remind me of your names again?”
“Maggie.”
“Daisy.”
Trisha pointed at each of them, committing it to memory, then waved her own effort away. “You know what, it doesn’t even matter. Chances are we’ll never see each other again.” She laughed, loud and unapologetic. “Hell, after tonight we can all change our names—become whoever the fuck we want!”
“How did you make out?” Maggie asked.
“Seventeen scores.” Trisha’s grin split her face wide open. “That’s eighteen million.”
Daisy’s eyes widened. She glanced down at Trisha’s dress. Muddied, yes. Grass-stained and worse for wear. But not in tatters. Not what seventeen captures should have produced.
“You were captured seventeen times?”
