As they approached Father, Max ran through what would happen. Mother would apologize for interrupting and make some case for why they needed to leave, and Max would engage Lucille in conversation. That was their first strategy, and it might work. If they needed to escalate, Max and Mother would switch places, and Max would hiss in his father’s ear that he was embarrassing himself and the family and strong-arm him out of the room.

That would work, but there would be a cost. Father, humiliated, would turn his rage on Max. He wouldn’t hit him. It would just be words. Words, Max reminded himself, slid right off him. He was a well-seasoned pan, impervious.

Max stopped walking and looked around.

No, he looked for her. Even though he’d had an ever-humming awareness of her, of her presence in this ballroom haunting him like a ghost breathing down his neck, he’d been trying to avoid looking at her. Out of self-preservation. But now, though it defied logic, looking at her felt like an act of self-preservation.

There she was, at a small table with Leo, deep in conversation. Some wisps had come out of her hairdo. They had their heads together, and their faces were lit by the flames of a candle on the table, making her skin glow.

She looked up and right at him, as she had earlier that day, during the dress fitting. As if she felt him. As if they felt each other.

“I’m not doing this.”

Mother, who’d proceeded a few steps ahead of him before noticing his absence, turned. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’ve been helping you extract Father from potentially embarrassing situations since I was a child, and I’m not doing it anymore. I’ve spent my whole life listening to you two tell me what’s wrong with me. Seb and I have spent our whole lives being abused by Father while you stood by and let him. Why would I help you? Why have I been helping you for so long?”

He huffed a laugh. He couldn’t believe he’d said that, but he also couldn’t believe how easy it had been, in the end. “I’m going to leave now. Good night, Mother.”

“You can’t just leave.”

“I can, though.” It was a revelation, an overdue one. He laughed again. Wait until Mother found out he and Lavinia had been faking all evening.