She looked at this boy with his notebook and his probability assessments and his complete disinterest in performing social ease at a social event.
"Are you perhaps entering the academy this year?" she asked. It was better to begin building potential alliances early. They would prove more useful once she arrived.
He wrote something in the notebook, something she couldn't see from her angle.
"Yes, I am." His gaze lifted again, studying her with renewed interest. "Are you perhaps seeking an alliance of some sort?"
His brows rose.
"Yes," she admitted with a small, genuine smile. "I also want to understand your research. If you are willing?"
He paused for a while. His brown gaze studied her openly. Normally, in her old world, she would have looked away, afraid someone would see how ordinary she felt. But this face was not hers, and in her honest assessment, Elowen was unconventionally beautiful.
He reached out to shake her hand. She accepted. Instead of a simple handshake, she felt something small pressed into her palm — a card, perhaps.
"When you enter the academy, find the Supernatural Studies Society and request for me," he said quietly. "Give them this. They will know I requested your presence. We will talk then."
"I will. See you then, Lord Halvane."
She moved on, slipping the card into the hidden fold of her glove for later examination. The exchange had been brief, but useful. Pip Halvane was someone worth knowing.
The second person found her shortly after.
The second person found her shortly after.
She was aware of the approach before she saw him. Thread-sight stirred with a different texture — deliberate. Measured. The approach of someone who had decided to make this introduction and was executing it with clear intention.
She turned.
He was striking. Dark in a way that went beyond coloring. Dark hair that fell past his shoulders, straight and absorbing the light. Dark eyes — almost black in the candlelight, the color of deep water at night. A face assembled with precision — sharp jaw, defined cheekbones, the whole arrangement suggesting someone who could have been conventionally beautiful but had chosen to be something more unsettling instead.
He wore black, which in a room full of evening colors was its own statement.
And he was smiling.
The smile was the thing. Thread-sight registered it with an interesting warmth — not danger, not quite, but concentrated attention.
"Lady Elowen," he said. His voice was low. Pleasant.
She looked at him and said nothing.
He seemed to find this acceptable.
"You don't know me," he continued. "That's fine. I know of you. Most people here know of you." A pause. The smile did something that was neither warmth nor coldness, but located in the interesting territory between. "May I?"
He gestured toward the space beside her, asking permission to simply stand there — unusual in a room where people generally stood where they chose.
"You may," she said.
He moved to stand beside her, and they both looked out at the room for a moment in the companionable way of people who had decided they were attending this event in an observational capacity.
"You're counting them," he said.
"Am I?"
"The ones who are afraid of you. Versus the ones who are curious. Versus the ones running some combination of both." Another pause. "Different expressions. You've been taking note of them. I find that fascinating."
She looked at him. He was perceptive.
"Emric," he said. His name, offered without the family name — a deliberate choice. "You'll learn the rest eventually."
"You say that with confidence."
"I say most things with confidence." The smile again. "It's rarely warranted. It's almost always useful."
She held his gaze.
"Why are you talking to me?" she asked.
"Tonight?" He considered. "To dance. To have a conversation worth remembering. To see how you handle Lord Fenton when he tries again — he will try again, he does at every event, it's become local entertainment." A pause. "And to tell you something that might be useful to you. Depending on whether you want it."
So the old man's name was Fenton. A baron, perhaps?
She held his gaze.
"Tell me," she said.
"After dinner," he replied. "When we dance."
He moved away from her side with the same deliberate ease with which he had arrived.
She watched him go.
Emric. No family name. Black coat. Dark eyes. Smiles like something sharp.
Noted.
Dinner was a choreography she had read about and was now living inside.
The seating arrangement communicated everything it was intended to: rank, alliance, aspiration, warning. She had been placed mid-table — not dishonored, but not distinguished. The Draveth name carrying its weight without excess. She sat between a pleasant woman of fifty, the wife of a lesser baron, and a young man of twenty who had decided before she sat down that she was not worth his full attention and spent most of the meal proving it to himself.
She let him. It was mildly entertaining to watch him squirm under the occasional weight of her crimson gaze.
She ate and listened and watched the table and catalogued.
Lord Arvane at the head — fifty-three, the face of a man who had been described as politically cautious and had the expression to prove it. Pleasant. Careful. No visible edges. His eyes moved over the table with the regularity of someone counting assets.
Isadora Arvane beside him.
She had been watching Isadora since the entrance hall and continued to do so, building a picture with each observation. The girl managed the table — not the food, but the dynamics. A quiet word to a footman here. A redirect of a conversation there. She did it with the invisible efficiency of someone who had been running this household for two years since her mother's death and had stopped needing anyone to notice.
She was also watching Zolani.
Not constantly. Not obviously. In the way of someone who had identified something interesting and was checking on it periodically.
We'll talk, Zolani thought across the table. Eventually.
The food was excellent, as Lady Voss had promised. She ate with more genuine appreciation than she had managed at the Count's table and filed this as information about the cook's quality rather than her own comfort.
Lady Voss watched her food etiquette from across the table. She had been close but not intrusive all evening — a shadow of sorts. Zolani was already imagining what kind of report the Count would receive. Hopefully she hadn't caught the slip with Pip.
She pinched herself lightly under the table. She could not afford to spiral. She grounded herself by watching the other nobles who were also studying her.
The dancing began at the ninth hour.