CHAPTER 97
The Empty Ballroom
By eleven thirty, Aster Hall had begun to empty in the familiar way: laughter thinning at the edges, chairs turned slightly from tables, glasses abandoned with amber fingerprints drying on their stems. Daniel felt the night folding itself back into the shape of the first one, and this time he did not resist the echo.
Elise noticed. 'You are thinking about it.'
'Yes.'
'The hallway?'
'The hallway. The ballroom. The first time he said he would escort us out.'
She studied him carefully. 'Do you want him to?'
Daniel did not answer quickly. That, too, had become a form of courage.
Across the room, Marcus stood near the velvet rope, speaking briefly with another guard. He did not look over. He did not need to. The possibility lived between them with or without his attention.
'I want to find out whether it is still powerful when we are not being swept by surprise,' Daniel said.
Elise's face softened with heat and caution. 'And if it is?'
'Then we remember the rules.'
'And if it is not?'
He smiled. 'Then we still get to go home together.'
She reached up and adjusted his tie, a gesture so wifely and intimate that it made the surrounding room disappear. 'Ask him, then.'
Daniel crossed the ballroom alone.
Every step felt different from the first night. Then, Marcus had approached them as part of his duty. Now Daniel approached Marcus as part of his choice. The distinction steadied him.
Marcus saw him coming and straightened, not visibly surprised, not falsely casual.
'Mr. Vale.'
'Daniel,' he said.
Marcus accepted the correction with a nod. 'Daniel.'
There it was again: the strange intimacy of a name, made sharper by restraint.
Daniel glanced back at Elise. She stood near the edge of the dance floor, green dress catching the low light, eyes on him. Not on Marcus. On him.
'We are leaving soon,' Daniel said. 'If your duties permit, we would like you to escort us to the lobby.'
Marcus's gaze held his for one quiet second. 'No private room?'
The question was not teasing. It was responsible.
'No private room.' Daniel felt the answer settle in him. 'Just the hallway. Just the escort. We want to remember who decides what the night means.'
Marcus nodded. 'I can do that.'
Daniel returned to Elise with the message, and together they gathered her wrap.
They said polite goodbyes to people whose names Daniel forgot immediately.
Then the three of them stood at the ballroom doors: Marcus ahead, Elise and Daniel behind him, the same arrangement and not the same arrangement at all.
The empty ballroom glowed behind them.
Daniel paused at the threshold and looked back. He remembered the first version of himself who had stood here. Tense. Exposed. Certain that protection and threat had arrived in the same man.
He did not despise that man.
He had needed that fear to find the door.
Elise slipped her hand into his.
'Ready?' she asked.
Daniel looked ahead at Marcus, then down at their joined hands.
'Yes.'
They walked out together.