Some problems are too elegant to destroy. Sometimes you keep them, just to see what they’ll become.
Chapter Three: Landon
Mybreathcatcheswhenhe grabs my hand. Briar. He doesn't introduce himself, not at first, but a warning is there all the same—a bell sounding off in my head.
Danger.
His fingers are cold and thick, every bone glued to mine as if he’s learned the pressure points for maximum effect.
A murmur starts the second our hands meet. It rides a fault line through the guests, weaving between their words and draining their conversations mid-sentence. I hear one lady gasp behind her peacock-feather mask. Another, a man in what’s probably a two-hundred-year-old tuxedo, gives a cough that’s more judgment than sickness.
Briar ignores all of it. He leads, and I follow, because what the hell else am I going to do? My feet don’t hit the floor so much as slide, and I am distinctly aware that every movement is being studied by the crowd. My mask is a joke in this company, a splash of blue among a sea of custom-commissioned anonymity, but Briar wears his like a prince: subtle gold trim, the kind of mask that makes you want to stare, then look away before he notices.
He steers me to the edge of the room, close enough to the windows that the city is a black mirror, and I see our silhouettes reflected in it: him, tall and straight-backed, every inch the person your parents warned you about; me, one head shorter, trying not to look like I’m bracing for impact.
“So,” I say, hating the quaver in my voice. “Do you always take such liberties?”
He doesn’t answer, not with words. Instead he studies me, the way you’d study a specimen that might bite if you weren’t careful. There’s nothing overtly hostile in his stare, but it’s not friendly, either. The crowd hums behind us, keeping its distance. I realize, with a little jolt, that we are now the evening’s featured entertainment.
I fidget, thumb working at the edge of my mask, and try again. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a single man.” It sounds lame, but I don’t know how else to remind him that grabbing the hand of another male might put a target on his back.
You never know how these types are.
He allows a smile. His teeth are perfectly white, straight except for an incisor turned at a slight angle. Beautiful. Of course they are. “Assumptions are a trap,” he says. His voice is softer than I would have guessed, the kind of softness that doesn’t need to raise itself to be heard.
I wait for him to say something else, but he lets the silence bloom between us. My pulse beats in my neck, a thump I’m sure he can see, but he doesn’t seem to care. He’s still holdingmy hand, his thumb absently running down the back, caressing my knuckles.
Almost as if it’s comforting him.
There’s a not-quite-awkward beat, and I realize I’m supposed to fill it. “I’m Landon,” I say, because it feels weird not to. “Landon Thompson.”
He watches me. “I know who you are.”
The words hit hard. I knew, abstractly, that I was being watched, but hearing it out loud is something else. I swallow, and it sounds loud in my own head.
Briar’s eyes—blue, with a color I can’t name—are unblinking. “You’re the accountant,” he continues. “The one who likes to count things that don’t belong to him.”
He lets go of my hand, and the loss of contact is jarring. I flex my fingers, like an idiot, trying to get the feeling back.
“You make it sound like I stole something,” I say, a little defensive.
He tilts his head, considering. “You noticed a pattern. Most people in your position don’t.”
That’s not a compliment. It’s a fact, laid out bare between us.
He gestures to the glass, the city, the room behind us. “Do you want to know how this place works?”
I look past him, at the crowd, at the way they’re all pretending not to watch us. My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth, but I manage, “Sure. Enlighten me.”
Briar’s smile comes back, wider this time. “It’s very simple. There are people who move the world, and people who thinkthey do. The first kind are here.” He points a single, elegant finger at the dance floor. “The second kind are everywhere else.”
I don’t know how to respond to that, so I just nod, my head bobbing a little too fast.
He leans in, close enough that his breath is cool against my cheek. “You are the third kind, Landon.”
I blink. “What’s that?”
“The ones who think they’re invisible,” he says. “But really, they’re just waiting for someone to notice.”
