Both fists full of emerald silk, heels on cobblestone, the kind of running that my father would have recognized immediately and responded to with the ghost of a stopwatch and the particular expression he wore when he was trying not to say I told you so.
'You've got the stride, mija. Real track star stride. You throw it away on that bar dream, that's your business, but I want it on record?—'
On record, Dad. Right now, running in formal wear through a sleeping town at midnight, this is absolutely on record.
The gown is a genuine enemy. It wants to trip me. It wants to slow me, wrap around my ankles, remind me of its considerable structural opinions at every stride. The emerald and gold catch the streetlights as I move, which would be beautiful if I hadany bandwidth available for beauty, which I do not, because the station is coming into view and there is already steam.
Steam.
Actual, visible, the train is running early, I am going to miss this train, steam.
"Oh, absolutely not?—"
I run faster.
Past the level of running that's dignified for a person in a ball gown, past the level that's structurally advisable for heels on cobblestone, into the territory of I will catch this train or I will explain the resulting Uber bill to my bank account and those are my only two options.
The platform arrives under my feet with the specific relief of solid ground after too long in the air, and I locate the conductor through sheer spatial desperation—a compact man near the near car, expression professionally neutral in the way of someone who has witnessed every human emergency and developed a policy of measured response to all of them.
"Oakridge Hollow," I manage.
I am slightly out of breath. The gown is doing something ominous near my left ankle.
"Please. One ticket. I have?—"
I have exact change. I counted it before the event, in the castle's washroom, with the precise financial energy of someone who has learned that surprise expenses are simply expenses that arrived early. He takes it. He tears the ticket. He hands me the slip of paper with the calm efficiency of a man who is, in this moment, my favorite human being alive.
I grab it with both hands and turn for the doors.
And then I hear it.
Not my name—no one here knows my name. The masquerade took care of that. But a sound, from behind me andsome distance back along the platform, something that carries intention across the gap.
Urgency. Recognition.
Three men.
They're still in their event clothes, formal jackets, and the particular energy of people who've moved quickly and recently. One has golden-blond hair that catches the station lighting like he was designed for it, slightly messy in a way that is clearly deliberate, bright blue eyes visible even at this distance. One is utterly still—dark-haired, pale, immaculate in a way that feels intentional even after a full evening, watching me with the focused quiet of a person running calculations.
And the third?—
Dark auburn with silver at the temples. Broad shoulders. The shamrock mask hanging from one hand now, displaced, and beneath it those gray-green eyes that I have just been three inches away from for the better part of an hour and have committed to a memory I did not intend to form.
There are three of them.
They're a pack.
He is part of a pack…the first man to make you feel like your scent is the right answer to an unasked question is a pack Alpha at a selection event who you kissed in an alcove and immediately fled, which is—that is the most Mila Castellanos thing that has ever happened in the history of Mila Castellanos aka my fucking life.
"Miss." The conductor, at my elbow, with the gentle authority of someone whose entire professional existence is built around getting people onto trains safely. A gesture toward my skirts. "The hem, if you please. Safety concern with the?—"
"Right. Yes. Sorry."
I look at them one more time.
One last, completely unwise, entirely selfish look, because outside those masks and this event lighting and this particular impossible night, I will not know them. That's the design. That's what the velvet and the candlelight and the anonymity were for—I have three pairs of eyes and no faces, which is both the point and the disaster, and I knew this going in and I am choosing, right now, to appreciate the last sight of it anyway.
The blond one—his hand is slightly raised, his expression somewhere between amused and something I don't have a word for yet. The dark-haired one hasn't moved, watching me with the contained attention of a man who files things away. And the third, the one with the sea-storm eyes and the cedar-and-leather scent that is even now, at this distance, at this speed, doing something deeply inconvenient to my lungs—he looks at me the way he kissed me.
