What had in fact just entered the room was a sight even more appalling—a fashionable young indigo woman clad in a gold dress, her dark hair spiked with artificial swatches of blonde. Her skirt was cut away in front so that her fine knees peeked out of the sliced fabric; the sleeveless bodice showed off the shape and color of her arms. Those were transgressions enough, but nobody noticed them. Nobody saw the vivid color of her dress or the brassy style of her hair. All eyes were fixed on her escort.

A gulden man.

He looked to be about twenty-five, maybe a little older, in the absolute pinnacle and prime of manhood. He was easily the tallest man in the room, visibly well-muscled, moving forward with all the unconscious insolence of an athlete at the highest pitch of training. He wore some kind of flowing multicolored tunic belted over tight-fitting trousers, but his arms were bare, and his broad chest showed through the open buttons at his collar. His hair was a deep bronze, wickedly alive in the thousand lights of the room. The smooth amber of his skin exactly matched the hue of the woman’s gown.

“Let me guess,” Nolan murmured in Leesa’s ear. “This must be the notorious Aliria Carvon.”

But there was no answer from Leesa. He saw her eyes dart around the room, though the rest of her body was immobile, saw her assimilate the looks of horror and condemnation on the faces of the other women in the assembly. No one stepped forward to greet the new arrivals. No one appeared to speak, either to her partner or to her friends nearby. No one changed position by so much as an inch while the silence held and Aliria and her escort stood at the head of the room and, like the others, waited.

And then the orchestra struck up the opening bars to yet another dance number. And Leesa melted back into Nolan’s arms without a word of explanation. And all the other women returned to the dance floor in the embrace of their last partners, and they all acted as if not a single thing had changed.

What? Nolan wanted to demand. What happens now? You can hardly ignore someone you’ve known your entire life. But perhaps that was exactly what Leesa intended to do. Perhaps that was what they all intended to do. There was a code that every woman in the room understood, and it would govern all their behavior. They had telegraphed it from face to face in those few fleet moments while the orchestra rustled and the guests postured at the door. And it was inviolable, universal, and cruel, and Aliria Carvon had tested it too far.