Page 34 of Enzo

“I was looking for you.”

This hits me, setting off tiny explosions inside my chest. “You were?”

“I told you to wait for me, and you said you would, but you didn't.”

“I'm sorry.” I lean closer to her, so close that my nose brushes her earlobe. I spring back. “Sorry.”

“Why didn't you wait for me?”

I whisper to her about Caspar, explaining how I ended up sitting here.

“You poor thing,” she laments, as the servers start setting down our plates of food.

“Why poor?”

“You’d have had such a boring evening with all of them.”

She’s right about that.

“So, your name is Molly.”

“It is.” She waits like she’s expecting me to tell her my name, but I don’t. I like the secrecy. I like that she doesn’t know I’m a Knight. I’m not sure she’d care about it, even if she did know about the Knights, but I like the anonymity.

“Aren't you going to take your mask off?” she asks, as the first course is served.

“I don’t need to.” I pick up my fork. I'm never that hungry at these events, and I tend to only pick at my food. “I can eat just fine with it on.”

“You like keeping parts of yourself hidden,” she murmurs, watching me intently.

I don't answer her, because the waiters start serving the food. Six courses follow, each one more beautiful than the last—delicate seafood, handmade pasta, some impossibly tender meat, and tiny desserts that look far too pretty to eat.

We both talk to the other guests when we have to, but somehow, every conversation between Molly and me picks up again exactly where we left it.

“Do you know all these people?” she asks, when we turn to one another again.

“Sort of. I know who they are, but I only know about half of them to talk to.”

“Then why were you standing all by yourself when I found you?”

I lean in towards her. “I might know them but they're not friends; they're just people I know in my circle.”

“You seem lonely,” she murmurs.

“In your opinion.”

She pauses. “In my opinion.”

It's her observation, and she’s not entirely wrong. We talk in low whispers, heads turned to one another, so close, almost intimate, and I realize, for me, it's because I don't want to talk to any of the others. I don't want them to interrupt us, or waste our precious time.

Who knows if I'll ever meet her again?

“But you don't have to be all by yourself tonight,” she tells me. “I won’t leave you to die of boredom.”

“Thank you.” I’m curious about something. “How did you get an invite?”

“I didn't. Like I told you, my headmistress was supposed to be here. She knows Luca Valizar and—”

The clang of cutlery makes us both turn our heads. Everyone is staring at Molly, in shock.