The guests are arriving. Josiah is at the door, Benedict somewhere causing trouble. I should be playing host.
Instead, I'm watching her.
She looks up. Across the room, through the crowd of masks and bodies, our eyes meet.
I see recognition flicker in her face. Not of me specifically—she doesn't know who I am, not yet—but of something. The feeling of being watched. The prickle at the back of the neck that prey feels when predators are near.
She should look away. Most people do, when they sense danger.
She doesn't.
Shestares.
And I know, with a certainty I've never felt before, that I am going to take her apart piece by piece until I understand what she is. Until I own every corner of her mind, every secret she's kept, every dark thought she's never spoken aloud.
I'm going to know her better than she knows herself.
And then—only then—will I decide what to do with her.
Someone touches my arm. Josiah, his voice a low warning: "Gabriel. The Harringtons."
I don't look at him.
"Gabriel."
"I heard you."
I make myself turn away. I make myself be Gabriel Ambrose, the philanthropist, the perfect host. I shake hands and smile and say all the right things.
But something has shifted.
For eighteen years, I've hunted because I needed to. Because the noise demanded it, because the silence afterward was the only peace I knew.
Tonight, for the first time, I want something different.
Not just silence.
Her.
Chapter 1 - Poppy
The gala is in full swing, and I should have left hours ago.
I'm on my knees in the ballroom, making a final adjustment to a cascade of black dahlias that took me six hours to perfect. Around me, the Dark Masquerade churns with bodies and sound and flickering candlelight. Hundreds of guests move through the space in masks and dark finery—serpents, ravens, creatures with horns and hollow eyes. The women wear gowns in black and deep red and bruised purple, jewels glittering at their throats. The men are sharp lines and shadowed faces, anonymous behind their masks.
A string quartet plays in the corner, but something is wrong with the music. The notes bend in places they shouldn't, harmonies sliding into dissonance before resolving again. It makes my teeth ache. It makes my skin feel too tight.
I shouldn't be here. Ms. Schmidt was clear about the timeline: setup complete by seven, staff gone by eight. It's nearly ten now. The gala has transformed from preparation into something else entirely—something I wasn't meant to see.
But a vase shattered at the last minute, and an arrangement needed replacing, and I couldn't leave until everything was perfect. My business depends on this. My reputation depends on this. So I stayed, even as the guests began arriving, even as the masks came out, even as the music started its strange, discordant song.
Now I'm trapped in a room that doesn't feel like the same room I spent the afternoon decorating.
The ballroom was beautiful when I finished with it—dark and romantic, gothic elegance softened by the flowers I'd placed on every surface. But candlelight changes things. Theshadows are deeper than they should be. The serpent motifs I noticed during setup seem to move at the edges of my vision, stone scales catching the flicker of flames. The guests laugh and murmur, but the sounds don't quite match their movements, like a film slightly out of sync.
I tuck a final stem into place and sit back on my heels, surveying my work. The arrangement is perfect. I should feel proud.
Instead, I feel the unmistakable weight of someone's gaze.
